Trip: Squamish, BC - Squamish Buttress
Date: 7/24/2009
Trip Report:Mission: Diedre to Squamish Buttress
Left after work Friday, drove to Nanaimo to catch the 9pm ferry to Horseshoe Bay. On the drive down, we were behind a full size Chevy pulling a 30’+ camping trailer. It switched lanes, and then started to fishtail. I said “Oh shit, it’s going over” to Lee, as we watched it do multiple rolls across both lanes of the highway, coming to a rest half on and half on the highway. We hung around long enough to pull the two guys out, check them over and call an ambulance. By that time there were lots of people on scene, so we felt ok taking off. After all, “we have climbing to do”.
Arrived in Squamish pretty late, and took up residence in our usual bivy spot: Grand Wall parking lot. Got our lunch and rack together for the next day and hung out discussing car accidents.
Saturday morning, 5:30am wake up. We thought being at the base of Diedre at 6am would be early enough. Wrong. Got to the base and a couple of guys from Vancouver were just starting up the first pitch of Diedre and who were also planning to do the Buttress. Oh well, whatever, the weather is good and we have all day. We climbed behind them until Broadway, and then jumped ahead of them by using our 1 bolt pitch that not too many people seem to know about…
Located the first pitch of S.B. and had lunch. Started up the first pitch, locating the single bolt that would tell us If we are on route or not. The two guys showed up just as I was ending the second pitch, asking if it was the right route. We decided we didn’t want to have someone right on our tails, so we picked up the pace and didn’t see them for the rest of the route (or on the summit). Second to last pitch is the crux (.10c), which Lee led nicely. I took the last pitch and had a fun time weaving my way up the ledges to the summit.
Hung out on the summit for a bit, then decided to see how fast we could make it down the descent trail; turns out it was busy that day (A Saturday in July, who would have thought?) and it ended up taking the average time.
Summertime Bonus: Chicks in short-Shorts
Spent the rest of Saturday at Alice lake swimming, until some dark lightening clouds made the decision of whether or not to go to Starbucks easier. Spent some time in between Starbucks and the climbing shops. That evening 6pm (give or take) we saw definitely one of the largest lightening/rain storms on the coast. We decided to go down to the delta area (just past the brew pub) to watch the light show. We were chilling in the parking lot, and just happened to look up on the apron and saw about 4+ different headlamps on the last pitches of Diedre and a couple lights on Broadway itself.
“Well, that sucks” were the first words, followed by “dude, can you imagine how slick the slabs must be”, followed by “oh shit”.
We took a drive up towards the apron parking lot to see what was going on. A cop car was parked on the side of the road with it's lights on, not doing much, so we figured maybe it had something to do with the climbers “stuck” on the Apron. Nope.
We went to Grand Wall parking lot to set up camp. We were discussing how much it would suck to be up climbing right now, when 2 vehicles came tearing out of the campground to “rescue the climbers” as one driver put it.
Setting up camp suddenly didn’t seem so important anymore. We drove down to watch the “rescue”. This seemed to consist of climbing up from the bottom of Diedre (keep in mind it’s still raining) to the “stuck” climbers. I wonder if they knew it would be faster to hike up and drop a rope down?
Sunday: Pretty Casual morning. Lee decided he wanted to aid Zombie Roof to get it out of his system. We did that, then did some cragging in the Penny Lane area. I was belaying Lee up a climb and happened to start talking to a climber who was doing the same. I mentioned the “rescue” on the Apron the previous evening, and it turns out he was on the last pitches of Diedre when it started pouring, and supposedly the climbing wasn’t too bad. (Everyone involved was OK)
Sunday evening we caught the ferry back home.
Eventful climbing trip!
Photo time.
Prayer flags on Diedre
Crux Pitch
Lee on the crux
Me getting psyched for seconding the crux!
Topped out
Zombie Roof
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