Ed_Seedhouse Posted October 12, 2003 Share Posted October 12, 2003 (edited) Climbers from Victoria B.C. spent a week at this area (near Zeballos Vancouver Island) in August, completing one route and extending another. Also several ascents of Wapiti Mainline (5.11) on "Dale Earnhardt Dome". The "Wapitit Valley" is an unofficial name for a side valley of the Nomash River Valley accross from Mt. Rugged. The dome is visible from high on Ruged as a 400 meter sweep of clean granite slabs. I have posted some pics in the Canada secion on this website and you can also see more at my personal website at http://members.shaw.ca/eseedhouse/ and http://members.shaw.ca/eseedhouse/wapiti.html I'd have loved to insert a picture in this article but can't figure out how to do that! The routes on the dome so far are "Wapiti Mainline", 14 pitches and 5.11a (but you can aid the hard pitch), which was completed last year, "Taledaga Highbanks" and "Full Throttle". "Taledega" was completed to the summit this year and the rating is somewhere up in the 5.11's. The final push by Ryan Fisher, Carla Bortoletto, and Dave LePard involved a bivouack but it should go in a day fairly easily once a little more cleaning has been done on the top piches. Grade III or IV in other words and probably III. "Full Throttle" does not go to the summit yet. I think about 10 pitches have been pushed. All routes are bolt protected (placed on the lead) with a tiny bit of trad pro on some. Mainlne has one nut placement to protect an overlap on pitch two. My GPS says the start of the Mainline route is at N49 deg. 59 min. 27.5 sec. and W -126 deg. 43 min. 40.4 sec. Altitude 657 meters. Access is via the Nomash Main logging road. Take a right at the side road at just about exactly 50 deg. and follow this spur until it forks at 50-0-7.8 and -126 42 38.9, roughly 300 meters altitude. Camp is here and you can get there in a two wheel drive vehicle. Follow the left fork for about 3.5 kilometers with an altitude gain of about 300 meters. From the end of the logging road a trail goes up and accross the creek to the base of the slabs. Descent is via rappel to the top of pitch 6 of Mainline, then over to the descent slabs and a long walk down over low angle bushy slab to a 40 foot rappel off an overhang, then a nasty bush scrambel down the edge of the slab and back to the base. Edited October 12, 2003 by Ed_Seedhouse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jordop Posted October 12, 2003 Share Posted October 12, 2003 Right on! 14 pitches is worth a trip in itself from Vancouver Anybody over there working on, or checked out that east face of Colwell? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_Seedhouse Posted October 12, 2003 Author Share Posted October 12, 2003 (edited) jordop said: Right on! 14 pitches is worth a trip in itself from Vancouver Anybody over there working on, or checked out that east face of Colwell? Not that I know of, but there a lot of climbers in Victoria and the Island in general. There is a huge potential for climbing in the whole area around Rugged. On the W side of the Nomash river there is a lot of granite and, besides the dome, there are whole valleys with big granite cliffs that haven't even been visited yet. Also there is huge potential in the Haihte range in general if you like mountaineering. There's a big face just north of Rugged that hasn't yet, so far as I know, even been approached. Ed Seedhouse Edited October 12, 2003 by Ed_Seedhouse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_Seedhouse Posted October 12, 2003 Author Share Posted October 12, 2003 OK, this is my attempt to put a picture of the dome in this forum. Heere goes..... That's me approaching the top of pitch 7 on Wapiti Mainline. And here's the dome.... And here's a view from high on Mount Rugged: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
layton Posted October 12, 2003 Share Posted October 12, 2003 Thanks Ed! This is exactly what this site should be for (besides making people feel bad about themselves ), looks amazing. Way to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
layton Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 BTW, nice harness! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_Seedhouse Posted October 13, 2003 Author Share Posted October 13, 2003 Well, you really can't see the harness. By the way it's a red Troll made Whillans sit harness. Can you tell I don't climb much these days Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Off_White Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 Ed_Seedhouse said: By the way it's a red Troll made Whillans sit harness. I've got one of those, but I only use it for work these days, or as a loaner. That looks like a great area, thanks for the info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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