Don_Serl

Trip: Quit Yer Job! Sumallo is IN! - Grim Reaper - Box Canyon Date: 2/14/2009 Trip Report: Marc Le Clerc, Robert Nugent, and I headed up to Box Canyon, thinking the altitude ought to have kept the ice nice, and that the settled snow ought to make for an easy approach - and, boy, were we right! There is a snowshoe track already set up the valley (a moderately popular, totally safe, rather spectacular daytrip winter hike option), and while there's a bit of wandering cuz the low snow has not fully buried all the alder and boulders, it's just wandering, nothing unpleasant. We were at the route in 40 mins, moving at my pace - young fast guys could be there in 30. The route was in superb condition. I'd call it 60m 3+, 60m 3, and 40m 4 right now. Every pitch has a unique character, with the long flow in the middle of p2 being the highlight - superb! Raps are set off trees: climbers left at top, then left (a bit of uphill traverse to get to this one), then right. We were 9-3 car to car. The stuff on the north side of the canyon is baked out - too bad, cuz it looks like Mr Natural would have been climbable a week ago, and that's almost a big route that's never in. We did not walk to the head of the valley (20-30 mins further in current conditions), but 'Scotch on the Rocks' and 'Engage' are undoubtedly in, and probably fat. We drove Hwy 3 for a look afterwards, and EVERYTHING at Sumallo Bluffs is in and ready to go - plus there's a totally safe snowpack! Landmark looks superb - the western half of the p3 curtain has snapped off, but the E'ern half is a solid sheet. The middle section looks like p2 on Reaper - smooth, well-filled flow ice. The lower (approach) pitches look kinda sketchy, but they're not overly hard. 'Crunchy Frog' is as big as I've ever seen it. There's good ice in the 'Mess Right' gully around the corner. 'Anthrax Ripple' is in and (for this climb) "fat" - Graham Rowbotham and Jesse Mason climbed it on Sat - there'll likely be a TR which pops up here - maybe the 2nd ascent? With a week of solid weather ahead and ice conditions on the bluffs the best I've seen in 30 years, I'd definitely take the whole week off... if I didn't have job pressure which won't let me do anything of the sort at the moment... fingers crossed it lasts! Cheers, Gear Notes: 9 screws, 2 ropes

great TR brian. you guys are tough buggers! i reckon you were quite lucky with the wind. it tends to develop as the day goes on, i guess driven by adiabatics as the land warms. and as you noted, there are precious few places to gte a boat out. Bute's much the same, btw, altho there are a few possible landings at creek mouths. good luck on your next 'go'! cheers, p.s Jubilee's about as good as it gets for scenery in the coast mtns, and it seeems like you got high on nearly every side of it, so you didn't miss much 'cept the bragging rights that goes with the summit.

your lucky day! such events are rare, but the effects of temperature changes obviously can easily be underestimated. when marc leclerc and i climbed the little central column on the upper tier of rambles centre last saturday, it had warmed quite a lot during the day, and as he thwacked his tool in halfway up, the entire pillar and the ice plinth underneath it (that i was standing on) gave a great deep 'bong'! no crack appeared, and the pillar didn't fall down, so he carried on, but there was obviously a lot of tension being released internally. and this was not on cold, brittle ice - quite the opposite. btw, i voted "yes" - my lucky day to have been elsewhere... cheers,

probably as a result of a very dry autumn, followed by a very sharp cold snap before much snow had fallen, the bridge river canyon is a bit of a disaster area. ***suncatcher not formed; couldn't see anything on xwisten steps, but they're fairly hidden. *** jade in and fat - column to right not formed. *** michelmoon looks in, but access remains closed. *** plan B might be climbable. *** capricorn discontinuous. *** no ice whatsoever on old dogs, house of cards, silk degrees, the gift, the theft. *** troubled waters looked OK *** silk worm might be climbable *** shriek missing about 20m on curtain. *** night n gale in lean, but think about the snowpack before setting off up that big gully. *** terzaghi climbed a week ago. overall, the worst condtions i've seen in the bridge in 15 years of climbing out there. crap! i wish the news was better, but... cheers,

we too did some scoping today (marc and don). a few extra comments on the above: TV looked huge, and the photo kinda confirms that - as jesse says, a tough lead tho! and 'another day' looked superb - nice tick, jesse, drew (and graham?) marcus donaldson and nate (?) attempted the riddler today, but backed off in the face of very brittle conditions. let's hope these two climbs (riddler and mr freeze) don't melt out - great routes, seldom 'in'. sailor bar gully is a bit snowy now. equipped raps set from trees on right - 3 X 40m. scoped under the big top and water music - both sporting lots of ice, but also plenty of holes and 'strandiness' - i'd guess they also need a bit more time. rob nugent and ade miller climbed 2 short pitches on the crucible (single 60m rap)- couldn't do the last 20m, but sounds worthwhile as the 'lite' version. carlsberg was attempted, but also was found to be very brittle. it'll get better... marble canyon offered plenty of fun, as usual. will post bridge river comments separately. cheers,

