adrianburke

Thanks D - I have the New Climbs list posted up on www.westcoastice.com now (in the new blog format). Is there a quick way for you to verify it's 4.1? Cheers, Adrian

Thanks D, I have www.westcoastice.com re-routing to the new blog format now, so you can get to it via both www.westcoastice.com and westcoastice.wordpress.com Cheers, Adrian

I've been getting quite a few reports on the Duffey, Marble, and the Bridge River. I've posted them all (plus some nice pics) to my 2005-2006 Conditions page. Check out http://www.westcoastice.com/Page60.aspx for the latest reports. Adrian (Westcoastice.com webmaster)

Hi All, I have gotten a bunch of reports over the weekend and posted them to www.westcoastice.com The current conditions page for 05/06 is at http://www.westcoastice.com/Page60.aspx I spliced in a bunch of reports from here on cc.com as well as some that were emailed to me directly. Enjoy.... Adrian

Hi All. As many of you know, I've been posting regular conditions reports on www.westcoastice.com In the last few weeks, I have been getting a ton of New Routes reports - and have copied some in from cascadeclimbers.com as well. Right now they live on my Current Conditions page - http://www.westcoastice.com/Page13.aspx Eventually, I will go through Don's new guidebook and delete any duplicates from my "New Routes" page post-WCI2. If you've done a new route in BC and don't see it on my Current Conditions or New Routes pages, send me a report and I will make sure it gets there - adrianburke23@yahoo.com That way the ice climbing community can have a single online (and Don Serl-sanctioned!) new route resource... one that you don't have to search for hours to find info. Cheers, Adrian

You already know mine! http://www.westcoastice.com/Page13.aspx I have both Current Conditions and a New Ice Climbs page - though all those New Climbs will appear in Don's new guidebook when it hits the shelves. Cheers, Adrian

Yeah.... I have to fix that - the login page is not for registering. I have to tweak the site so that page does not come up. The software is just being uncooperative. Adrian

I posted a report and some pictures from Cayoosh Creek/ Duffey Lake Road: http://www.westcoastice.com/Page13.aspx Cheers, Adrian

Did anyone go up to Lillooet this weekend? Sounds like it was cold enough for some ice to finally start solidifying: http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/cities/can/Pages/CABC0172.htm If you were, send me a report at adrianburke23@yahoo.com and I will post it on www.westcoastice.com Cheers, Adrian

Hi All. I have started up the BC Ice Climbing Report and conditions page again this year. Email me at adrianburke23@yahoo.com if you have any news of ice.... I will post your conditions updates on the Ice Report's new home -- www.westcoastice.com As many of you will know, the BC Ice Report has lived on the Climbers' Access Society of BC (CASBC) website since 1997. Since those pages were improved and updated over the summer of 2004 (now www.access-society.ca), it was decided that the Ice Report should no longer exist as a subset of the CASBC website.... so I took it upon myself to give the reports their own home. Content and updates depend on you in the local ice climbing community, so if you would like these pages continue, please send me your ice reports, trip reports, etc. The site is a work in progress and I hope to add more trip reports, new ice climbs (I will remove redundant new climb reports once Don Serl's new guide is out!) and pictures over the next few months. Send me anything you'd like to see on the site. Cheers, Adrian PS The name "West Coast Ice" is, in my opinion, Don Serl's property, since he created that name for his guidebook (inc. the soon to be released second edition). He will own the URL as well, and I will be posting reports to that URL with his permission.

True that! We commented on the at least 100 cars along the E. Harrison FSR and the piles of garbage everywhere. Deee-sguting! It would be a totally nice beach - except for the damn humans. Adrian "Hell is other people" - Sartre

Dru and snoboy are right.... we went N-S, reversing the typical traverse direction. Adrian

Wow... that does look way easier than our way. Like you said - sticking further left would have put us where I saw the ledges once we were down. Cheers, Adrian

Dru... once we were down at the col, we could see 3rd class ledges on the East side of the peak. It did seem that we could have gone off the East side right at the top and not had to rap, but once we started rapping we were committed. There were rap slings, so we couldn't have been the first.... not that it's always smart to follow other people's leads! Adrian

