Don_Serl

donnie, Lillooet 1-2-3... *** check the various reports on this thread. *** check westcoastice.com. *** check weather at: http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/bc-28_metric_e.html *** check roads at: http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/weather/interior_region.asp (2wd is almost always fine, but you'd be in trouble without chains in a snowstorm.) (drive Hwy 1, not the Duffey Lk road, when it's snowing.) *** stay at the Mile O. *** drink at the Reynolds *** eat breakfast also at the Reynolds *** buy my guide... cheers,

Trip: Lillooet Ice January 12-13, 2007 - various Date: 1/12/2008 Trip Report: lotsa activity: a dozen people from the BCMC at the Rambles (good ice), Jia Condon and a 4-some ditto, 8 people with 3 leaders from the ACC at Marble Canyon sat and various routes sunday, plus assorted other parties. saturday was warmish but fine; sunday got dubiously warm out the bridge, but was still OK up the duffey. out the bridge: *** cedarvale is more hole than ice. *** the walrus avalanched onto a pair just as the second started up; fortunately he was on steep ice and the crap shot over him; a 2nd slide came down while the leader was downclimbing, so he abandonned gear and bailed for the ground as quickly as possible - a good lesson in the hazards of climbing a south-facing route after the sun comes out. if anyone is out that way in the next week or two, i'd hope they be kind enough to retrieve the gear and return it - contact me and i can arrange to get it 'back home'. *** i saw 3 people from washington walking up to Terzaghi falls on sat, but when we followed sunday it was much warmer, and (a) the bottom was gushed while (b) the upper sections dropped icicles, so we went away. *** there was a party on Salmon Stakes on sat. *** the warmth has cleaned off almost all of the ice on the rigth-hand mixed approach to Silk Degrees, which is gonna make it trickier to get on to. *** House of Cards is getting fatter. *** Like a Rocket is getting huge, and Millars Pillar is pretty fat too. *** still virtually no ice on Old Dogs, but Steristrip is probably climbable. *** there is a LOT of ice up on Jade, both right and left. *** i heard a party walked up to Xwisten Steps, found the bottom pitch unformed, detoured around it on the left, and found the next step similarly unformed. *** etc, etc... not much new to report on the Duffey: *** there was a car parked below Loose Lady Sunday. *** there've been several ascents of the Tube - it's wet but very workable. *** there's ice on Duffey's Delight, but sketchy looking. *** ice is fully down on Last Call - climb it while it's in! *** Three Ring Circus still looking good - ditto above! *** lotsa ice at the Rambles. *** Shreddie is pathetic. *** apparently Closet Secrets is in but sketchy. it was VERY warm Sunday, but cooling out again today (Monday), so the ice should not suffer. there are some photos up at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22355699@N05/ cheers, Approach Notes: crappy snow in the Bridge; still a crust

well, I did some checking, and the Kay-Zozykian line (red) marked on that photo is wrong. Bruce assures me they climbed the true NW face, much as marked by the purple line (later climbed by Brayshaw and Touche), which was my original understanding. their approach was via the gully immediately behind the foreground telephone pole (light blue) - there were 2 roped pitches in "steep jungle" somewhere in there - the rope stayed in the pack for the actual face. so, the layout is: green: main gully approach (best in trees to left) light blue: B-Z approach (winter) yellow: upper N ridge purple: NW face dark blue: summer West bowl (upper part probably climbed earlier via W'ern approach) red: unclimbed cheers,

there'll be about 10 people from the alpine club at Marble Canyon saturday, plus there's a BC Mtn Club party of about a dozen planning on climbing at the Rambles both sat and sun this w/e, so expect to be gregarious, or plan accordingly if you're looking for solitude. cheers,

btw, the SW BC avvy forecast is also on-line: http://www.avalanche.ca/default.aspx?DN=253,4,558,3,Documents&regionID=1 worth checking. climbers don't often get killed in these parts, but it'd be a heck of a way to miss high school graduation. cheers,

check out: http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=8&Number=127889&Searchpage=4&Main=9689&Words=cheam&topic=0&Search=true#Post127889 none other than messieur g spotter himself, 5 yrs ago. and, no, the crux is NOT just out of the trees... good luck later on. p.s. this turned up searching "cheam" in the subject in the BC forum; newer than 5 yrs... quite powerful, actually. hint, hint... cheers,

