Dan Beland's Climbing Blog

Squamish Weekend Trip

With this being only my second trad-specific weekend in Squamish I was super excited to get on as many easy classics as possible.

Day 1 – Saturday June 27, 2009

I spent most of the weekend in the Smoke Bluffs.  On Saturday we started at Octopus’ Garden and I knocked off Octopus’ Garden (of course), Edible Panties, and one other which might have been Unearthly Delights but I can’t remember.

Next we moved down to the Pixie Corner.  Brendan was super pumped about Joe’s Crack so we started on that.   I loved it! Fairly sustained all the way up the diagonal crack until it disappears. Plug your last piece(s), get up on the ledge above, then get ready for a committing bouldery top out on slopers.  AWESOME!

Since we were there and it was free I also jumped on Pixie Corner which was quite fun.  We then decided to book it to Climb On so Brendan could pick up a few more Aliens and just as we got there, rain .  We ran back to The Zip as quickly as possible hoping to beat the downpour, but it was too late.  Game over for Saturday.

Day 2 – Sunday June 28, 2009

The rain stopped and the sun was out; ready for sending!  Without any other warm ups Brendan and I headed right for the Smoke Bluffs Connection which was out planned multi-pitch for the weekend.  It was dry enough, up we go.

Pitch 1 – Mosquito 5.8

Great fun.  A cool layback crux above a bomber nut placement leads to easy climbing up to the anchors.  Having onsighted it my last time in Squamish, this was a great warm up lead for what was soon to come.

Pitch 2 – Phlegmish Dance 5.8

Brendan took this pitch.  Some cool stemming near the top.

At the top of this pitch you have to take a very short walk through the woods to meet up with Jabberwocky.

Pitch 3 – Jabberwocky 5.10b

Sure, 5.10b if you’re 5’9″ or taller perhaps…  But when you’re stretching it at 5’6″ like me it means a stacked mono 1-arm pull up to a burly little sidepull with no feet.  Maybe I was missing some crucial beta, but the easiest move I found was more like mid-high 5.11.  All I needed was another inch or two of reach and it would have been 10b.  Either way it was really fun and the finger crack above those first moves is just stellar.

Pitch 4 – Wonderland 5.9

Brendan headed out around the exposed corner and up.   I followed, not having ever had any real exposure so I wasn’t sure how I would react to it.  I LOVED it!  I was actually laughing the whole way up this route because it was so fun.  If you look down you can see straight back down to the ground towards Mosquito and above Zombie Roof.  The view from there is absolutely amazing.

Back down and off to Shannon Falls to hit up Klahanie Crack, a 35m 5.7 splitter hand crack.  What a great climb.  So great that I didn’t want to stop to place gear.  It just felt so good hand after hand.  I did, however, force myself to stop and put gear in, even if I was running it out a little bit.

Basically out of time now, we stopped at one last crag on the way back to the ferry.   I jumped on Up from the Bog (5.8) at the Bog Wall in Murrin Park.  I just flew up this climb since it was much more similar to the type of climbing that I’m used to.  There are actually some crimps!  Great fun.

Awesome trip! Can’t wait for the next one to step it up and get on some harder stuff.