Squamish with Yuko: July 24-29, 2005
------------------------
Sunday: Rock On (5p 5.10a), Exasperator (2p 5.10c), Apron Strings (2p 5.10b)
Monday: Sunblessed (3p 5.10c), Enlightened Direct (3p 5.11a)
Tuesday: Rest
Wednesday: Cruel Shoes (6p 5.10d)-->Grand Wall (6p 5.11a)-->Upper Black Dyke (4p 5.10b)
Thursday: Over the Rainbow (6p 5.10a), The Great Game (4p 5.10d)
Friday: Arrowroot (1p 5.10b), Rutabaga (2p 5.11a)
------------------------
Squamish is known for impeccable rock quality, splitter cracks, and extremely short approaches and descents. With a combination like that, you just can't go wrong!! I spent a few days in Squamish 2 years back, when my friend Merrick and I climbed the Grand Wall. This was possibly the coolest route I have done in my life. I had been telling Yuko about how great it is for the past couple of years, so we planned the week around an ascent of this route.
Yuko and I arrived fairly late on Sunday afternoon, and headed straight for the rock. We started with the classic Rock On (5p 5.10a), starting up around 4pm.
Yuko on the fun third pitch:
This was a good climb, although some of the pitches felt rather easy for the grade (the "5.9" second pitch felt more like 5.6!!) We finished with time to spare, and headed to the Grand Wall base area for some cragging. Yuko led Exasperator, a mega-classic 2-pitch 5.10c fingercrack, as a single 150' pitch. This was quite enjoyable, and definitely makes more sense than breaking it into two pitches (which is how I had climbed it with Merrick on a previous visit).
We then walked down the wall a couple hundred feet to climb another classic, Apron Strings (2p 5.10b). Its first pitch has some continuous liebacking, and it can be tricky to stop and place pro. Yuko also cruised this pitch onsight.
The next day, we headed to an area called the Solarium. The route Sunblessed (3p 5.10c), which has a splitter 120' handcrack on its second pitch, was featured on the cover of Kevin McLane's 2001 Squamish guidebook, and I have wanted to climb it for some time.
The first pitch has a run-out start--a full 30 feet of slippery dike climbing to the first bolt. Fortunately the climbing is pretty easy. Soon after the bolt, the climbing increases in difficulty to low 5.10.
The second pitch crack was pretty cool, but not quite as cool as I was expecting. The third pitch, however, is spectacular: wild 5.10 face climbing and stemming in a dihedral.
We then rappelled down (we brought 2 ropes, but one 60m rope is sufficient). Next we climbed Enlightened, another crack climb which is right next door. It is possible to start up via the pitch 1 dyke of Sunblessed, but since we had already climbed it we opted for a more direct 5.11a start up a groove that leads to bolted face climbing. This pitch felt hard for the grade, and the rock was a bit gritty, but I was able to lead it without falling. It ended up feeling more like 5.11c, which most likely reflects a need for me to improve my face-climbing technique!
The third-pitch corner of the route looks cool, but it has sharp, gritty rock. It is supposedly 5.9, but felt more like 5.10b.
From the top we traversed to the anchors of Sunblessed and rapped down. We decided that the climbs at the Solarium are probably worth doing, but given the 1-hour approach there is definitely better climbing in Squamish which is much closer to the road!
On Tuesday we didn't climb, so that we would be fresh for the Grand Wall. The Grand Wall route starts a few hundred feet up the wall, and there are three different options for approaching it. The easiest option is to hike up the Flake Escape ledges and then climb Merci Me (2 pitches of bolted 5.8 face, a short 5.10- traverse, and a short bolt ladder). Because this option involves hiking around and avoiding some quality crack climbing, we decided it wasn't for us. The second option is to climb Apron Strings, and continue up Merci Me. We just climbed Apron Strings on Monday, so we decided it would be better to do something new. So we would take Cruel Shoes, an independent 6-pitch 5.10d face climb that leads to the base of the Grand Wall.
The Grand Wall route ends on a ledge system three-fourths of the way up the wall, so we decided to climb the remaining bit to the summit by adding in another route. The Roman Chimneys, a 4-pitch 5.11, is one option but it seemed like it would be awfully tiring to climb that at the end of the day. So we opted for the more moderate Black Dyke finish (4p 5.10b).
I wanted Yuko to have the chance to experience the Grand Wall itself in the same super-fun way I did, leading every pitch onsight. So we decided that I would lead every pitch of Cruel Shoes, Yuko would lead all of the Grand Wall, and we would swing pitches on the Upper Black Dyke.
The next set of photos shows the Grand Wall, with a climber visible on the first pitch of the Upper Black Dyke.
Given that Squamish is all about laid-back cragging, we got a reasonably late start. After hanging out and consuming coffee and muffins, we headed for the wall, starting to climb around 9:15am.
The first pitch of Cruel Shoes climbs the Flake (5.10b chimney/stemming). (It is also possible to start up via the first pitch of Apron Strings but again, we had already climbed that.) This pitch is a lot of fun, with cool heel-toe cam rests!!
