northvanclimber

My buddy and I were just up there the last couple days. I'd say you'd want a vehicle with decent clearance for the drive it as there are some pretty good water bars along the way... But for what it's worth, my forester got right up to the trailhead no prob. Was cold last night. probably lows around 2 celcius at the memorial.

was on honeyman falls last weekend. right side was good! didn't go all the way to the top as the gusher up high was sending out quite the spray. hit rambles right too and everything was fairly thin and/or small, but you could definitely get on stuff. we often stay at the mile-O. it's okay...

Lol, the foreshortening is quite deceiving in the photo. the mushrooms (especially on the right) were freaking huge and very challenging to get through with discontinuous and chandeliered ice everywhere. I bailed halfway up...

+1 Here's what it looked like when I was there in late 2010:

i've stopped going on the long weekends. just too busy. any other time in spring or fall is great though. but, warning to our american drivers, gas is around 1.40/litre around here. I think that works out to over 5/gallon... and that's in canadian dollars. so, i think it works out to about 12 bucks american

Not closed up by any means! New parking lot (note that the directions are different now), you don't have to pay anymore, and for better or worse, the new approach is shorter and has almost no elevation gain! get 'er done!

no argument here

nice work dude. nice to see that some people are still willing to go have an adventure.

munters definately have their time and place (like after you've lost/dropped your ATC). Twice now i've had partners either drop their device or just discover it's missing right before starting a series of raps. I learned to multi-pitch using a munter and while it works just fine, the convenience of an autoblocker can't be beat. speacking of which, I really like my BD guide. but then again i typically use either a 9.8 or half ropes and so like the extra friction. my old reverso developed a knife like edge on the top after a couple years of wear. scary...

many areas along the duffy lake seem remarkably dry this year. anybody able to speculate why? seems odd since it's been reasonably cold and (compared to last year, where the fall was very dry) I presume there would have been plenty of water available for freezing up. the upper tier of rambles center was bone dry the other day when i went up there...

the rates at the mile-o have gone up: 75/night with climbers discount i believe. still a bit cheaper than other places...

did the climb on thursday and i'd say the first pitch was a 5.9 that feels like a 10a. The crux moves come early in the pitch when you're still a little sleepy and haven't had a chance to really warm up. At least the new rating will give climbers a heads up that the first pitch will require some effort, which you might not be expecting from a 5.8...... at least it protects well!

The approach across the glacier to the bottom of the climb can get pretty chewed up by September. I've done it in both July and August and early/mid july was certainly easier, especically under the darkness of night.

yeah, 99% of the time this is exactly how things progress, so as the second you can pretty much guess with good confidence what the leader is doing. still only a guess, but what else are you gonna do, wait for a sign from god?

So what's up with the Sleese Creek Road these days. Your TR says that it was locked at Chilliwack road. does anyone know if its permanently locked these days to keep out the riff raff or can you get a key??

Great TR and pics!

Thanks... Certainly got a work out slogging up the hillside. On the plus side it was a great day to be out and we still managed to get a nice afternoon of climbing in at Hell Creek. We didn't go all the way down to Nite n gale, but we did notice that Old Dogs, New picks was non-existent, and Jade falls looked OK, but perhaps a bit smaller than when we did it a couple years ago. Drove by IcyBC on our way to Oregon Jack on Sunday and all three tiers looked sweet. It's certainly been cold up there (it was -11 in town when we woke up saturday) and i would presume a lot of climbs are in right now. Hopefully it'll stay that way for a bit longer. Heading up what we thought was the Capricorn drainage. Rock wall looming above... Hell Creek Falls area: Nice photos of Suicide Bluffs! Think I'll have to go check out that tyrolean sometime...

A couple weeks ago I also saw the large flow of Capricorn from the road and made a mental note to come back and climb it sometime. So this last Saturday I went back with a buddy to go climb it and started up the approach in the early light. The approach looked pretty straight forward from the road, and we made our way through some fresh snow up the treed area to the left of Plan b, occasionally seeing some blue flagging. We then headed further left (and passed a little ways underneath Like a Rocket) and entered a distinct gully that (aside from forcing us to wade through waist deep powder) contained a couple short WI2/2+ steps. Thinking we were almost at the climb, we were suddenly faced with an impassible 30-odd foot rock wall at the top of the gully. The guidebook mentioned overcoming a short WI3 step, but this had no ice on it. we tried going around it, but with more rock on the right and very steep forest on the left we evenutally gave up, unsure if we'd gone up the wrong gully, or if the WI3 step that the guidebook mentions had simply not formed up or if the afternoon sun would send all the fresh snow down on us in some massive avalanche. Any one else done the Capricorn approach? Any of this sound familiar? Would like to head back up there sometime so any advice is appreciated. Ended up hiking out and going into the Hell Creek area. Was good fun.

i like how in the opening sequence for their reality show they go out of their way to say that they don't approve of their children watching much tv. can you say hypocrisy???

Thanks for posting the conditions on the Grim Reaper. Went up yesterday to go climb it and it was great! The climb is still in good condition, but a little drippy in spots. As Don mentioned, the climbs on the right wall have mostly rotted out and began crashing down as soon as the sun hit them.

Cool, this is exactly the kind of info i was looking for. thanks everyone!

This topic seems to come up every year, but out of curiosity, how've people been getting over to synchronicity these days? Last year people reported that the log crossing was gone but with the low snow pack this year, the alternate approach via the scree slopes on the north bank of the cayoosh doesn't seem appealing. Is it possible to wade the creek where the log bridge use to be? Ideas? Cheers.

lol.. okay point taken just tryin to emphasize that not having a reservation doesn't mean you have to hope that someone else doesn't show up so you can get on. that happens sometimes, but from my experience, mainly on long weekends. if you've got a laptop and internet access you can see how full the ferries are on their website too. k, i'm done, almost time for Lost.

you're not on "stand by" and don't need a reservation if it's not a busy sailing. if the boat's not full and you show up while they're still loading, you'll get on. that being said, if it's busy a reservation is nice peace of mind and pretty much mandatory on long weekends.

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