Monday 23 July 2012

David Thompson Fun-Times

It's been a pretty long haul through July.  I've been out every weekend since the last of June, and needed a nice refreshing break.  Good thing I had planned an exec weekend in Nordegg with a small group of UAOC exec, a past exec, and a couple friends.

We all headed out to my stand-by campsite at the West end of Lake Abraham.  We met up rather late since both carpools had to leave after 6 that evening, but the party soon got under way.  Crashing at 2 am, we did a super alpine start around 10ish and meandered our way up to the Water Knot Wall for some sport climbing around noon.  Water Knot was nice.  The rock isn't stellar, but the view off the cliff is outstanding.  There's a rather crimpy 10c there which is some fun, and some sick looking 11b and c's as well.  Did the 10c but will have to go back for those 11s once I get to that grade.
Adam poses for some product placement.  Brewhouse was the brew of choice this weekend.

Pim finds Water Knot pretty rad

The view back towards Nordegg and the prairies

And across the lake towards Hummingbird

Josh TR'ing the 10c



Interesting ways of drinking water!

Erich decided to go for a dip in the river.  Since it was running at about twice the normal speed, some safety rigging was used.

Dinner on the fire

We built a proper rager of a fire
On Sunday, we headed over to The Dark Side crag.  It's literally the last cliff before the prairies.  We only set up two pitches, but it was still fun.  There are some nice routes there and I would like to head back and properly tour out the crag.
The view from the top of "Wooky's Woot", which I used for faux-tography purposes

The way home
Katelyn on the local 10d


Adam on the same route


Adam is the crimping king
Crimp 'till you're limp

Alex smiling her way up



Turning the camer upside down is the ultimate in faux-tography.

Monday 16 July 2012

Multipitch tRADNESS

After taking back-to-back courses, I was super keen to get out and actually practice my trad climbing skills.  I'd have liked to work on short-roping as well, but I was happy to just do some rock climbing instead.  Originally, the plan was to give "Shooting Gallery" on Mt. Andromeda a go with Steve, but weather issues shut that plan down.  Instead, I called up Pim and asked if he wanted to follow me up a multipitch rock route in Jasper.  The weather was forecasted to be splitter, I had just gotten my anchor and gear placement technique dialed, and it looked like we were going to have a blast.

I decided on the Chase/Rowlands route on Ashlar's Ridge.  This was mostly based on Cyril telling me that I should give it a go.  There was a warning that the crux hold had broken off, but heck it's 5.7 so I wasn't biting my nails over that.  On Friday, we drove down to Jasper.  After stopping in at the Roche Perdrix quarry, finding kamikazee mosquitos and fleeing, we tried the Pocahontas Campground and found similar results.  We drove on to Snaring, found that full, so went back to Poco and endured a painful camping experience.  Never mind though because we came and went without anyone even noticing us.

Now, here's where I explain how I've learnt a lesson the most hard way possible.  As we shoved gear into our packs while fending off more mosquitos at the parking area, I noticed that Pim was packing a large Camelbak.  With that comforting me, I decided to take only a single water bottle and restock from his water supply when I ran out.  I would be leading everything after all, and wanted to keep my pack light.  So, we quickly went down to the Fiddle River, waded across, and then got chased up to the base of the route by - you guessed it - mosquitos.  We both worked hard in an effort to out-run the damn bugs and had thus already broken a sweat.  Bad news then, when Pim's Camelbak burst at the top of the first pitch.  We were now left with only 800 mL of water between the two of us.  We decided to soldier on, because we had already dealt with those stupid bugs and didn't really feel like bailing back into that hell-infested forest.  This decision I agree with since it had been such an ordeal just to get to the darn climb.

The first 3 pitches (we linked the first two together) went rather easy and we stopped for a little lunch on the large treed ledge.  Continuing up, I passed what is probably the world's sketchiest anchor (we cut it off after leaving the belay) and worked into the good rock climbing.  Out of the 11 described pitches, there are 4 or 5 good pitches of climbing, the rest are meh.  Those 4-5 pitches are real nice though, and it is a route that I might do again, perhaps next year on a club trip.  I found the crux to be rather simple for 5.7, simply requiring some good balance.  The next pitch was flowy 5.6+ up the chimney to the belay tree.  At this point, neither Pim nor I could swallow due to dehydration, so my opinion of the last two pitches might be a tad tarnished.  I do remember the second to last pitch being rather run out past the tree though, but the last pitch was outstandingly fun.

Now on top, we made real good time in packing up and stumbled our way down to the river in about an hour.  We ended up just South of the cars at a rather nice place to cross.  I threw my pack off, dropped my shirt and shoes, then dove right into the river, stuck my head upstream, and guzzled water like a famished cow.  It took a few tries before my body let me swallow, and still more until it stopped hurting to do so.  I was just ecstatic to have finally reached water, I didn't care that there were 10 000 mosquitos eating my back.  Lesson learned: don't rely on someone else's water, and don't skimp on that stuff even though it's heavy.  Eventually I refilled my water bottle, and now more aware of the bugs, high-tailed it up to the road where a light breeze provided some respite from those cursed critters.