from Alan Formanek: I just wanted to let you know that the 11th Vancouver Int’l Mountain Film Festival is coming up on February 22 – March 1, 2008. We have a great program lined up with 15 local and international guest speakers, including climbers Steph Davis, Dean Potter, Jeff Lowe, Jeremy Frimer, Jacqui Hudson, skiers Greg Hill and Kari Medig, other speakers and our new VIMFF Earth Alive Series with films and presentation on sustainability and environment. Most of our guest speakers have been confirmed while the films are being selected these days. We have also redesigned and updated our website, www.vimff.org. Please mark your calendars and spread the word to the people on your list who may be interested in attending the festival. always a highlight of the year! cheers,

boy, what a good weekend! plenty of ice, not very many people. we came up a couple days later than dru and co, so hit marble canyon friday. TR'ed the unusual column which has formed on Dales Route - not super-hard, but not easy to get screws at all. then chipped our way up Deeping Wall on TR (still feeling a good deal less than totally confident) and climbed the 1st cpl pitches of Icy BC. upper tier looked OK, but light was fading, so we headed to Lillooet for beer, food, visiting, and bed. Drew's description of Silk Degrees sounded good, and it hardly ever forms even as well as it has this year (still incomplete), so we did the creek crossing in the cold early morning and tackled the route. the start is VERY delicate, and there's probably no gear at all that'll keep you off the ground till u get to the good nut under the roof about 20m up. the middle pitch is lovely undulating ice, and the upper column starts quite hard and slowly eases (great photo of steve pulling the crux in drew's report). we rapped once from a tree to the left (55m), then another 55m from the rim of the middle section to the ground (V-thread). back in town, we talked to jeff street and john (?) who had climbed 3 ring circus, and decided since (a) that route also seldom forms and (b) there was a track beaten in, we'd go there next day. took just under an hour to walk the road to the 7th switchback, and only 45 or 50 minutes to tramp down and around to the base of the route (you lose maybe 200 ft to the first gully, then probably another 200 ft to the route). graham won the draw, so got the 'money' pitch, which was pretty hard on the initial 10m column (probably 5-). i led the lower angled 60m 2nd tier, then we walked up a way and soloed a short step, then walked off right. there was a short (20m) rap to regain the base. ade and mark had climbed Jade, and the presence of another track appealed, but we decided to finish with carlsberg the 4th day before heading back to Vanc. there was a LOT of ice, but much of it was pretty wet too. I got the 1st section and belayed in the alcove at 40m. G moved right across some delicate terrain to reach steppy Gr 4 ice for the final 20m and to keep from bombing me. the drive down was casual, with fine weather, snow-free roads, and minimal traffic out fo Whistler. all-in-all, a fine start to the season. cheers,

nice routes on a very fine peak - I'm envious - but, no update for another decade or so... here's a photo showing their lines the NE ridge (left), Bottleneck couloir (thin, left of yellow Central buttress), and Hourglass couloir (centre) have also been done. approx 300m vertical gain schrund to crest in Hourglass. see Waddington Guide pps 125-126 and photo p138 bottom. cheers,

cc, i might give that a 'first recorded ascent'. but, gosh, what a bash to get to a scramble, eh? and no telling what might have happened 50 yrs ago or more... cheers,

...so unless you've booked a room already, you probably will have trouble finding accommodation if you're up there ice climbing this weekend. good luck, cheers,

hey, pet peeve of mine cuz I have to dig out info for guidebooks from time to time, so lemme urge everyone to put a real, plain English title on any photos that they submit to the gallery. a string of digits will not be very informative to anyone once the original linking forum topic is months or years buried. especially when there is no accompanying description. also, it'd be a treat to have even just one keyword - makes it easy to search stuff up; otherwise, the photos are kinda here today, gone tomorrow. p.s. this applies not just to ice climbing photos - it's just the season when lots of them are going up, so lots of uninformative titles are surfacing. tks, cheers,