The next pitch traverses out onto the face with enjoyable face-climbing (5.10d).
A thin face-climbing traverse (5.10b) took us across the wall to the base of a right-leaning corner system.
The corner (5.10c, and not as steep as it looks in the photo) had some cool fingertip liebacking.
The fifth pitch is supposed to be 5.9 R. However after I exited the corner system via steep climbing up and left, I found a line of two new bolts heading straight up (you can't miss 'em!); the original route seemed to go further left. A height-dependent 5.10 move at the second bolt led to easier climbing up and left. I was able to get good gear after the bolt too (#2 Black Diamond micro-stopper then a #2 camalot). There was yet another new bolt protecting one more somewhat difficult move getting to the belay. So this pitch is definitely not dangerous.
The sixth pitch has spectacular thin face-climbing that curves up and left to the base of the Split Pillar.
I accomplished my goal of leading Cruel Shoes onsight, and I then turned the lead over to Yuko for the Grand Wall proper.
Leading the impeccable Split Pillar (rated 5.10b, but I think it feels closer to 5.11a!):
Following the stellar Sword pitch (5.11a):
Yuko leading the fully-bolted Perry's Lieback pitch (5.11a) (this time I forgot to utilize the good foot-cam rests that are available in the offwidth crack, and I ended up taking a fall while following the pitch):
Yuko on the beautiful slab of the Flats pitch (5.10b). The end of the pitch has a big reach to a sloping edge with absolutely no holds in between. Yuko jumped up and down from a small ledge trying to reach the edge, and it was starting to look like this would prevent her from on-sighting the route. Fortunately she then realized that she could traverse about six feet straight right and face-climb on some other holds. This risked a hard pendulum fall, but she was able to pull it off!
Yuko approaches the Sail Flake pitch (5.10c). When I climbed the Grand Wall with Merrick, Squamish had just experienced several months of perfect weather...and as soon as I began leading this pitch it started pouring rain!! Fortunately the rock stayed pretty dry and I was able to finish the route with no falls. Yuko's experience on this pitch lended credibility to my theory that this pitch has some sort of voodoo curse, because after negotiating her way around a super-tight fixed line that was on the pitch (in place for an impressive ascent of the Grand Wall by a paralyzed climber the coming weekend), the heel of her climbing shoe fell off of her foot in the middle of the crux...not once, but TWICE!! Regardless she casually pulled her shoe back on both times, and sent the pitch in style.
We then relaxed on Bellygood ledge for a while, and walked over to the start of the Black Dyke.
The Black Dyke route was recently cleaned and fully rebolted with 1/2" stainless steel hardware, and a second pitch was added that traverses off the dyke for a while to avoid a chossy section. Accordingly the route is pretty safe, and quite fun with some cool climbing on steep jugs!
Yuko follows pitch 1:
Leading pitch 2, which leaves and then rejoins the dyke:
Following pitch 3:
Pitch 4, fun easy climbing with a couple of tricky steeper sections.
This was a fun way to round out the day. The Black Dyke is not nearly as clean as the Grand Wall, of course--it's more of an adventure route. And there is some loose rock, dirt, and lichen. But we had a blast climbing it!
One thing to note is that we got pretty warm, climbing in the direct sun on black rock with no breeze. For the day we brought two quarts of water per person, which was perfect. The whole day consisted of 15 pitches of climbing, and every single pitch was 5.10 or 5.11. We spent 3.5 hours on Cruel Shoes, 3.5 hours on the Grand Wall proper, 1 hour hanging out on Bellygood, and 2.5 hours on the Upper Black Dyke.
The next day we started climbing late, about 1pm. We decided to do an easier friction route on the Apron to give our fingers a break. We went for Over the Rainbow (6p 5.10a), which has some nice and very clean friction-climbing.
After that we were ready for more, so we headed to the Squaw and climbed The Great Game (4p 5.10d). This route is amazing!
Pitch 1 has 150' of spectacular and varied 5.10d crack climbing.
Pitch 2 is a fun 5.8 traverse.
Pitch 3 is the business: a super-clean 5.10d stemming and tips-liebacking corner.
Pitch 4 starts with steep and juggy bolt-protected 5.10d, followed by a beautiful traverse on crack and slab-climbing. This route is possibly the best short multi-pitch route that we have ever done--highly recommended.
On Friday we had to drive back to Seattle, so we squeezed in a couple of crack pitches at the base of the Chief. First, we did Arrowroot (1p 5.10b). This clean, long crack has a section of sustained off-fingers jamming which I found somewhat difficult.
Next, we climbed Rutabaga (2p 5.11a). The first pitch (5.10) starts out with awkward climbing between two cracks before becoming a nice splitter.
The second pitch (5.11a) follows awesome face cracks to a truly superb stemming corner.
Looking up at the second pitch, near the top of the first pitch:
This was a great week, and our 15 pitch day on the Grand Wall was possibly our coolest climb ever! Overall we did 43 pitches of climbing, including 33 pitches that were rated 5.10 or 5.11.