[TR] Bridge River Canyon- Night N Gale 2/21/2004

[PaulB]

Climb: Bridge River Canyon-Night N Gale

 

Date of Climb: 2/21/2004

 

Trip Report:

My friend Wes and I rolled into Lillooet Friday night around midnight, threw up a tent in the Cayoosh Creek campground (officially closed, but the owner doesn't mind tenters), and settled in for a short night's sleep.

 

Up at 6AM, and after breakfast at the Reynold's we headed out to the Bridge River Canyon. Parked at the campsite below the dam, checked that the log jam across the river was there, packed our gear, and left the truck at 9 AM.

 

The river crossing was simplified by wearing crampons to navigate the icy logs and rocks, and a set of tracks made for an easy to follow trail along the river and up through the bush. The approach gully had lots of recent avy debris, which we interpreted as meaning that the avy danger on the route would now be low.

 

We soloed up to the first short ice step, which we pitched out, and which was in great shape. The simul-climbing slog up to the main ice flow varied from loose snow to nice styrofoam neve to short sections of low angle ice.

 

Four hours got us to the base of the real ice, which was big, blue and very wet. Wes decided he'd give the first pitch a go, and launched up it, leading it in fine style. The soft ice turned out to be a good thing for me, because shortly after starting to second the pitch, I snapped a pick (about 1.5" off of a BD Cobra) and had to finish the pitch with a "stub". I was glad that Wes had decided to take the lead.

 

Of course my spare pick was down in the truck, since in ten years of ice climbing I've never had a pick break, and I certainly didn't expect it to happen on soft, wet ice.

 

I traded my busted tool for one of Wes', and led the last pitch, which was a bit of a rope stretcher with our slightly less than 60m rope. We topped out at 5:30 as daylight was starting to fade, and began the long descent.

 

We made a wallowing traverse down and to the right through deep snow, until reaching the top of a cliff. With headlamps on, we made two long rappels to get into the next drainge, which deposited us just under the main ice flow. Much downclimbing and two rappels eventually got us to the base of the approach gully. Some more hiking down through the trees, along and across the river, and we were back to the road at 10:15.

 

Throwing all our gear in the truck, we headed for Lillooet, assuming that our chances of finding any food were just about zero. As it turned out, the pizza shop was open until midnight (only food in town after 9 PM according to the staff) so we ordered ourselves a large Italian, and took it over to the Vic Pub to wash it down with some beer.

 

Our stomach's full, we drove to the campground, set up the tent, and crashed for a well earned night's sleep.

 

Sunday morning we got up around 8:30, had breakfast at the Reynold's and then headed to the Rambles for a relaxing day on some less committing terrain.

 

All in all, a great weekend!

 

Gear Notes:

Ice gear (with spare pick!)

60m ropes

Webbing/cord for rap anchors

 

Approach Notes:

Start early!

Edited February 23, 2004 by PaulB

[fern]

part of your story got clipped!

[PaulB]

Fixed... getting this TR into the system was almost more of an ordeal than the climb.

[Dru]

how hard would you say it was this year, 3+, 4 or 4+? was looking pretty fat earlier in the winter like you could sneak a 3+ following the low angled side of the RH flow.

[PaulB]

I'd say our line up the right side was an easy 4. The longer and more vertical pillars to the left were very wet & chandeliered, and would be 4+ for sure.