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Clean Corner (5.8) (Dick
Strachan, Dick Willmott '62)
"A fine outing that offers
exposed and exciting climbing. Climb the chimney until it narrows
to a wide crack. Avoid the crack by delightful stemming across
the walls on good holds. An easier chimney above leads to the
top."
Kevin McLane, The
Climbers Guide To Squamish
The
date of the first ascent is what makes me most nervous. Consider
for a moment what was going on in 1962. Nobody had heard of The
White Album, because the Beatles hadn't even produced Help! yet.
The Marlboro Man was cool. Anthony Hopkins was starring in The
Elephant Man. In black and white. Climbers were still tying swami
belts. What the hell would 5.8 mean?! Desperate thrutching and
sparse protection. To confirm this suspicion, one only has to
find the right angle by which to study the route. Whilst on The
Grand Wall, a full six grades harder than our route in question,
I found a fantastic vantage point from which to scope the route.
I was slack-jawed and horrified. It appears that getting to the
base requires either a long hike and a rap in, or a suspicious
traverse over from half-height on Crap Crags. Once at the base,
the two pitches above undulate between 4 inch crack and chimney,
interspersed with 3 ton chockstones (lodged in securely, no doubt).
There are no bolts or any obvious signs of protection. I know
of one person who has actually climbed this route. Coincidentally,
he appears in Climbing magazine and has put up some of the most
spooky and technical alpine climbs on the west coast. His comment
on Clean Corner? "The realest 5.8 I've ever climbed."
Neat And Cool (5.10a) (Dave Lane, Perry Beckham '79)
Just look at it! Sure, it's a
low ten, but it is steep and committing! Moreover, Perry Beckham
is a mullet-wearing hardman (1999 Squamish Guide, pages 266,
381) who is reputed to have regularly climbed to the top of The
Split Pillar with friends late in the day, only to commence in
drinking heavily at the belay. Once completely destroyed, they
would wait until sober enough to finish the route. Back at Neat
And Cool, I have long envisioned getting through the first two
moves and discovering that I am too pumped to even place any
gear. Of course, I would then fall off into the jumbled boulders
beneath, splitting open my head.
Bran Flakes (5.10a) (Peter Croft,
Tami Knight, Anders Ourom '78)
"A head spinning
runout on the first pitch tests your self-worth as a climber."
With this description in mind,
I set my tough-guy guns to stun. I set off with much confidence
up the relentless slab, reaching a bolt after a mind blowing
distance. Clipping happily, I congratulated myself on being true
hard man. Who wouldn't sleep with me now? Then, turning my eyes
upward, I cast about for the next bolt. I spent some time like
that; motionless and scanning. As my eyes strained for the glint
of sunlight on steel it occurred to me that I might not be on
A Question Of Balance after all. "A head spinning runout"
implies a singular, indefinite object, I reasoned. "A runout",
not "The runouts". Surely Kevin knew the difference.
As these things work out, I was on Bran Flakes, a neighbouring
slab route that breathes life anew into the word "runout".
There is exactly one bolt located somewhat less than halfway
between the ledge and the anchors, 150 feet distant.
Mercy Street (5.10b) (Kirt Sellers, Bill Noble '86)
"Power up the remorseless
layback corner…"
Kevin McLane, The Climbers
Guide To Squamish
This diamond in the rough is
found in depths of the South Gully. I have not even come to look
at this climb for three reasons. The first is simple; by all
accounts, it is a dripping nightmare that only dries out following
the most oppressive droughts. Then, once, while on the spacious
comfort of Memorial Ledge, I witnessed a full grown fir tree
plummet from a cliff like a huge, green, flapping dagger into
the South Gully. When it landed at the base of Mercy Street I
was supplied with my second reason.
The third reason is more involved. A recent paper in the Canadian
Journal Of Mountaineering introduced "Nearest Neighbour
Grade Interaction" to the climbing lexicon. Authors Haliday
and Resnick have found that when a route is bracketed by other
routes of obscenely different grades the middle route is invariably
influenced in the direction of the average grade. In general,
this means that your first 5.10a gear lead should be in a neighbourhood
of 5.6 cracks, not in the middle of a buttress of traditional
5.12's. It forms a corollary then, that at 5.12d, a next-door
neighbour The Opal has not yet received a continuous free ascent.
