The Wapiti Valley and Dale Earnhardt Dome

[Ed_Seedhouse]

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

[jordop]

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?

[Ed_Seedhouse]

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

[Ed_Seedhouse]

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:

 

[layton]

Thanks Ed!

This is exactly what this site should be for (besides making people feel bad about themselves ), looks amazing. Way to go.

[layton]

BTW, nice harness!

[Ed_Seedhouse]

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

[Off_White]

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.