Don and Dru - we brought bikes the first time we tried this and they were great on the way out - but on the way in they sucked. I think that the overall energy expended was less by walking. I am not a very experienced mountain biker, and found the road too steep to ride. We walked the bikes most of the way - which took too much work. So this second time we opted to walk it all and it seemed like less energy all around. A little longer without that fast ride out, but.... We left at 5:45AM from the truck (slept at the start Friday night), at the base of the rock by noon and on the top shortly before 3PM. The descent took awhile - we basically reversed the South to North traverse described in the guide - steep 3rd class to some rap slings, an overhanging rap, then a second (would have been one 55m rap with two ropes). Then scrambled to the col and down the scree to the lake (pain in the ass!). We got back to the car at 10PM, but we hung around the lake for an hour or more recovering from the heat. Long day all around - I am doing more and more of these 16-18 hour days and for some reason thinking I want to do more. Anyway... cool suggestion Don - great fun on that cool gabbro rock... Adrian

Climb: South Peak of Old Settler-West Buttress Date of Climb: 8/14/2004 Trip Report: Ticked one off the list on Saturday. Lee and I went in to Old Settler and climbed the West Buttress of the South Peak. Don Serl first put us on to this one with his Best 6 of BC list. We had gone in a few weeks earlier, but had brought the wrong map and ended up taking a wrong turn 5 km in. Now we were back to finish the job. The approach and map in Alpine Select is an approximation at best. If your going in, do yourself a favor and print out the FSRs on the BC Basemap Viewer - it has every last road on it and makes the approach unmistakeable. The Talc Creek bridge is out so we had to hike the whole road in. 9.5 kms into the beginning of the "trail". The turn off after 5km is heavily overgrown with Alder, as you can see in this pic on the way out: The "trail" is pretty much a bushwack with some flagging, followed by a very steep, dirt climb through the trees reminiscent of the last bit of the approach to Habrich. It doesn't seem like very many people have been up there since the bridge went out in 2003 - we had to blast our own trail. Lake Daiphy is a nice place to stop. Would even be a good place to bivy if you decided that 21 kms of hiking, 2 hours of bushwacking and 2000 feet of climbing and descent were too much for one day. To help our in a day strategy, we only brought one lieter of water each -- plus the Sweetwater water filter. That was a great idea, as we ended up drinking about 7 liters apiece over the day in the 30+C heat. There were plenty of streams plus the lake on the way in. The 1 liter each on the climb was a little light - next time I would bring 2 each. The West Buttress runs up the left edge of the dark red rock of the South Peak. This rock is very solid - about as solid as Squamish granite - but with great friction like Red Rocks sandstone. Really fun rock to climb on, even at the 4th, low-5th level. We ended up climbing two pitches of solid 5th to start, but probably started too far right. Once back on the right path on the left edge of the buttress, the vast majority of the climbing was 3rd and 4th with occasional 5th steps. Time to simul climb! It took us under 3 hours to get to the summit. Doing the correct 4th class pitches at the beginning probably would bring it down to 2 hours of simlul'ing. Here's a shot looking up at the last few hundred feet of simuling to the summit: For the descent, we scrambled and rapped (two 30m raps) down the South side. Kinda of a gnarly descent after such fun climbing, with lots of loose scree, boulder hopping and generally knee knackering stuff. All in all it was a good climb - I can agree with Don that it is the best 4th class/low 5th climb I have been on in BC. The rock is very solid and frictiony and good fun. The approach on the other hand was a bit long for a couple of hours worth of climbing. The blisters on my feet still hurt. Think we'll wait for the bridge to be repaired before heading back for any other Old Settler routes. Fun in Harrison: Cheers! Adrian Gear Notes: single 8.8 rope nuts, 6 micro to small cams water filter (Sweetwater) Lots of PowerGel Approach Notes: Talc Creek Bridge is out 9.5 km walk on FSR 1 hour bushwack up to Daiphy Lake 30 mins Scree climb to base

And print outs from the BC Basemap Viewer map show every last FSR back there. That will help! http://maps.gov.bc.ca/imf406/imf.jsp?site=lrdw_catalog_ext Thanks for pointing that out! Adrian

