PaulB Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 Went into Phair Creek on Saturday to check things out. It's Only Phair was the fattest of the bunch, and A Phair Well To Arms looked pretty good from the road. Phair Game was pretty thin, but probably climbable by the bold. Everything else was marginal or almost non-existent. Didn't actually climb anything, but it was a good exploratory trip. On Sunday we ended up doing the approach pitches to Loose Lady, which are in great shape. Loose Lady itself has huge mushrooms for the first pitch, and then about 50' of vertical column to finish.... very impressive. Two guys from Seattle had just finished climbing it when we got into the upper bowl. Full TR and some pics coming shortly. The story of our Friday night in Lillooet and our journey into Phair Creek is worth telling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don_Serl Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 paul, so how was the driving on the phair creek access road? icy sections? chains req'd? or warm enuf to get away without? as for further conditions, dana lindahl and i drove the duffey to lillooet saturday 'scoping', decided it was too warm to bother staying, so drove all the way back. as for the scoping, we bashed up into likely gullies, but the whereabouts of 'the straw' and 'duffey's delight' remain mysteries. they for sure are NOT where the CAJ'96 description places them! *** we spoke to kai and geoff as they finished a day at the rambles with a group - apparently not too bad for wetness. *** from the road, the thin ice at the upper rambles looked melted out. *** shreddie is still there. *** carlsberg has been running; a few holes, and a cpl dirty spews where water has broken thru. dubious... *** the tube looked OK. *** lotsa ice on loose lady - wet, i imagine. *** tres burly fell down. *** synchronicity getting a bit eroded high up, but OK. *** all the whistler/pemberton ice is GONE! lotsa rain... i heard marble was quite wet. 1st pitch icy BC a vertical stream, 2nd pitch fat... top tier better than lower... night n' gale got climbed: not much snow on the approach (which makes it a bit of a slip-fest), but the ice was reasonably dry and in good shape. cooling some for the weekend, but no cold snap. cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulB Posted January 20, 2004 Author Share Posted January 20, 2004 so how was the driving on the phair creek access road? icy sections? chains req'd? or warm enuf to get away without? We got to 4.5km on the Enterprise Creek Road (chains for one short icy section), where the road to Phair Creek branches off. From there we skied/snowshoed/hiked the rest of the way. Someone with a lot of faith in their 4x4 skills (and chains on all wheels) could probably have driven all the way to the gate (which was unlocked). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J_Fisher Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 That was us on Loose Lady on Sunday. It actually wasn't all that wet--only a little dribble on the right side of the upper pillar which was easy to avoid. The mushroom stuff on P1 of the pillar was more scary than hard. The shrums are pretty rotten and the thin ice to the right side was pretty detached from the rock. The upper pillar was more straightforward, if strenous. Steep, sustained and pretty featureless chandeliers. On Saturday we thrashed up Copper Creek looking for Red Wall Wanderer. After 3 hours of grovelling the canyon levelled out and we seemed to be above all the cliffs, so we turned around. Figured we either missed it or it fell down. We did see some discontinuous drips high on cliffs on the south side of the canyon about 1 and a half or 2 hours into the grovel. Maybe that was it (or what was left of it) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jja Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 On Saturday we thrashed up Copper Creek looking for Red Wall Wanderer. After 3 hours of grovelling the canyon levelled out and we seemed to be above all the cliffs, so we turned around. Figured we either missed it or it fell down. We did see some discontinuous drips high on cliffs on the south side of the canyon about 1 and a half or 2 hours into the grovel. Maybe that was it (or what was left of it) 3 hours is too far. It's about 1.5 to 2hrs up the canyon .. the trick is that you can't really see it from the low part of the canyon (at least we didn't). 30 - 45 min passed tres burly there is a steep open slope on the left with a big tree about half way up the hill. You have to climb out of the low part of the canyon and up this slope on the left which cuts into the cliff system. Only when you are on the top of this slope will you see the climb on your right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulB Posted January 22, 2004 Author Share Posted January 22, 2004 Here's the secret tool for getting into Phair Creek. This logging crew was very cool. Not only did they move these trees (which they had to do anyways so they could get home), but they also took their bulldozer further up the road to clear trees & rocks out of our way (which they definitely didn't have to do). Obviously there is active logging on the Enterprise Creek road, but they didn't say for how long. Here are the climbs. The ice looks thicker in the photos than it did in person. I think I've got the names right, but if not, let me know. A Phairly Phast Tick Just Walkin' The Dog Phair Game This may be It's Only Phair. It was a couple hundred meters past A Phairwell to Arms. Or this may be It's Only Phair, as it was at the 8km mark (as per Don's CAJ'00 descriptions), but it was a lot longer than 60m And finally, from Sunday here's Loose Lady. Hard to see, but there's a third person at the base of the mushrooms, on the left, setting up a rappel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don_Serl Posted January 23, 2004 Share Posted January 23, 2004 paul, for sure you have 'phair game' labelled correctly. lyle will have to comment on the others; they look right to me tho, and i think the 1st of the later two is 'it's only phair' - the 2nd may be unclimbed? cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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