Climb: Lillooet Ice Fest-Xwisten Column and The Groke
Date of Climb: 2/8/2004
Trip Report:
Steve and I drove up Feb 06 and stayed at the Four Pines. Formerly known as the "Four Porns" for the variety of late night sat dish TV available this place has moved to cable....
Met Don and Janez along with the Nuge and Graham at Reynolds in the AM. Ate the usual and drove out to Xwisten. Don, Steve Janez and I began the approach. First pitch of Xwisten Steps was rotted-out in the middle so we bypassed via a scramble around on the left and kept going.
At the first fork in the gully I had us climb out right. Well, we should have taken the second fork. After wandering around all over the hillside we finally ended up at the Xwisten Column after about a 3 hour death march.
Don took the sharp end and dispatched this 50m line of ice. The first section was almost overhanging on horrible ice then some ramps led to a final blue pillar. I fell off the pillar seconding, then Steve 3rded and Janez 4thed and the sun began to set. Descent via proper gully by headlamp, downclimbing and bum sliding down WI2 steps and back to the car and into the Reynolds before the kitchen closed.
Steve and I made small talk with Michelle (the cute bartender) while eating double orders of pickled horsecock. All sorts of other riffraff like Lyle Knight, capt. caveman and HRoark showed up. Finally we all went over to the Legion Hall, shocked the Bc Darts Champs by throwing some ice tools tomahawk stylee at the dart board, and then drank beer and Don showed slides. Lyle gave out the last 19 copies of the legendary LILLOOET ICE MAP so if you weren't there u shoulda been.
Up at 7 AM. we were paying $10 a night extra for a jacuzzi room so i had a morning ja-cooz.
Same old breakfast and Steve and I drove up the Duff. Well polishbob and justin were racking up for Closet Secrets so we went back to Tube but Don, the Nuge, Janez and Graham were already there. So Don said "why don't you go climb the ice ***right*** of El Nino and Wishful Thinking cause it's still unclimbed" yeehaw!
Parked across from El Nino. popstholed around until we found an ice jam and made it across the river. Postholed downstream and up to the ice. NOTE: on Lyle's ice map, Wishful Thinking is shown in the position of our route. If we had had ice map along this would have been a warning...
Anyways after a two hour slog ( I had snowshoes and Steve didnt but they didnt make much diff kneedeep in pow pow) we got to this ice and started up a narrow gully. The upper tier had a variety of lines possible WI 2-3+ish and I climbed this skinny little pillar on the right for a WI3+ finish with good exposure. There is some nice mixed potential in this area on postive schist edges joining together icicles up overhanging rock.
Slogged back to car and out shooting shit with other climbers along the way out on road. Ken4play, dbb and alpinfox did Synchro... polishbob DID NOT do Shreddie
Good times in Lillooet!
Steve and I were going to call new route today "The Groke" after an icy monster in Tove Jansson book. I will try to find picture. However as it was actually Wishful Thinking its all a bit irrelevant.
of note; Lyle and Fern and Brad went off to climb some secret ice in the Bridge that was soooo secret Lyle did not even want to tell me where it was - in case he failed he wanted it to remain secret
Gear Notes:
beer, Legion Hall, ice, jacuzzi, scews, snowshoes, headlamps, 420
Approach Notes:
Post holing and foot slogging and bum sliding.