Feel stupid admiting this, but..... We actually DID mountain bike in way back when I first started this thread. Started from the gate at 8AM or so. We ended up dropping the bikes off after 6KM, THEN discovered we had photocopied the approach map to the Andersons (page AFTER the Settler approach in Alpine Select). Then hiking another 6km, but up a wrong turn left on the way. Ended up high on the ridge, too early for Settler. Tried a few more roads, but soon got sick of wandering aimlessly on FSRs and went home. So I already feel like I had that great dusty, hot walk in, but without actually getting on any rock. The bitch of it is we would have gotten there (now that I look at the map) if we had kept going on the last "aimless road" we tried right before giving up. We did get to see bears up close on 4 separate occasions that day - including scaring the crap out of one 20 feet from us. Bear bells might have been a good idea. Adrian

Hi All... Another update on the Old Settler approach. I called Lakeside this morning. They do not expect the bridge to be put back in until the end of August. At that point, they will be sending in the heavy machinery to repair the road, as far up as 6 to 7km from the bridge. They plan on resuming logging up there. Road repair might not be done until end of Sept? So either accept a long hike in or wait until late Sept. Adrian

Thanks jmace.... I edited my pic post and added the shots. Adrian

We just did the Traverse last Sunday (see the TR). The two snow bypasses skip a bunch of gendarmes. Climbing the rock would add a lot of time and effort. In our TR, I mention that we did actually climb rock for the second half of the first traverse - skipping a bit of the steep snow. What I forgot to mention in the description is that the second belay on those "extra 3 rock pitches" was total crap. Basically a rising gully slotted full of loose dinner plates. I had gear in, but no confidence in any of the rock within 10 meters of me. As long as you are confident on the snow, it is easier and probably safer. We didn't have pickets, but they might make you feel better - the snow was pretty soft, so I am not sure they would hold, but the psychological pro might get you across.... Adrian

I am not getting how to post my pictures into the TR itself. I put them in the gallery - EDIT - Thanks jmace! Here are the pics... Traverse from the approach - Torment on the far left - Forbidden on the far right: Bivy in Boston Basin, below Sahale: Lee on approach to Torment across Taboo Glacier (climbed South Ridge from the lowest notch on the left - summit is the left of the two): Traverse from the Summit of Torment: Lee rappeling into the moat at the beginning of the first snow bypass: Second Snow Bypass: Best part of the Traverse - the second half - with Forbidden at the end (and Mount Buckner in the distance on the right): Adrian

