Lillooet 11-12/01

[fern]

I wonder if the bolts were iced over (obscured) all the way?

I think I'm headin' to Lillooet this weekend.

 

4 bolts were more-or-less clear on Sat. Things may change.

[rat]

"d.t." is worth doing. we found elephant ears and ice baubles plus some steep hero ice and frozen turf---two 100'+/- pitches and a 60 footer all separated by short snow slopes. it's an easy wade across the creek.

 

thanks for the info on "the gift".

[Don_Serl]

re: accident below synchronicity:

sounds like the slip took place on the hillside, not on the ice. this is not overly surprising, cuz there is seldom much snow around lillooet, but the hillsides are steep, open, and get solidly frozen and pretty sketchy!

i'll pass along a trick i use a lot when i'm climbing in the cayoosh and bridge: i wear an old pair of crampons to and from the climb. gives lots of security on slippy scree and frozen duff, plus useful on moderate creek ice, even with really dull points, provide you stamp. i think it takes less energy to get up to the routes too, cuz sometimes these a fair hump up from the valley.

not necessary with sufficient snow cover, but good when it's relatively bare...

cheers,

[Don_Serl]

*** to fill in a bit more on dru's report, i think the xwisten steps (pronounced something like "hhh-wish-ten", if i got that correctly from carl in the vic on saturday nite) will turn out to be a popular outing - when it's cold, at least. there aren't many places around lillooet where u can climb a LOT of pretty moderate ice. the problem may be that the hillside is sunny, so the "pitches" will be wet quite a bit. plus the climb is hidden, so you have to walk up to see if it's in...

 

the general locale is easy to place - 10km from the moha road junction, or about 4km from the bridge river bridge, there are 3 tight corners in succession - park at a gravel pit at the 2nd corner - there is a column visible on a face about 800m up the hillside, and the climb is hidden in the drainage left of this. just head uphill, keeping a bit left, eventually following outwash fans and then the creekbed. 45 mins to 1 hr to the 1st pitch.

 

we traversed climbers-right across about 3 gullies (several hundred metres) before descending. there are cliffbands below if you drop too soon.

 

*** sunday janez and i climbed the 2 steps 200m left (towards lillooet) from the tube. they were very poorly formed, with the 1st 8m column (25m pitch) accepting no pro whatsoever and the best pro on the second 12m column (30m pitch) being stringing half a dozen slings around the base of entire free-standing portion of the pillar about halfway up. pretty exciting.

 

there was no evidence of a prior ascent at either the obvious tree right of the 1st pitch, or the tree left of the top, but can't imagine this feature being unclimbed, altho it forms very infrequently (i watch...). john chilton's description for "duffey's delight" in CAJ'96 p85 is pretty close to matching what we did, altho the lower drainage was mostly barren snow, not cramponable.

 

anybody got any info?

 

*** climbed at upper right rambles monday - what a superb area! tons of possibilities. and i'll add my voice to ade's in saying that a few more bolts would be appreciated, and rap rings too - most people are going to either rap off the main dihedral after 30m (2 preplaced abalakovs), or fail on the bolted M7 above, then have to lower out.

 

also, there is only 1 bolt above the curtain just left of the main corner - what's THAT about? we climbed the curtain and the rib just to its left (both delicate 20m Gr5 pitches), and backed up the belay with a V-thread on some ice to the right of the bolt, but it wasn't the best set-up.

 

in these really popular areas, it'd be nice if people got in the habit of carrying rap rings (or chucker carabiners) too. the V-threads get worn out pretty quickly, and even 7mm or 8mm around trees gets trashed before season is over.

 

pray for cold - the ice'll take the warm weather for this week, but it needs to go cold again - this has been a great start - we don't want to lose it now!

 

p.s. if u do the rib mentioned above, take yellow and red TCUs to protect the exit. and pls climb delicately so as to not knock the whole effing thing down... and TR somewhere else...

 

cheers,

[Dru]

TR somewhere else...

yeehaw!!!

 

Not to quibble with your interpretation of the notorious Chilton misinformation but wouldn't it make more sense name-wise if The Tube and the Straw were located right next to each other, and Duffy's Delight is that thing down the road high up on the wall facing across to Synchrocirque? (ie if Duffy's Delight was what Lyle's ice map calls Duffy's Delight)

[Don_Serl]

dru,

 

quibble away! that's how errors/facts get sorted out.

