Squamish Select

OK, so I've not posted for ages AND I've been back from Squamish and been on TWO climbing trips in the UK!!! In this post I'll do a bit of a Squamish write-up and then crack on with UK blogging when I begin revision tomorrow...

30 days, 110 pitches of climbing, 100's of metres of cracks and a good dose of rain. Trip outcome: Success all round!

The main aim of the trip had been to learn to hand jam and not rely on face holds of any kind whilst doing so, I started out struggling on 5.9's (HVS), even falling off one, St. Vitus' Dance! I then moved on to falling off 5.10b (bottom-end E2). This, I feel is Squamish's sandbag grade, with routes such as Seasoned in the Sun, Centrefold, Caboose, and Hand Jive all being harder than many 10c's I did. In fact I fell off all of the above except Seasoned in the Sun, which I feel was the hardest pure crack I climbed, with steep, thin hands jamming with no foot holds outside the crack, with it being to thin to jam with your feet! Again I found myself finding a normal-width handjam as good as a jug!

On the routes front, the top ten include (in order of granite-ey goodness):

1. The Angel's Crest 5.10b - an amazing adventure and the biggest route I have done to date, almost every pitch is 3 stars!

2. The Exasporator 5.10c - wanted to do it as soon as I saw it, way before I even thought about going to Squamish.

3. Squamish Buttress 5.10c - the first route to the top of the Chief, the crux pitch is an amazing corner very reminiscent of the Grasper at Bwlch y Moch.

4. Peasent's Route 5.10c - Done on my last day in Squamish with Loz, a fellow West Country bey! Brilliant climbing despite being soaking wet!

5. Hand Jive 5.10b - Got pretty shut-down by this one... fell off the start when I climbed it the wrong way, managed to do the vertical hand-crack fine until a fall on the last hard move to the chains! A good spanking!

6. Seasoned in the Sun 5.10b - My finest moment of crack climbing, I felt like a real crack climber after this!

7. Karen's Math 5.10a - An amazing varied pitch at the top of the Apron; steep crack, massive layback flake then a tricky face traverse to finish... I felt like Leo Houlding!

8. Flying Circus 5.10a - Just brilliant finger-locks up a slabby wall, the first hard crack I did in Squamish!

9. St. Vitus' Dance 5.9 - A brilliant route up the Apron with 3 contrasting 5.9 pitches in a row!

10. Banana Peel 5.7 - Me and Flo ran up this one afternoon, just so much friction slab fun!

I also did some awesome bouldering and sport climbing, highlights of these include 3 classic V4s in an afternoon; Superfly, Easy in an Easy Chair and Sloppy Poppy. The bouldering in Squamish is awesome, and I wish I had done more, but it felt like a cop-out when the Chief just screams to be climbed!

On the Sport climbing front the highlights have to be; Dark Don't Lie 5.11a (6b+) A brilliant flowing route that would be an amazing E3 with trad gear! The Neutered Bovine, 5.11c (6c+) 1st Redpoint as the first route of the day, super-powerful but brilliant moves! Face the Music, 5.12a (7a+) Didn't get it clean, but a brilliant crux sequence!! Cheakamus Canyon was great when the rain fell as it stayed dry, the only problem was getting there, however I would have loved to get to the Petrifying Wall at Murrin Park, but only went there one evening for a bear (beaver) hunt with Will Stanhope... Yep the guy who broke the Parthian flake!

This nicely brings us on to the next highlight of the trip.... THE BEAR IN CAMP!!!! Unfortunately there is no photographic evidence, as one grey morning, Heather got out the tent, I decided to have a bit of a lie-in, as I'm a lazy bugger! Until suddenly Heather ran back shouting "If you want to see a bear come quick!" Quickly, I dressed and ran out of the tent to find a bear trying to get into the bear boxes. Suddenly it turned and began to walk in our direction... luckily it was small and there were a lot of us! Eventually it left but what an amazing thing to see!

Despite having an amazing trip there are a few hints and tips for Squamish:

1. Don't be intimidated by the Chief, by the time I left I had completely changed my outlook towards it and given another week or two would have got on the Grand Wall.

2. Squamish is a prime place to learn how to jam and crack climb, HOWEVER you will have a much more productive trip if you know how to jam and crack climb and will be able to get on harder routes!

3. Go to Zephyr's Cafe and have a Chicken and Avacado Burger EVERY rest day... it makes you stronger.

4. Only wash ONCE a week in the Rec. Centre, and spend as much time as possible dicking around on the toys the swimming pool has i.e monkey bars (perfect for climbers!), Tarzan swing (perfect for belly-flopping) also watch the rain fall from the toasty warm jacuzzi.

5. Try not to forget your swimming trunks, especially on the day(s) you were wearing Union Jack boxer shorts... Laughter from your 'friend' and the lifeguards echoes around the swimming pool.

6. Buy a pair of crack-climbing shoes. These must allow your toes to be pretty much flat, not like face climbing shoes. They must also be made from something durable.

7. If you can afford it, get a car/van/truck... it means you can drive to dry climbing places/fun non-dry weather dependant places, and sleep on something that isn't gravel... yes, yes I know I should buy a thermarest... they just seem a little gay!