I wish. the photo of the log is impressive, eh? imagine the flood that deposited that thing! you can see the trim-line on the creek bank, so obviously that's the high water mark. maybe drew cld make a guess at how many times the average freshet volume that would be, and how frequently the river would peak that high? cheers,

here's a sketch map of the location of the tree. drop straight down the scree from the start of the outside of the bend. the tree is upstream just a tad once u beat thru the forest to the creek. as jmace mentioned, cars have been ticketed and nearly towed when they were parked partway up the hill, so best is to park down the bottom - it's only 1km to walk. i used to think the north bank approach from the bridge was easier (u cld walk some on ice at the edge of the creek, and there was an ancient road beside the creek for a ways), but since the big slide i hear the debris-field is unpleasant. still, the tree crossing is not casual! cheers,

so, does that mean the 35,000 japanese tourists who watched you on the climb are NOT supposed to report this to the Japanese Alpine News? there are few secrets... cheers,

and don't forget to buy a guide - i gotta get my kids thru college, eh... cheers,

superbly appropriate name. good one, guys. cheers,

hey Matt, good going for all u guys. it may have remained unclimbed so long because it may snow-up later in the winter - u guys just happened along early enuf when it was 'free', and on a quite unique time when it was iced up early. I've stared up at various ice formations along this stretch quite a few times, and i don't recall having ever noticed 'the line' you guys got. now for a name... (p.s. "stairway to heaven" IS taken... and - not to diss anything, but just to keep it in perspective - that might be a BIT of a stretch for a somewhat modest route, in any case)) cheers,

surprisingly, Sumallo Bluffs stuff hasn't really come in much since Drew's pictures from a week ago. B-K would be minimally climbable, as are lower sections of Landmark (but not the crux curtain). Crunchy Frog is sporting quite a bit of ice, but big gaps too. Mess seems pretty dry... in the east end of the Fraser Valley, pretty much bugger all is climbable cuz of low altitude. interestingly, Medusa looked pretty good on the drive by on the way back towards town (heard the same from Adrian B earlier), but nothing else at Flood was 'in'. I heard Rambles Centre was fine. nice to have an early start - I can't remember the last time ice was 'in' in SWBC by Dec 10th!

well, i needed to be in town yesterday (saturday), so I missed my chance to join Drew, Graham, and Jesse on Brice - damn! so i decided to go take a drive to check out conditions today, and poked around the Hope area wasting time and gas. drove up to Sumallo Bluffs to confirm what's what too, and I think I've got the position of this route nailed (as confirmed by email with cheamclimber). the pullout for the B-K is at the 24km marker. it's about 500m further east to the vicinity of the Mess, then about another 500m to the 'BIG' snowgully that leads from the old cabins up to a red rock headwall. (this gully is bouldery, not very steep, and never carries any ice.) a further 500m east (i.e. 1.5km past the B-K), there are two gullies above a scree cone: the right gully is pretty much dry, and the left one (which angles up and left) is where this route lies. there is a parking area just beyond some trees (as described) beside the hwy pretty much right below the route (altho across the river, of course). there's a "carry chains" sign at the parking area, with a solar panel power unit on a pole. unmistakeable. the Sumallo Grove pulloff is 1km further east again, 0.3km east of the 26km marker. cheers,

Hi, posting this on behalf of a friend: This might not be the best place, but hope you can forgive me for bugging everybody. This August somebody at Kain Hut in the Bugaboos borrowed my blue BD tracer helmet, aluminum soft front/back bail crampons, and my "signature" cut off BD Raven axe (fits into the bullet pack, so about 30cm, with original tip mounted. Helmet is signed with my initials AJ on the inside...and has a light blue Edelweiss sticker on top of it. If you have these items please return them to me or the ACC clubhouse. janez.ales@gmail.com 403.678.4509 All three items have been with me on some great trips and I hope to get them back. Janez. if anybody has any info (or the gear) you know what to do... cheers,

avi, when u get to it, you'd best correct your subject line. MEC took all their POLYCARBONATE products (a.k.a. Lexan) off their shelves. there are plenty of other plastics available, including Nalgene PTFE waterbottles. cheers,

agreed, more or less. especially the comment about liner socks sagging/bagging and causing trouble. on the other hand, I like to wear boots fairly big for warmth, so a single sock doesn't fit snugly enough. SOOOO: my system for the past 3 or 4 years has been double pairs of Wigwam Merino Light Hikers. cheap, soft, durable, wearable for several days without 'foot-rot', and nearly devoid of synthetics - fishstick laid it out clear: "never wear a sock with 'max' in the name!" cheers,

a huge slide has obliterated a section of the road along Chehalis Lake: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=ae204ac7-ba52-4d89-b82c-943ffc19e184 presumably the road will be re-built thru the slide area, but I imagine that depends on how much logging is planned in the near future in the upper valley, if any. plus the stability of the debris-field will come into the decision. could be a long walk to the Chehalis group next summer. more news when available... cheers,

oh, sure! http://www.splatula.com/bfl/ have a nice... oops...