marc_leclerc

Looks like Bart Simpson jizzed on his face.... not to be mean.. but just saying...

Climb the Girth Pillar... it's a nicer line.

Yeah bro.. welcome to the show!

nicely done Jens and Sol..... that looks like a stellar free route.

Wierd things.... like what?! Now you gotta remember, I'm one of the craziest guys I know. Nowatleast I accept that I'm crazy, and I'll probably always be crazy! Gahahahhahahahhahaha! Perhaps yout jealous that you didn't get to have several crazy adventures.... man I love being me! Although sometimes it's well fun. The crazier it gets, the funner it gets! I am very jealous of your skillz Josh... I wish I climbed as hard as you...

My God.. I just read some of his TR's. I thought I sometimes did weird things in the mountains.. but never like THAT!!!!!!

I thought green was the original line but it probably isn't. Red is what we climbed to start.

Trip: Old Settler - Mars Western Variation & SW Butress Date: 7/18/2009 Trip Report: So my friend Lorne and I had been hoping to get up to Old Settler for a while now but things had never worked out quite right. We both had the weekend off but I had made plans to climb Yak Check with Tamara on Sunday so we planned to make a one day trip to the Setter and climb 'Mars Western', a classic 5.8 on the South Peak. I mentioned I wanted to leave early and Lorne made some joke about leaving at 4 AM... then I mentioned that wouldn't be so bad because we would be done the approach before it got too hot, so that became the plan. Lorne slept over Friday night and we got up at 3:45, left at 4:00 and reached a washout up Talc Creek FSR at about 5:30 after figuring out exactly where to go using a backroad map book. We moved quickly up the main road and eventually branched left up a spur road then hung a right at a marker onto a really overgrown road leading towards Daiphy Lake. At the end of the road I tried to remember Dru's approach beta he told me last year and found a great route up trees on the right side of the bowl. We reached the lake at 7:45, 2 hours and 15 minutes after leaving the car. A quick food stop then some talus hiking brought us to the start of the route by about 8:45 and we were climbing by 9:00. The 5.8 corner that begins the route was dripping water at the bottom so I put up a new varition start to the left. I led an amazing stemming corner just left of the original start then followed a big left trending dihedral until it became blocked by large overhangs. I made tricky moves around a corner to my right to reach a balancy right-trending ramp with sparse protection and ackward, technical face climbing. The last crux moves were "protected" by a small RP nut in a dubious seam, the peice before that was good but about 20 feet below and left of the nut, I was mildly nervous. I set up a belay on a large ledgeand brought Lorne up to me. We both enjoyed the new pitch and thought it went at about 5.10a R, some pins would make it a lot safer. From the ledge we started simul-climbing up 'Mars Western'. I led to the base of a steep dyke, then Lorne took over and led to a lardge ledge above the steep stuff. He actually pulled a flake off (only loose rock encounter on ther route) and slipped a few feet but caught himself on an edge... phew. From the ledge we packed up the rope and deviated from the route somewhat. We climbed upwards, trending left then finished up the last scrambling section on the SW Buttress. Ther route took us two hours and 45 minutes, about an hour was spent on the first pitch. After eating, chilling and making a couple phone calls we found the descent and scrambled down to the col between Old Settler and Mcnair. When we reached the area near the base of the route we decided that we still had lots of energy left, dropped the technical gear, put on rock shoes and started climbing the SW Buttress of the South Peak (just left of Mars Western) The rock was just as amazing as the first route and after an endless amount of awesome 4th class, with some 5th class deviations for fun... and a nice lunch break... we topped out for the second time at 3:45. After climbing the peak twice in the same day we decided that we were ready to leave this beautiful mountain. We downclimbed to the col for the second time, picked up our gear, then hiked out. We reached the car at 8:00 and I was home at 8:50, just in time to pick up Tamara from work. Overall both routes were great but MW seemed better as it was more sustained and had less big ledges that reduce exposure. The buttress was not as exposed and had long 3rd class bits between the 4th class and occasional 5th class sections... the rock is truly phenomenal on both routes. P.S: Tamara and I headed to Yak on Sunday and only got halfway up the route when a falling rock chopped my brand new rope 3 meters from the end. I stupidly forgot the knife to cut the end off to continue climbing... so we rapped the route It was still a fun day though and Tamara has a score to settle.. so I may take her up again soon! I will put up the pics tomorrow.... Gear Notes: Set of nuts from RP's to medium. 4 cams... some slings & biners. Approach Notes: Talc Creek FSR.... not bad 4WD

I've always wondered how many people don't realize that I am also 16... my partners always seem to forget my age, often asking if I can drive out to meet them or if I want to stop at the Pub. I never had a real 'mentor' bur I climb with a lot of very experienced climbers who I learn from a long the way... I think the closest thing to having a mentor was ice climbing with Don Serl, he more or less showed me how everything I was doing was wrong and how to (attempt to) do it right... Also, my little brother has highly functional autism and I know what its like to be around a person with the disability. He is 12 but acts about 9 and most of his friends are a couple years younger than him. He isn't stupid but he certainly doesnt have the same logic/sense that we do. He won't notice simple and dangerous things like heavy traffic. We have to keep a close eye on him so that he doesn't get hurt... sounds like Josh may be the same way and in that case hiking or easy scrambling may be a safer thing for him than technical climbing... just my 2 cents.