8. Go and get used to finding routes at Tremadog... Squamish is just Tremadog on crack!

9. Don't get stressed, just roll with whatever happens.

10. Enjoy it! Try and tick as many of the 'Ultimate Squamish Routes' as possible :-)

11. Go with a girl who will be fancied by Will Stanhope, he'll do anything to win favour and you might meet Sonnie Trotter... a proper legend! In fairness, it was pretty cool hanging out with these guys, and we got lifts to places! But seriously now... never go on a Bear hunt with Stanhope... he'll be secretly hunting for Beaver!

All in all, we had an awesome trip, and although some face climbing fitness was lost, a completely new set of skills were developed, going from barely being able to jam to feeling confident at relatively steep pure cracks, without tape. Hopefully, this will eventually improve my UK rock-climbing! Squamish is a really cool place, I would whole-heartedly recommend it as a first North American venue, as I hear the grades in places such as Yosemite are a bit stiff, they seem fair in Squamish.

Get on it!

Squamish Update...

Just a brief one here, had a really good couple of weeks here so far, done loads of awesome routes including Hairpin 5.10a, Karen's Math 5.10a, Slap and Tickle 5.10b, Paul's Crack 5.10a, Squamish Buttress 5.10c (PUMPY!), and Angel's Crest 14-pitch 5.10b/c yesterday! even topped out on the crest with enough time to go bouldering! Looks like the rain is set in for afew days so unsure of what to do, but should get better 5 days before we leave!!! Could be an intense 5 days!!!


See y'all soon, peace out.

Karate Kid and the Canadian Crack Addiction...

Last time I psoted, I was about to head up Helvellyn to sell Tea, Coffee and Bacon butties to unwitting punters at the top of the Mountain. It was a lucrative couple of days seeing a haul of 400 squid each after expenses... I bought a pair of trainers for squamish and headed to Liverpool to meet Jess and Heather, after a meal in the Egg, we headed back to chill at Heather's house. A teary goodbye to Jess and a hurried pack, and it was 3 hours till we had to leave for the airport. A short flight to London and we are off to Vancouver, witht he pressing issue of whether to try and sleep or to take advantage of the free movies... free movies it is. Upon landing in Vancouver we are interrogated by border control about how we know each other and how much money we have... a skytrain into the centre and we decide to go straight to Squamish rather than chill in a hostel, in the bus station we meet two Canadians who are heading out to boulder for the summer, Liam and Doug.

We arrive at Squamish and all I can see is the Chief rearing up above me... holy shiiit! That thing is BIG! the rest of the day I am too tired to do anything and all I can think about is the Chief... intimidated is a word you could use to describe the feelings going through my head... We head to bed early as we have been up for over 24 hours and are knackered.

The next day we went and got food and then headed out to the Smoke Bluffs to try our hand at crack climbing. We crush an unknown 5.7 and find that taping your hands makes a big difference, then a 5.9 is cruised, feeling cocky I get on a 5.10b, but the gear is poor, I make do with the best I can and sketch my way through to jams and a cruise to the top, after finishing with a 5.7 we head back to the camp-site.

Thursday dawns and we head to the Upper Malamute, a sort of sea cliff crag in which you have to ab in. Heather cruises a 5.8 layback corner, which means I get the lead on a 5 star 5.8+, High Mountain Woody. A tricky section off the ground leads to stead climbing and regular rests, I'm not entirely convinced its 5 star but it was awesome nonetheless. We head back for lunch and then head back to the Smoke Bluffs, we both crush an awkward 5.8, the Quarryman, and then Heather crushes Penny Lane, a tricky 5.9. Walking on to Neat and Cool crag, Flying Circus, a just off-vertical fingercrack at 5.10a catches my eye. TThe guide says it's polished from topropers, and the people before us have just toproped it, hmmm, I go for it anyway, and feel confident with sinker finger-locks and not terrible feet either. Suddenly, the fingerlocks open up and the feet diminish, a foot slips, but I manage to keep it together, make another move and I'm inot jugs and real footholds. The best route of the trip so far!!!

Friday is overcast again, but we planned to go and do our first Squamish multipitch today and the weather isn't bad enough to not do this. 'Hiking' (as the Canadians say) out to the Apron, we choose St. Victus; Dance, a 6 pitch 5.9. The first 2 pitches are steady, a bit of rock climbing, and then pullin on trees. The third pitch, only rated 5.8 is a massive 50m crack that widens as it gets steeper. I gear up ready for the fight and go at it, karate-chopping jams and fist jams in, whilst torquing my feet into the crack... Suddenly, it starts drizzling, I push on and squirm up the final offwidth to the belay ledge...phew!!! Florence's next pitch is a super cool 5.9 pitch that involves switching crack systems and then a wide crack to finish. Now the final hard pitch, involving an overhanging section of crack!! I go up, fix some gear and throw a fist jam in, pulling up, I stuggle to torque my feet in as the rope is in the way, first fall of the trip... taken. I lower down to the slab at the bottom, and engineer the rope so it runs deep in the crack, go again, and manage to haul myself over the top! It was only a body and a half length of crack but it was hard!, I carry on up to the belay and we top out, and walk back to camp.