Sounds like 'Sailor Bar Gulley' I think its like grade 2+.. mellow but fun. no way it was 2 - tall, vertical icefalls - 3 tiers i think - off the canuckistani 1 (maybe a 2 minute approach, but nowhere to park - big sign just before it saying no parking due to avi danger) - maybe 30 km's east of hope? huh, no idea then... wish we'd had time to stop and check it out - ah, the tyranny of time and family... probably kryponite... cheers,

nope.

two choices to get there, both starting via Lions Bay and the Harvey Creek logging road: 1. branch off the road onto the Binkert trail [~800m] and climb to the knoll where the trail angle eases [~1250m]. angle left [east] up across the bowl NW of the peak and climb to and pass thru a distinct gap in the NW ridge [~1450m]. downclimb into the basin N of the peak [losing maybe 60m-80m altitude]. then either: (a) traverse across the basin to the bottom of the NE buttress, or (b) climb up the 'gut' at the right side of the N face, then traverse the snowramp left (east) to gain the NE buttress above the initial steep section. 2. continue up the Harvey Ck road to the head of the valley (spur road, then open country at end of valley). climb a gully to the slopes above the headwall rimming the valley head - easiest is fairly far left. traverse steep snowslopes back right (west) to the base of the NE buttress. this can be climbed directly (as 1a above), or a gully on the east face can be used to reach the shoulder above the initial steep section (as per 1b above, but from the opposite side of the buttress). option 2 crosses more avvy-prone terrain (above the headwall), but if snow conditions are firm enough to allow consideration of the climb, they shoudl also be firm enough to be safe - in deep soft fresh snow, you're not gonna get anywhere near the route, let alone up it (let alone down safely...)! good luck - the Lions in winter are special: very close to town, but fully serious. and tougher to do than one might think - you'll get only 1 or 2 weather/conditions window each winter. and those windows don't respect weekends for timing... cheers, p.s. Fairley's guide p24 is a useful photo of the terrain.

top that with thin to no snowpack, then bitter cold, and it's no surprise there's not much water running 'upcountry'. sounds like Hope and Squamish are doing better... cheers,

check out: http://www.westcoastice.com/Current_Conditions_2008-2009.html up and running; lots of info. bookmark it for the rest of the season. cheers

craig mcgee drove the area yesterday, and here's what he reports: Drove through the Duffey lake area yesterday and this is what I saw. If its not mentioned here it was probably not "IN" as I took a good look around. In the early morning light "Entropy "looked in? "that could mean anything in that light" Looked like you could scratch up something in the "Syco pillar" area (mixed routes only) No ice at all on "Blue moon on rye" "Dream Catcher" looked like it would be climbable Looked like most of the regular climbs at the "Rambles" were in, however they looked quite thin compared to normal. Carl berg was NOT in The first pitches of "loose lady" were in. I tried to see the upper pitch, but could only see the ice on the last few feet, so? "Synchronicity" was in, however the first few feet of the first main pitch looked very thin or rock . "Honeyman falls" looked climbable, but there was a hole with open water in the middle up top. Most of the climbs in Marble canyon looked climbable. The lower wall had lots of ice, but thin in places. The top pitches on "Icy BC looked climbable, but very hard" It was -22 at the Rambles and -30 in marble canyon... All in all I was surprised to see very little free water that could freeze in these temps. It looks like it must have been very dry up there for the past few weeks, hopefully it warms up at bit! thanks to craig for the effort and bruce kay for passing this along. kinda worrisome that i've now heard a cpl reports mentioning lack of running water to continue to build the ice. it'd be a shame if this cold snap didn't herald a superb season. maybe this current snowfall will help. cheers, don

