Friday night I met up with people at Gibbs Cave V8 and without warming up gave it a couple of shots.  It seemed hard, but not impossible.

Saturday we warmed up on Easy Chair and Palminator then headed over to Worm World Cave.   I didn’t even know the grade at the time, but on the first try I stuck the first two moves.  About 5 or 6 more tries and a half hour later and I sent!  I didn’t find out the grade until I was on my way down and a friend told me it was V9! Cool.

Later in the day we headed off to the North Wall Boulders.  There was a camera crew set up on Hogwild V5, which we were hoping to get on, so instead we had a burn at Chicken Lips & Assholes V7.  It took several goes with varying beta, but I managed to pull through it and top out.  By then the camera crew had cleared up on Hogwild so I jumped on that.  It felt pretty hard and the top out was a little trickier than I had expected, but I got it with a few attempts.

Sunday it was back to Gibbs Cave V8 fresh and motivated.  I was getting close, but the big bump just seemed out of reach.  So new beta to the rescue! A guy showed up  with new beta for the first move which eliminates the sloppy unbalanced throw on the 2nd move.  Just skip it and go straight up to the crimp with the right hand!  After many failed attempts at the standard bumping for the top section I decided to try something else.  Left hand low sloper as usual, lock off up to the second sloper with the right, cut the feet and go for a small crimp on the left with the toe, left hand up to the bad sloper on the rail, pop the right hand to the 3rd (and better) sloper, done!  The only problem now was that we had been working it for nearly 3 hours, my tips hurt like hell, and I had far from fresh muscles.  I had given up and put my approach shoes back on when I had a moment of  “OK maybe I’ll give it 1 more try…” So that’s what I did and BOOM! I got it!

Later in the day I onsighted Swank Stretch V5 and took it easy hanging out with the crew.

I think this trip has renewed my passion for bouldering, I will be back!

Living in Victoria, there isn’t a lot of opportunity to lead indoors.  The Boulders climbing gym at Stelly’s does have a lead wall, but until they finish their expansion, it’s just not that impressive.   The Romper Room has a big overhanging lead cave with an arch and has lots of varying grades from 5.9 to 5.13+.   The grading mostly felt accurate, but stiffer than CragX.  I don’t remember the last time I fell on a 5.10d at CragX, but there was a 5.10 at Romper Room that gave me a battle.  I fell from the last hold on a 5.11+ and went for a bit of a ride!

The staff and climbers at the Romper Room were friendly and I will definitely be back to work on some of those 5.12′s along with some of the great boulder problems.

I like how small Aliens are basically full strength compared to most similarly sized pieces of protection.  Here’s a quick table showing rated strenghts amongst smaller cams.

I knocked off just about every major route I had on my ticklist for this trip.

Trad Multipitch

• Angels Crest – 14 pitches – 5.10c
• Snake – 6 pitches – 5.9
• Diedre – 6 pitches – 5.8
• Smoke Bluff Connection – 4 pitches – 5.10b

Trad Single Pitch

• The Zip
• Flying Circus
• Neat and Cool
• Burgers and Fries – Did not enjoy the runout slab…
• Kangaroo Corner

Bouldering

• Holm Boy
• Sit Down to Holm Boy

I’m sure there’s more I could add to this list but I’ve forgotten now…

My new cams:

• Blue CCH Alien (3/8)
• Yellow CCH Alien (3/4)
• Grey CCH Alien (7/8)

What next?

I’m looking for a Black CCH Alien (.33) to hit the very small end and then I’ll be good for a little while.   Then maybe a Red CCH Alien or a #.5 Omega Pacific Link Cam.

The New Gear

• #0.5 Black Diamond C4
• #0.75 Black Diamond C4
• #1 Black Diamond C4
• #2 Black Diamond C4
• #3 Black Diamond C4
• Green CCH Alien Cam
• Matching Black Diamond Neutrino biners for all

I also finally found a pair of Scarpa Techno’s that fit so I grabbed those. I got the women’s version because of my narrow feet and they fit great!

Next up:  More Aliens! – Whenever CCH gets their lives organized to fill some orders.

We did stop at Lake Louise on the way there.  It was sunny, warm, and beautiful out… time to climb!  We got around the backside of the lake and found an easy looking route which was not marked in the guide book but I would guess was about 5.9.  Shirt off, up I go.  Fun route on solid rock except for this dislodged flake up by the anchors which could be kicked loose if you’re not careful.

Amanda was next up.  She got about half way up and I shit you not, between leaving the ground and getting half way up it got cold as hell and started to snow!  So I jugged my way up to clean the gear and that was it for Lake Louise.

I looked at a few 5.12′s that looked like they would be a blast if I ever get back there.  The rock is really cool with solid little flat ledges everywhere.

On the way back from Alberta it was pouring in Canmore so instead of climbing I made the rounds of the local climbing shops.  One guy said that the Ghetto crag at Grassi Lakes might still be dry because of the overhang, but by then we had run out of time.  Next time!

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.

The Report…

Horne Lake climbing is AWESOME!  I warmed up on a couple of 11a’s then got ready for the route I had been waiting to get on since first hearing about Horne Lake, Globetrotters.

At 5.13d, Globetrotters is way above any level of route I had been on before, so I was half expecting to get my ass handed to me.  But, to my surprise I ALMOST made it to the bolts (after several falls, of course).  I made it just past the 5th bolt before falling the first time.  From there on it was pretty much draw to draw until I got to the lip of the roof.

People tell me that those last few moves pulling the lip are the crux and I would tend to believe them.  It felt like it would go, but I was so bagged that I didn’t have enough strength left to complete it.  Next time perhaps.

Photos

I’ll probably build some sort of tick list app at some point and integrate it in this site.

Until then I’ll just post my personal climbing plans and updates.