Self Belief is Everything

All words and pictures copyright Alastair Rose 2011

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Squamish

Some dirtbag climbers we met

Just back from a week of climbing in Squamish BC. My first real trip to Canada (except that one time that my flight got rerouted through Toronto and Anne took me out drinking till my 6am flight) which just showed what a great country this is. Just a short 10hr drive which got a little longer when i got lost in downtown Vancouver at 2am in the morning and we were climbing pristine granite. After a first tired day "warming up" on the smoke bluffs we were into the multipitch trad routes on the Cheif. Ryan and I managed to average ten pitches a day, hitting a lot of the classics as early as we could to avoid any crowds. Our last day was spent connecting three routes (Diedre, Boomstick crack and the Ultimate Everything) to create a 19pitch route with the last pitch the crux at 5.10b (probably E1/2 5c). All in all a good trip followed by a day back in Oregon and then an attempt at the easiest free route on the Monkey at Smith Rock (Monkey Space 5.11b - still got to complete it unfortunately as Ryan and I both chickened out of the final 3 bolt 11b moves!). Some photos.......
Topping out of 19 pitches - I have never been so tired leading as I was on the last pitch.
Ryan leading the crux pitch of "Over the Rainbow" 5.10a
Me leading the 5.7 tree on "Angels Crest" (5.10c)
Somewhere on a ledge on some route
Ryan styling up "Angels Crack" on Angels Crest (one of the trad crux pitches)
My attempt to be arty with my small camera - Ryan leading up the wet offwidth crack on "Rock On" (5.10a)
Me on the "Agrophobes Towers" pitches of Angels crest.

Now I have just one more 15day course in oregon before more time off, some rafting trips and some work in Washington.