Survival Of The Flatus (5.10b) (Dean Hart, Peter Croft '84)
"A superb pitch with
a couple of big runouts." Kevin
McLane, The Climbers Guide To Squamish
At the onset, I was not afraid
of this route. After all, every second route in England is filled
with runout death potential, and that is where I learned to climb.
However, the authors of this Lower Malamute work make me suspicious.
The aforementioned Bran Flakes is also a Peter Croft creation.
In the description of that runout horror-show, McLane only says
"a slightly harder and bolder climb," a reference that
compares it to the runout classic, Question Of Balance. Two years
before rambling up the climb in question, Croft redefined hard
free climbing in North America by making the first clean ascent
of University Wall. Dean Hart, it turns out, is no slack either.
The North Walls of Squamish alone are the forbidding home many
of his first ascents. Descriptions of these 5.12 traditional
monsters include "strenuous power laybacking," 11b
offwidth, "runout on deteriorating rock," and pitches
that are "something to really sweat over." This may
beg the question: If one were to be "power laybacking"
and "redefining" on Saturday, what is the meaning of
"runout 5.10" on Sunday?
The Grim Reaper (5.10b) (Gordie Smaill, Neil Bennet '70)
"This famous route, first
climbed in stiff soled boots, is one of the great legends of
Squamish. Its fearsome reputation for the huge runout on the
crux pitch, done on-sight, remains undiminished."
Kevin McLane, The
Climbers Guide To Squamish
In 1970, Gordie Smaill must have
been living large. I am to understand, from Chic Scott's reading
on the "Squamish Hardcore", and sage, oral accounts
that he was a hard aid climber, heavy drinker, and generally
ahead of his time. At the time of his roller-skated first ascent,
most people fell off just doing the easier pitches that led to
the crux. It is unfortunate that the thin, smeary nightmare The
Climbers Must Be Crazy beat out my naïve enthusiasm for
runout slab before I got to The Grim Reaper. Now I will have
to climb it while fighting off strong urges to vomit.
The Climbers Must Be Crazy (5.10c) (Nick & Robin Barley '87)
It's on the 5th pitch of the
route that this Barley creation earns its name. I headed out
from a good stance and weaved up and right over moderate ground.
After a disconcerting distance I arrived at a bolt. My heart
sank to see that it was of the rust 1/4 inch variety. I clipped
it without much hope, and looked ahead to get my bearings. I
spotted another rusty number, some thirty feet distant. Gee,
I thought. The slab steepened and moderation was replaced with
ponderous smearing. I arrived, quaking. This bolt appeared, in
quality and size, comparable to something from a childhood tree-fort
project. Repeating the ceremony, I saw the next bolt ahead, again,
some thirty feet distant. Gee-zus, I thought. Halfway to the
rusty offering I froze, struck like I have never been struck
before by the madness of my situation. I looked at my feet, pasted
onto ethereal depressions that provided just enough friction
to hold me in place when properly weighted. I was a foot swap
away from looking like a motorcycle crash victim. Every subsequent
move was accompanied by dry mouthed anticipation of my bolt snapping
demise. There was no trust or hope in my movement as I continued
along, making it past two more widely spaced rusty numbers. I
arrived at the final headwall to find a streak of water that
terminated in the texture between me and the anchors. I studied
the blankness ahead, deflated. Then, like a miracle, a low sun
came out and poured across the rock. I wobbled up on faint holds,
made visible by the heightened relief, and arrived at the anchors,
destroyed.
Peanuts (5.10c) (R.Milward, J.Campbell '83)
When I first came to Vancouver,
I went to go explore Squamish. Along the way, I stopped at the
Comic Rocks. While there, I met a guy who had just fallen off
of a route called White Lightning. He looked like he had been
dragged through a village by a team of wild horses. I was in
awe. He was planning, on this day, to go do Peanuts, which looked
hard. Well, if that's what hardmen do, I'm leaving it alone.