I still feel like I have a long way to go before I feel totally comfortable at Jamming, and cracks, and long multipitches here, but hey we have had 3 days climbing and have still done some fairly hard stuff (for us).

Stay tuned...

All creamed out...

This week has become a very exciting one indeed.....
On monday me and Davey Morse set a plan to go to Tremadog with the goal to climb the Vector headwall classic Cream, E4 6a. I prepared myself the night before with comedy avec Green Wing and 8 hours sleep (perfecto, non?). Meeting in tremadog village I was surprised to find Dave missing his trusty 'Chariot', instead with a car he had pikey-ed off some poor unsuspecting soul I suspect.

Anyway we busted up to the base of the Vector Buttress, necks craning to get a look at the impressive Vector headwall and the crux pitch... Luckily my nervousness was distracted by two guys trying to find One Step in the Clouds, a Tremadog classic at VS 4c. So jovially, I set off on pitch 1 and soon found myself at the palatial belay that seems to be the starting point of nearly all the classic hard routes on this beautiful piece of dolerite... Soon enough Dave was up there with me and was off and onto the tricky 5c pitch of Cream. Once he was out of sight, doubts began to creep into my mind; 'I've only ever climbed one E3 at tremadog', 'All my other E4 onsights have been bold slabs, not steep cracks!'. However, I managed to banish these thoughts partly from psyche for the route (which was reet high) and lessons learnt from the book: 'The Rock Warriors Way' by Arno Ilgner which is a mental training book for climbing, a rarity and despite having not finished it, it has helped me relax into hard trad attempts much quicker than I thought I would, which has gotta be a good thing, eh?

Despite audible hassle from my krabs of wires Dave made it to the belay and made a sizeable belay in one of the most wild positions you'll find yourself in so close to the road yet not above the sea! I followed, impressed at the trickiness of the crux. Getting to the belay I noticed that a few of the pieces I predicted I might like up there were in the belay, but just took everything I could and started climbing. A tricky move to a Jug filled with wet plants, slowed the flow, until I committed to the tricky section before the rest and the crux crack... I almost managed to spoon this up, noticing a good hold once I had passed it but sketched my way up to an almost no-hands rest. After fannying around trying to get some good gear in, I began to rest and actually really enjoy the position I was in!

Now came the hard bit, getting real steep, real quick, I pulled up into fingerlocks and edges with poor feet, and tried to get some gear in, unfortunately I had already placed the best sized  cam lower down so bunged in the smaller one in the best bit of the crack and hastily retreated. Back up saw me push on into the crux, I won't spoil it for you aspirant Cream-ers but I couldn't see what I was going to and wasn't confident that I wouldn't kick the cam out on the way past so made a half-assed attempt at the move and the dream fell away...

Next up was Dave and despite looking good and being a Brenin wad, he got a move further, wiggled some gear in and fell! Nightmare!! After a rest, it was discovered that he was a move away from a juggaroo! Dave quickly despatched the juggy traverse and I followed with one rest to remove some gear...

Despite blowing a route that I have wanted to onsight for a while now, my over-riding feeling is that of psyche, inspiration and just having some really good fun on it. The climbing is brilliant, loads of gear if you have the guns and in an amazing position... it has made Strawberries a route which I will definately get on at some point in my life I hope, despite the E7 grade!

2011 should be a good year for me, getting on a steep E4 so early in the season bodes well for my goals, this time last year I almost decked out on an E2, and went on to consistantly onsight E2 by the summer!

This brings me nicely on to my travel arrangements for my 21st year! At easter I will be heading to El Chorro, Spain for some sunny sport climbing and hopefully a boost to my rock fitness.

Then in June I am heading to Squamish, Canada... I am really excited about this, I'm not the best crack climber so it will be great to be forced onto them, plus the diversity of Squamish is amazing, slabs, walls, cracks, sport, 500m routes, bouldering all within walking distance from the campsite! I will be accompanied by Heather aka Florence the machine. I'm so excited!!!

First up in my blog reccomendations are the two blogs that should keep you psyched and inspired by tales of hard trad, sport and boulders from two of the best climbers I know:

Alex Mason's blog: http://alexmasonclimbing.blogspot.com/

Mason is a good mate and one of my housemates, he regurlarly gets on and cruises hard trad routes all over the country, and I think he's pretty much done every route I aspire to do up to E5, crushed V9 boulder, flashed F7c, RP-ed F8a and racked up some E6 onsights including crushing Lord of the Flies last summer...he really is a stinky bugger....

Mikey Goldthorp's blog: http://mikeygoldthorp.blogspot.com/

Mikey, another good mate and Harry Potter-esque housemate (he lives under the stairs) and is surely the most-talented reacher I have yet to meet... in 4 years he has gone from never touching rock to ticking F8a slab, E7 ground-up, E6 onsight solo on grit, Font 7c+ boulders and E5 onsight. Don't worry I'll be breaking his legs soon as an experiment to see if it would slow him down at all.

Keep it creamy...