 

i've re-read further, and i withdraw my suggestion that the steps we climbed were duffey's delight. what that leaves them (as far as earlier ascent history) remains uncertain.

 

if you believe john chilton's extensive report in CAJ'96 (and mostly i do), the route high up opposite synchronicity is 'mixing with mike'. e.g.:

*** "About 14km west of Lillooet, 500m up on the south side of the highway directly across from Synchronicity." [precisely correct; actually, the high point parking on the road is at 14.7km]

*** 1st pitch "a dagger", 40m Gr4+ (not in on 1st ascent, therefore the "mixing" comment...); 2nd pitch 40m Gr4; 3rd pitch 50m Gr3. [i've not had the pleasure of flailing all the way up to climb the route, but that fits exactly the view from the road.]

 

according to the same article, both 'the straw' and 'duffey's delight' are between synchronicity and loose lady, the former "a nice pillar 150m up the hillside" [35m Gr4] "about 15km west of Lillooet", the latter involving "crampons a few steps from the road", "200m of mostly low-angle ice", then "75m of WI3" and "50m... of WI4", lying "a kilometer past The Straw" [125m WI4].

 

lyle spent a bunch of time looking for these routes, and i've driven that stretch of road a few dozen times, always peering into every gully between loose lady and the 'mixing with mike' high point, all to no avail. as i hear it from lyle, johnnie's memories of the locations had understandably faded by the time he (lyle) was researching the map a decade after the routes were done.

 

i reckon the only way to end the mystery is to tramp at least 200m up every gully between loose lady and mixing with mike, which i guess i'm gonna have to do sometime this winter. oh, joy!

 

as for 'the tube', johnnie has it "just left of Wet Lady", which is absolutely correct if you consider 500m to be "just".

 

i'm afraid "wouldn't it make more sense" seldom works in guidebook situations... more's the pity...

 

p.s. now i REALLY want to hear from anyone who has climbed the steps left of the tube and/or anything in the 2km or 3km east of loose lady! ple-e-e-e-e-ase!

 

cheers,

[Dru]

but Mixing with Mike is said to be "hidden in the forest below 3 Ring Circus" IE nowhere near Duffy's Delight or The Tube....

 

let us not forget that CAJ 96 makes liberal use of the term "gully" to describe things like the bullock/Amelunxen...dripping down an open face. Deep Throat is a gully. Night N Gale is a gully. The B/A is nowhere remotely near being a gully.

 

Also all the distance description for the Darcy road are way off in Chilton's article so why wouldn't the description of how far mIxing with Mike is from lillooet be off too?

Edited January 14, 2004 by Dru

[Dru]

Ok wait a second here

 

i just confused mixing with mike, with lost boys, FA; same party.

 

Don you're right MwM must be what Lyle has as Duffy's

 

So if the thing left of Tube isn't Straw where are DD and Straw? Maybe you better get a heli flight recon set up.

[J_Fisher]

Where is Deep Throat?

[Dru]

Just south of Cinnamon Creek on the wrong side of the river...about 1.5km south of the Tube on the other side; obvious deep gully hard to miss.

[Don_Serl]

Ok wait a second here

 

i just confused mixing with mike, with lost boys, FA; same party.

 

Don you're right MwM must be what Lyle has as Duffy's

 

So if the thing left of Tube isn't Straw where are DD and Straw? Maybe you better get a heli flight recon set up.

 

yup, my question too: where are 'duffey's delight' and 'the straw'? somewhere between 'loose lady' and 'synchronicity', in gullies above the highway. well hidden, it seems!

 

deep throat is as drew describes: in the deep gully on the W side of the river, directly across from the sand depot, 21km from lillooet (seton river bridge) - cinnamon creek forestry rec site is 20km. 'the tube' is 500m N of that.

[i.e. about 19km from lillooet, depending on your odometer - i've measured it at 18.6km, 18.9km, 19.2km, and 19.7km at different times in different vehicles - lyle gives it as 19.3km on his map.]