Even Steven (5.10c) (John Howe, Dave Lane '86)
Even Steven is located at the
suspicious Petrifying Wall; lauded by McLane as "the easiest
climb in the area". That Petrifying Wall is a playground
for mutants goes unmentioned. Here again, Nearest Neighbour Grade
Interactions (Haliday, Resnick) comes into play. All of the surrounding
climbs are conservatively protected 5.12 horror shows. No doubt
this accounts for the fact that Even Steven is a full on 50 metre
pitch of death, punishment, and toil. Who can blame the 5.12
climbers? After all, what 5.10 climber can usurp the difference
between 5.4 and 5.6?
Milk Run (5.10c) (Peter Croft, Tami Knight '82)
This entire route is suspiciously
hard. Just getting to the base of the real climbing requires
a true leading dilemma. Choice one: traverse 15 feet on steep
unprotected smears. The belayer has options here too: Giving
a lot of slack allows the leader to fall further, but into a
grotto of rocks and shrubs. Keeping a tight rope will result
in a corner-smacking pendulum. Choice two: the "easier"
option heads directly up to a bolt and then requires the most
desperate, crimpy, smearing dyno to reach a hand rail where critical
failure is protected by falling on your belayer. Once at the
first belay, the true punishment begins. A hard, rising, layback
traverse is graced with fiddly protection and plenty of pendulum
potential. Thankfully, a tough corner pitch ensues with more
laybacking. It works out well then that, just when things are
looking a bit down, the final pitch turns out to be another full
whack of steep, unrelenting lieback. I set about the first ten
feet before realizing that I was certain to meet my pumpy death.
Wall Of Attrition (5.10d) (R.Milward, J.Campbell, S.Young, J.Rosholt,
P.Ourom '84-96)
McLane's description of this
route is innocuous enough, but something is amiss. On the second
to last pitch, a blocky, rising traverse, Kevin bothers to script
"bold" onto the topo. I have looked through the entire
guide trying to find this warning elsewhere, but to no avail.
What is the meaning of this! Moreover, a route that rises to
the heights of Dance Platform at a grade easier than The Grand
Wall should receive frequent ascents. Yet, find me the man or
woman that has been BOLD enough to do it.
Frail Scales (5.10d) (Peter Croft, John Howe, '82)
Most of these routes are scary
because of what they might do to me. Frail Scales makes the list
not for what it might do, but for what it did. Long had I looked
at this steep layback, looming over the road on the way to Squamish.
It looked ferocious, but great. In a moment of enthusiasm, I
found myself working up the steep crimping that leads to a series
of flakes. Sharp, but thin, the exfoliations strike up the wall
in a draining layback. I gathered my wits and set off with determination.
If there was any body shape that I would be given in hell, it
would be that of a person with long legs paired with exceedingly
short arms. This would make almost any layback a fucking impossibility.
Although I don't suffer this form, I did somehow manage to have
my feet shoot off of the very first smear and I catapulted off
halfway down the crag before coming to the attention of my belayer.
Stirred, rather than shaken, I returned to my high mark. I managed
to cruise the beginning section, placing friends behind the wafers
with little confidence. I came to the end of the flakes and the
final mantle. At this point the wall had assumed a slight overhang.
Placing a friend, I shook out a pump and sussed out the secret
holds that would carry me over the lip and onto the thin shelf
above. I committed to an irreversible move and tucked my fingers
into the thinnest, shittiest, bottoming crack I've ever been
so unlucky to find. I didn't have the juice I needed. Realizing
my straits, whinnying and thrutching, I watched hopelessly as
my fingers peeled off against my strongest will. Having my gear
rip out was just an unfortunate event. It sent me sailing backwards
for close to 40 feet. Whoever coined the country wisdom "If
you fall off the horse, get right back on" was a fucking
moron. I subscribed to this mantra, taking two more 15 foot peelers
before running away. |