November Daily average 1.9 December -2.1 November Daily Max 4.9 December 0.3 November Daily Min -1.2 december -5.2 and how did this year compare to those averages? (those are Lillooet, are they?) cheers,

cough cough... Garry B climbed ice at Marble Canyon on HALLOWEEN a few years ago OK, OK, i retract my hyperbole - 'never' is a l-o-n-g time! and i'll bet the halloween climb was many years ago, when winter arrived in the interior early in november, rather than a month later nowadays. point is tho, even (local lad) lyle never got on it before mid-november AFTER a big cold snap, and we've not even had a hint of a major arctic outbreak yet this winter. maybe coming this weekend - but that'll just prove my point - MC will 'come in' sometime after mid-dec, as usual. worth waiting for, mind... cheers,

maybe jesse could weigh in with a bit fo info about the average temps thru november. my perception is that it has been considerably warmer than average, and certainly way warmer than last year. btw, even in a good season, marble canyon is NEVER ready to go before at earliest mid-dec, and more usually christmas. the rambles are higher and not so steep, and might come in sooner. cheers,

on second thought i reckon he's clubbing baby seals to death on a icefloe off the coast of newfoundland. cheers,

so Dane, u got me thinking about how i've been missing rigid crampons. so before heading off down to the seracs this past sunday, i dug out my old BD Makos. they have balling-up problems with the cookie-cutter heel frame, and i already had funked together a home-made plastic plate. you can't do much about the freezing/balling which occurs under the alu sole-plate (i tried wax, without effect). i seem to recall there were some problems with the bolts stripping out of these sole-plates too, but mine are intact. also, the "trident" front point system put WAY too much metal into the ice in WAY too small a space, so they shattered ice better than any other crampon i've ever had the (dis)pleasure to have worn. BUT - they've got a nice rigid frame and a good bail and heel lever system. SO - i turned the secondary trident points around backwards and just torqued the bolts back down. presto: now the crampon has a mono-point, plus a couple weird secondaries under the ball of the foot (maybe useful for clawing or stemming onto knobs?) [google "black diamond mako" to source up photos of the originals] and they were pretty nice on the seracs. pretty nice... easy to place, totally rigid. just tap 'em in and stand on 'em. (wore my 'big' leather boots too - had to tape my heels for the walk-up, but much nicer than my scarpa mantas once i was on the ice) as you know, i'm no fan of vertical crampon points (too much shearing in crappy coastal ice), but i intend to give these fellas another ride at the beginning of this winter. thanks for the stimulus. cheers,

naw, that's 'twenty-four points to the forehead", isn't it? cheers,

excellent. canadian at par? you can give me 85% of any prize I win! cheers,

free entry? i.e., only pay for the beer? or??? (what?) (if it's not too nasty, it's tempting to give the bike a bit of exercise...) nice opportunity to fire up keen-ness for the upcoming season. cheers,

i fully agree that rigid crampons are superior to modern "semi-rigids" (a salesman's expression meaning "flexible") for ice. in fact, for anything. for many years i used step-in chouinard rigids for everything: expeditions, glaciers, mountain mixed, alpine ice routes, waterfalls, the works. they were best on hefty leather boots, altho of course in the early days i used them on plastics. eventually one broke on a spring route in the Niut Range, and inspection of the others (i have two pair) revealed more cracks, so they got retired. i tried to replace them with another rigid but my boot size is big (11 1/2 or 12), and the length combined with the extent of sole curve won't allow Rambos or the Terminator to snap onto the boots. and the modern rigids all feature 'cookie-cutter' frames (i.e., vertically oriented frames) which vary between annoying and dangerous, even with antibots, which dulled my enthusiasm. so I ended up climbing on G14s for a few seasons (very nice, but the bulk of the front points seemed to shatter waterfall ice more than i hoped); then Sarkens (unimpressive, then recalled); and now Vasaks (which allowed me to rediscover the pleasure and efficiency of horizontal front points). spent some time along the way on black ices, footfangs, and the BD mako too. all of the hinged crampon/boot combos have been a bit sloppy, a touch inaccurate, lacking in fine control. the advent of light modern footwear (which inevitably is more flexible than heftier stuff), coupled with the inability of crampon manufacturers to build effective rigid crampons has led us to a time in which there's no easy way to perfectly accurately control what's going on with your front points. i ride a motorcycle too, and i strive to use tires that directly transmit 'the road' to me, and my intentions to the road. i love climbing slabs, and i want my footwear to be totally 'transparent' (meaning, not impeding in any way the 'feeling' of the rock beneath my feet, and directly transmitting whatever pressure i choose back to that rock). i recall an expression from maybe 30 years ago relating to kayaks, in which the (German) manufacturer said that "the boat was an extension of your will". this is precisely the condition that we should all be striving to achieve in our relationships with all our climbing equipment, and (maybe except for fruit-boots) the inability to do so with the modern combination of overly light footwear and flexible crampons bugs me. but i can't see a solution. can you? cheers,