 

btw, the only other errors that i've noted on lyle's map are that 'gung hai fat choi' and 'cutthroat' are reversed. GHFC is the part ice, part rock line in a recess about 300m-400m N of deep throat; CT is the system of drips that virtually never comes in on the overhanging wall 300m-400m S.

 

wish i cld afford a heliflight - probably quite a lot out there to discover... only lyle knows...

 

cheers,

[Dru]

calculate how many trips up different gullies you will need to make to investigate them all

 

calculate total cost of transport, food and lodging for those trips

 

now compare to cost of one heliflight

 

and make decision.

 

its probably still cheaper to spend 3 weekends hiking up ice-route-less gullies i betcha

[Ade]

Cheaper still to simply kidnap Lyle and not let him go until he gives it all up.

[Dru]

Lyle gives it up to wooden goats

[JayB]

calculate how many trips up different gullies you will need to make to investigate them all

 

calculate total cost of transport, food and lodging for those trips

 

now compare to cost of one heliflight

 

and make decision.

 

its probably still cheaper to spend 3 weekends hiking up ice-route-less gullies i betcha

 

Just bribe by promising people with free copies of the new guide, or better yet with promises to credit them with FAs of non-existent one-pitch lines with approaches so daunting that no one will bother to go for the second ascent. Better still, swear that you'll make the said imaginary lines at least WI6 and use the word "testpiece" a few times in the description and you will be overrun with volunteers to ready to swarm any gulley at your command.

[LYleK]

Quote: "Lyle gives it up to wooden goats"

 

Bivy.com made me take down my route description for this one This is Darcy at the crux

Edited January 14, 2004 by LYleK

[LYleK]

if you believe john chilton's extensive report in CAJ'96 (and mostly i do), the route high up opposite synchronicity is 'mixing with mike'. e.g.:

*** "About 14km west of Lillooet, 500m up on the south side of the highway directly across from Synchronicity." [precisely correct; actually, the high point parking on the road is at 14.7km]

*** 1st pitch "a dagger", 40m Gr4+ (not in on 1st ascent, therefore the "mixing" comment...); 2nd pitch 40m Gr4; 3rd pitch 50m Gr3. [i've not had the pleasure of flailing all the way up to climb the route, but that fits exactly the view from the road.]

 

according to the same article, both 'the straw' and 'duffey's delight' are between synchronicity and loose lady, the former "a nice pillar 150m up the hillside" [35m Gr4] "about 15km west of Lillooet", the latter involving "crampons a few steps from the road", "200m of mostly low-angle ice", then "75m of WI3" and "50m... of WI4", lying "a kilometer past The Straw" [125m WI4].

 

lyle spent a bunch of time looking for these routes, and i've driven that stretch of road a few dozen times, always peering into every gully between loose lady and the 'mixing with mike' high point, all to no avail. as i hear it from lyle, johnnie's memories of the locations had understandably faded by the time he (lyle) was researching the map a decade after the routes were done.

 

 

This all seemed like a bit of a clusterf*%k to me when I was doing research two years ago, too. The approach descriptions were just too vague and nothing was apparent from the road, John would be the one to kidnap for the roadtrip.

 

After discussions with John I was pretty much convinced that the route opposite Synch was not MWM, as he made it sound like it was more "above the bridge" and not visible from the road. And his approach description to me put it over on the other side of the ridge, ie. towards the bridge facing NE. And it sounded way more "mixed" than I've ever seen the route in question, so this is why I guessed with DD. I don't know why but I'd always thought that you (don) and Robert N. had made the slog up to that pillar opposite Synch, weird.

 

As for The Straw, maybe it's The Tube? And the route you climbed recently was Duffey's Delight? And yes, a tramp in the woods is probably in order. Thanks for the beta on the other routes, I'll get them switched.

 

As for hidden gems, Don and Dru are doing a fine job sniffin' out the lines, there's still lots to do around Lillooet.

Edited January 14, 2004 by LYleK

[Dru]

 

this makes Bob and his sheep look tame. I figured Robin Tivy had flipped out over it and that was why I couldn't find it on biv

[Dru]

This is Don leading p2 of the Xwisten Steps (crux) note how wet he is

 

[layton]