How did I miss this thread all this time?!?!? Josh - I'm 16, I have full time job and pay for what I want + rent... 16 is not too young to work. It sounds like you really want to hike/scramble, so don't be stupid and make people dislike you. I think its funny how you seem to have close calls over and over again.. do you not learn at least a little from each epic?

Nice Work! It's a beautiful route an a stunning peak. How did the approach glacier for the North Rib look? Any Pic? Was the rib dry? Did you notice if the East Pillar was dry either? Marc

Great Job Guys... nice looking route. In your little history of the needle I think you missed something, Zac Hoyt and Nick Elson did a route (FA?) in there a couple years ago.. I will get more info and post back to you... okay.. this is Nick's Quote about B-Needle : "23 days of bad weather! Alaskan hardman Zac Hoyt and I climbed to within 100 feet of the summit of Burkett Needle via the South Buttress (5.10+, A3+) before being turned back by a fierce storm." They didn't get an FA I guess.. Again, good work on your route!

There... I fixed it. now the music works.

Shit.... this sucks.

the subsequent bolting dropped the grade even more. retro-bolting faggots worthless as human ass seepage piece of shits....

I had Black Sabbath but they removed the sounds

Here's a little preview of a short vid I am making... We are working Nautilus, a V10 near Hope. I am the guy in blue... the vid contains no sends yet... [video:vimeo]5439545

You're just green with jealous rage!

Holy Shit I'm glad you got outta there alright... you better have carried a SPOT beacon... those are some scary rocks in the pictures...

[video:youtube]v=lu6KkiqHcl4 I love this! Great impression of Niel Young!!!

I didnt bring a rack, I free-soloed it. So I can'r really tell you...

How many of you wore helmets on your first leads? I was 10 on my first lead and I wasnt wearing a helmet!!! OMG!!!

Nope.....

Trip: Cheam Peak - North Face Date: 6/10/2009 Trip Report: After my grade 12 graduation this past weekend I wanted to kick off my summer by doing something big and committing and to do it solo. I look up at the North side of Cheam every day and I had noticed that the 1976 route on the North Face looked to be in nice condition, so I put that on my itenerary. Cheam Peak has some burly relief on the north side rising just about 7,000 ft from the highway to the summit, the first half of this gain in elevation is mostly steep, dense bush and the upper half is composed of a mixture of steep snowlopes cut by steep rock bands of crumbling choss.... perfect! I packed up my bag, bringing no rope, harness, or protection other than my ice tools. I threw in some food, 2 liters of water a sweater and some shell pants too. My parents forced me to carry crampons even though I knew I wouldn't need them.... I mean seriously, I'm graduated! I set me alarm for 5:15 AM and slept a few hours, then I had some breakfast got dressed and woke up my Dad to give me a ride over to the base of the mountain. He dropped me off on a powerline road branching off the Highway just East of Bridal Falls. I started hiking up at 6:00, hit the creek draining the face in a few minutes then reached the wooded ridge I would follow a few minutes later. I was hiking up a bear trail low on the approach when I ran into a big black bear. I the bear politely let me pass and I had no other encounters for the next two hours of thrashing up the ridge. At 8:00 I emerged from the forest onto the moraine and snowlopes below the North Face. I got my first real view of my objective then and was rather intimidated by the large steep face. I ate some food then hiked up the snow to the left of a large rocky outcrop then cut back right onto the knoll at the top of the outcrop. I started the technical climbing above the knoll at 9:00. I traversed some steep snow right of the knoll, then skirted around the bergshrund on some rocks to the left. I climbed up a short but terrifying rock step made up of crumbling, wet choss sprouting moss and grass. It was probably only about 5.4 but it was extremely dicey, especially the last 15 ft which was pretty near vertical. Above this I hit the long, right trending snow ramp leading to the NW ridge. This section was tiring and took a long time, I had to be careful not to slip and fall down the face but not linger too long and get hit by rocks falling from the summit. By the time I reached the upper NW ridge I was pretty tired of snow so I avoided the upper section of the ramp by climbing rocks to the right. The headwall was surprisingly easy but very exposed and the rock was awful. The last 200 ft to the summit was loose, exposed and steep, but 4th class gravel covered ramps led to the summit ridge and I topped out just west of the summit at 1:00. A few victory whoops later I was on the summit enoying some 'pop tarts' and cold water. I descended the west ridge then glissaded easy snow slopes into the bowl below the NW face and hiked a long ridge beside the drainage gully draining the NW face. The descent was quite fast and I reached the Highway at 4:00 PM, making this a 10 hour round trip... not bad. Overall the route was pretty loose and exposed but definitely worth doing once. For a grade like 5.4 and snow to 45 degrees it is quite serious. Definitely my biggest, most commiting solo yet. Pics: A long way to go... from the approach. Me and the North Face.. Objective Up the snow and rock bands, then around the corner onto the ridge. Looking down the NW ridge... I came up from behind the ridge. Looking west shortly before topping out. Self Timed shot of me on the Summit. Edited photo showing my route, I had much less snow, the rock crux isnt even exposed in this shot! Gear Notes: Ice ax... if you plan on using ropes and crap bring some LA pitons and runners and leave everything else at home. Approach Notes: Bushwack... lots of it.. unrelenting... look out for bears and wasps, I ran into both.

thats one of the funniest things Ive ever heard!