whew! wish I'd responded before reading other's posts - hard to search the memory without stimulants, but better... Waddington - huge, high, sprawling, steep, multi-charactered. Monarch - high, isolated, challenging Jacobsen - perfectly formed (east peak, from north) Atna - superb snow aretes Bute - what a fzcking amazing chunk of rock! Queen Bess - the fang! Razorback - awesome north face, visible from far and wide across the Chilcotin plateau to the north Tatlow (Tsy'los) - wonderful symmetry; even more broadly visible from the Chilcotin Merriam - the finest peak on Chilko Lake Tisiphone - the epitome of glaciation it'd be easy to do a completely separate top 10 for SW BC - it's awfully hard to leave Judge Howay off this list, for instance. and Roach. Currie. Garibaldi. Tantalus. Alpha. Ashlu. Urquhart. Joffre. Meager. but tomorrow I'll feel differently, and the list will change... cheers,

yup, with Dennis Mullen. there's a gap in the ridge mid-height (somewhere in the hard-to-see-section in the Scurlock photo). i seem to recall they bivvied there - Dennis soloed to the summit and back, cuz Fred wasn't feeling well the next morning. certainly classy... and probably more predictable than the ice on the hanging glacier on the Hall-Fuhrer route on the east face. cheers,

monarch is finest single peak in the coast mtns. yes, considerably lower and smaller than waddington, but more awe-inspiring, more isolated, and more climber-friendly. are u interested in the NE face on the main summit? or the N face on the N summit? both are visible in john scurlock's photo: http://www.pbase.com/nolock/image/76665438 the summit is 3555m; the NE face (shadowed, below the main summit) rises from the schrund at 2800m. the N summit is 3346m; the schrund on its N side is at ~2880m. you'll find modern-era TR's in the CAJ for just a few trips since the 80s. Bill Durtler, Bruce Fairley, and I climbed the N ridge in 2000 (from sunny snow-col at lower centre up and right to N summit, then skyline and behind to main summit) - 2 bivies on ridge, 1 on descent. google 'mount monarch north ridge' and the AAJ article with photo will surf up. pm or email me if u want... good luck. cheers,

take the photo again with the heads equal to each other (instead of the tips) and with a ruler lying across the screws 2"-3" from the head and your understanding of the relative strengths of screws will be clarified. when a screw of ANY length is loaded in a fall, a stress cone of roughly that 2"-3" depth collapses around the tube. the threads BEYOND the cone are what keeps the screw in the ice - for a 10cm screw, that could be as little as 2cm-3cm. a 13cm screw retains about 6cm-8cm of 'bite'; 16cm-17cm 'standard' screws retain nearly 10cm of bite; and 'long' 21cm-22cm screws 'bite' for 2/3 of their length. but it turns out this 'extra' length is irrelevant - a length of 15cm-17cm gives holding power as good as it gets. as for falls, i swore in the early days never to take a lead fall on ice - but i didn't manage to keep my word. i pitched off an icebulge on the west lion one winter a long time ago when a tool slipped and i barn-doored off - went maybe 30 ft - held by a 6" salewa in solid water-ice. and i fzcked up getting in and out of a set of borrowed wrist leashes on borrowed tools on louise falls once - went maybe 6m or 8m, held by (probably, as i recall the times) an old-style chouinard screw. oh, and i pitched off one more time, but screws didn't come into play. tried Shreddie back in the FA season, pulled both tools outa manky windowpane crap about 2 body-lengths up, landed flat on my back on the start-point ice ledge. probably for the best... coulda gotten hurt if i'd gotten higher... screws don't ALWAYS work... cheers,

so, there were 11 of us Saturday and 7 Sunday. and no problem finding a wall to ourselves. because of the warm rain thursday and friday, the ice was devoid of snow and shiny as an icecube - plus hard and brittle. 'difficult' conditions, to say the least... I don't generally like criticizing indirectly, but I don't know which groups were involved, so which leaders I ought to be addressing. Some of the groups that we saw on Saturday did not display reasonable people-management skills. in the half-hour or so that it took us to have a snack and get our crampons and harnesses on, we watched FOUR people take slides on the very icy approach slopes. one person slid perhaps 100 feet before coming to a halt. luckily no one caught a crampon and broke an ankle. anyone with any experience should have assessed the approach slopes as EXTREMELY tricky on the weekend, and anyone with any sense of caution should have recognized the probability of a 'newbie' mis-stepping and taking a slide. it takes very little extra time to rope up and move together, or at very least to set a handline (both of which we did) to keep the inexperienced members of the group secure. there's more to the day out than pulling on vertical ice, and more to 'leadership' than just demonstrating steep ice techniques. like keeping inexperienced, unskilled people who don't know any better safe, for instance...