Climb: Boston Basin Area-Torment-Forbidden Traverse Date of Climb: 7/25/2004 Trip Report: My climbing partner (Lee) and I set out to spend four days starting last weekend in Boston Basin and climb some of the gems of the North Cascades. Our primary target was the Torment-Forbidden traverse. I had climbed the East Ridge Direct of Forbidden last year (16 hrs car-to-car) with my pal Ura and thought the Traverse looked like a great next “to do” on the checklist. Moderate alpine climbing along a very long ridge. In our usual “eyes bigger than our stomachs” attitude, we figured we’d hit the Traverse first, then follow up with Mount Buckner and/or Sahale and the Shark’s Fin. Lee and I hiked up to Boston Basin early Saturday morning, trying to beat the heat of the day up to base camp. The hike was easier than I remember it being, though traversing the fallen trees/avalanche debris zone was still a pain in the ass. At least we weren’t doing it in the pitch dark this time! Got to Boston Basin camp in about 4 hours and spent a leisurely afternoon sunning, reading and swatting the continuous swarms of blue bottle flies. Ahhh… the joys of summer in the alpine. Got up at 4:45AM on Sunday with a target of doing the Traverse in a day. Surprised a deer in the middle of camp in the dark – not sure who was more surprised to see the other! Oatmeal for breakfast before sunrise and started hiking West to the Taboo Glacier at 5:15, getting to the base of the South Ridge of Torment at 7AM. The South Ridge was definitely not the best part of the climbing. Inconsistent, scruffy and uninteresting – but it gets you to the start of the good stuff anyways. We had met some Mountain Madness climbers who had rapped the Southeast Face of Torment and thought that that might be a more interesting 5.7ish way to get up Torment…. YMMV. Finally made our way to the top of Torment, with some minor route finding issues at about 9:45. Tons of loose rock on the gully up to the summit. We made our way from there to the beginning of the Traverse – an interesting rappel into a berschrund/moat on the North side of the ridge for the first snow bypass section. A committing step – reversing the moat would be tough to do, though not impossible. We made our way about halfway across the snow, then for various reasons to do with moats and crevasses, climbed a 40 meter pitch straight back up onto the rock ridge. If I had seen the pictures in the previous post… http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=373391 …we would have understood that we needed to go all the way to the end of the snow before heading up onto the rock. As it was, we added three pitches of rock on the South side of the ridge that led us to about the same place – the second snow bypass. As is the case in a lot of alpine climbs – there are many ways to get from A to B – we just added more time and effort and saw an entirely different side of the Traverse than most, but… it worked. The second snow bypass was much more interesting. About 50 degree snow and what the picture doesn’t show -- a very long runout across rocks and crevasses to the base of the glacier a couple thousand feet below. Reasonably easy to traverse with crampons and an alpine ax, but worth being cautious with no pro to speak of. The end of the second snow bypass puts us close to halfway across the Traverse. But by that time we had burned 2/3 or our time – it was nearing 4:00PM – thanks to all the rappelling, route finding issues, crampons on and off three times, etc. Thankfully the rest of the ridge went much more quickly. The second half of the Traverse is the reason to climb it, IMHO. Pitch after pitch after pitch of moderate, reasonably solid granite. Great exposure, beautiful views and fun climbing. Like the easier portions of the East Ridge Direct, but for endless pitches of climbing. The type of climbing that makes you grin compulsively. Longer than expected though… every time we topped a gendarme or tower, we thought we’d be near the base of Forbidden’s West Ridge, only to discover we still had many pitches to go. We simul’ed a lot of the climbing, but I estimated about 32 pitches if you pitched it all out, from the base of Torment’s South Ridge to the base of Forbidden’s West Ridge (inc. the side trip to the summit of Torment). By the time we got to the top of the approach/descent gully at the base of the West Ridge of Forbidden, it was already 8:30PM. We debated bivying and doing the final 6 or 8 pitches in the morning, but in the end decided to simply descend back to Boston Basin. We were pretty exhausted at that point. Maybe we’d get up and do the West Ridge in the morning? Maybe not? Too bad too… as the West Ridge looked like even more of the same great climbing we had spent the last 4.5 hours on. Rappelled and down climbed the West Ridge snow gully and got back to our sleeping bags shortly after 11:00 PM. Descending the gully, glacier and rock bands right above camp was not the most straight-forward thing to do in the dark, never having been up them before. But, like I said earlier, there are multiple ways to get from A to B and we managed to find one of them. Slept in the next morning and quickly realized that neither of us were particularly in any shape to slog our way 3 hours back to the base of the West Ridge, climb it and descend again. Screaming quads made it uncomfortable enough to wander over to filter water, never mind have another full day of climbing. Clearly we need more endurance training!! J In the end, we left the West Ridge itself for another day…. So the Traverse is only 90% complete for us. And there was no way we were going to tack Buckner onto this trip!! J One Lesson Learned: The Torment-Forbidden Traverse is given a Grade IV+ rating for a reason. It is a very long climb. Without good route-finding skills, some luck and quite a bit of simul-climbing, you may want to plan for a bivy. Second Lesson Learned: We only got a Boston Basin backcountry pass by sheer luck – someone was returning theirs right when we walked in to the Ranger Station Friday night. The last of the daily 6 group passes had all been given out very early on Friday. Maybe plan your trip to get there Thursday night? Otherwise, use the Torment Basin approach, which is steeper. Gear Notes: Light packs, crampons, alpine axe, leather boots, rock shoes, single 8.8 mm rope, light rack (7 cams, one set of nuts).

Thanks for the tip. I will send Don an email. I've done a lot of harder alpine routes - the only pitch I was really concerned with on the Pup was the "offwidth 10a" pitch - have you been on it? Adrian

Thanks Dru... the correct number was on page 15, not 13 as the description of the climb said. Lakeside --> 604-793-9340. I spoke to the Engineering Dept at Lakeside. The bridge over Talc Creek is still out. They are not planning on repairing the bridge until August -- which is apparently when the "fish window" is -- at least they are being environmentally conscious. As I understand it, walking from the Talc Creek bridge would add 5km each way to where one would normally park a 4wd-hc vehicle. Making the approach to Daiphy Lake 4 hours instead of 2. Maybe we'll do Harvey's Pub instead. Adrian