We fled into Jasper and bought slurpees and mosquito spray.  Then, we went to the Wapiti Campground and plead our case of being eaten alive.  We were graciously given a campsite reserved for "emergency situations", and actually managed to sort gear outside.  That was a task which would have been utterly impossible at either Perdrix or Poco.

On Sunday, we met up with an ACC Edmonton group and cragged at Rock Gardens until it started to rain, then drove back home.  All in all, a good weekend.  Heck, I let an entire trad route myself!  And heck, though it's no big wall, I do feel a bit proud.  Ashlar's is taller than Yam, and so I now feel comfortable hopping onto that wall wearing the sharp end of the rope.  STOKED!
The Chase/Rowlands traverses out left, then heads back for the bottom of the chimney.  After one pitch of stemming, it breaks out and right to hit the top.

The whole of Ashlar's Ridge

Roche Miette, Roche de Smet, and the Athabasca River Valley

Lunchtime with the realization that we are going to suffer hard without a good supply of water.
Pim on top with a smoky view behind.

A small cairn where the route tops out.

Dem skeeters be craaazy
The following photos come courtesy of Mr. Pim de Jager, whose photography skills certainly outdo mine on rock climbs.
Rednecks caused the most objective hazard of the trip

The lower rib of loose-as-balls rock

Lunchtime

The world's sketchiest anchor!  We cut it off.  How many mistakes can you see?

Belay above the crux and below the best pitch on the route, stemming up with a perfect gear crack right in front of you!

Sewed up the chimney, such a good pitch

Coiling rope at the top as fast as I could.  That river below looked so far away...

Finding a way down.

Did you somehow find this looking for beta?  Well shucks, I haven't given any!  Here's a good route description from Cyril Shokoples.  My update to that description would be that the belay station at the top of the 6th pitch is rather sketchy due to a recently removed piton (hole still visible in the mossy crack).  A small angle or large lost arrow would probably be a good replacement.  I spent a few minutes trying to jerry-rig something together but ran out of options, there isn't much in terms of gear at this station.  If you know how to place pitons, it might be a good idea to carry a couple and re-set this belay.    All the "hard" pitches take great gear, and I was never scared even though this is the highest grade that I've led on gear.  There's a handline across the river for easy crossing.  That's all I have to add, the route description I mentioned is stellar.

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Moving Fast

At the start of June, I was part of a group of 4 that spent 9-10 hours on the side of Yam, climbing Direttissima.  That, by and large, was the definition of a gong-show.  Who the hell takes 9 hours to do a route easily doable in half that time?  A misguided fool, that's who.

Although I didn't get out much in June, (once at the start for the above-mentioned gong show and a weekend of camping in Nordegg), I was hoping the weather would start to cooperate for July.  This past weekend, I took an "Alpine Rock Leadership" course coordinated though the ACC, taught by Cyril.  We focused a bunch on short-roping, rappelling and lowering.  In two days, we covered all of this.  Though our brains were now plugged to the rafters with info, all of us participants decided to do the "Chimney Route" on Roche a Perdrix.  It's a rambly 5.6 route which is pretty short, has only a few 5th class spots, and is good practice for moving fast over moderate terrain.  It was a good time out with an excellent group.  We climbed the route in 7.5 hours return, including a half hour of gum-waving at the top.  While I spent 9 hours crawling up Yam (325 meters), we spent only an hour and a half on the technical portion of the route, which was about 150 meters by my estimate.  Yes it's easier terrain, but it shows how being smart about the group dynamics makes for efficient climbing.  We also rappelled the route in under 1.5 hours.  It would have been an hour but for us making a last, ill-advised, 60m rappel to get down some 4th class ground.  Here are some pics...

Scrambling up towards the route.  It follows the obvious weakness trending left.

Roche Miette and Roche de Smet enjoy the morning sun while Doug and Steve scramble upwards.

Chris follows up one of the upper pitches

Steve happily belays Doug from a sunny spot at the top.

There's an interesting story to the logging that is visible from Perdrix.  I never had a clue there were cutblocks there...

Steve gets ready to leave the rap station, demonstrating proper use of the Purcell Prussik

Looking back at the North Face of Roche Perdrix.  The rock on the left is surprisingly solid-looking, but probably too solid for a gear route.
So how did 4 guys do this route at a staggeringly faster pace than I did Direttissima?  We used 2 rope teams, climbing right behind each other.  We were paced practically perfectly, with both teams almost climbing in tandem albeit a pitch apart.  When we rapped, we head-manned a rope and only rappelled 30 meters at a time.  This, we learned on the course, is much faster than 60 meter rappels.  We didn't run the approach, or pack super-duper lightweight, or avoid hiking to the summit.  Instead, we had an efficient but relaxed climb which was done fast enough that when the nasty afternoon storms rolled in, we were almost back at the cars.  A route done in good style.  THAT'S how I like to climb.