[TR] Tchaikazan 2004- 7/24/2004

[jordop]

Climb: Tchaikazan 2004- National Pillar etc.

 

Date of Climb: 7/24/2004

 

Trip Report:

A couple of weeks old, but worth mentioning (copied from bivouac.com):

 

The bivy in Williams Lake on the way up was among the best. It was 1 a.m. and we needed somewhere to catch a few hours sleep. Calling on Don's acquaintances in town at this hour was beyond good taste, so we found a semblance of a public space/park down by the lake. After the mosquitoes it was the drunken teenagers at 2 a.m. trying to mimic coyote yowls , and then the police officer at 3 a.m. who did not evict us from our oh-so perfect spot, but while shining that spotlight of a flashlight in our eyes simply warned us that he, himself, would not feel safe there. He would not elaborate though, whether the mysterious and dangerous things "that have been going on down by the lake" entailed merely unregistered boats or full-blown mass cult suicides, so with that wonder in our heads we drifted back off and got at least two hours of sleep before the bugs and the sun rose in splendid synchronicity

 

Now before going into the mountains for a week of burnt noodle dishes, a mountaineer's base instinct is to order the largest and greasiest thing on the menu. (This also works in reverse; witness a wedding a few days after the conclusion of the trip where I ate so much meat in compensation for a week of climbing food that I ended up convulsing with cramps for the entire weekend). Well, at 5 a.m. Rennie and I could not seem to even gain a foothold on the "Full House" Williams Lake Husky breakfast that was comprised of two separate plates: 3 eggs, 3 pieces of bacon, 3 sausages, half a plate of hashbrowns, 4 pieces of toast and 3 pancakes that were each 8 inches across and an inch high. Our climbers' resolution and thrift would not let us give up and for the entire 5 hour drive to the end of the road in Falls River we near vomiting.

 

After getting the obligatory flat near the end of the road, we struck off through marsh and bugs carrying some of the largest packs ever and arrived at the standard meadow camp after about four and a half hours. The next day we thought we might try this cool looking ridge that rose up to the 9700' peak just west of camp. It started out quite nice on solid granitebut it soon dissolved into a damn scree slope to the summit! Oh well, the views were nice:

 

 

The big objective for the trip was a repeat of the National Pillar on Winstone, which was first graded "4th class with two pitches of fifth" by the Kafers when they first did it in 1964 during the seminal BCMC camp. But Rennie and I had caught sight of some incredible-looking towers in the cirque behind Winstone and we convinced Don to do one more smallish day checking them out before we committed to Winstone. After a bit of a walk and scramble to the summit of a minor peak northeast of Winstone, we saw the towers in their entirety: the upper parts which we had seen were nice, but the lower bits were sure ugly. Oh well, we gota beautiful walk out of it:

 

 

Okay, it had taken Don, Forrest, and Ade 19 hours return to do Passport Couloir, and Don figured National Pillar would be a similar deal, so we got up at 2 a.m. the next day and were away by three up the glacier. After a detour on the glacier when the sun hit Winstone and caused a nice avalanche right above our intended path, we looked up at the National Pillar in all it's chossy glory. It was lower-angled from this vantage, but still quite imposing.It sure wasn't granite and we were unsure if we could even get off the top of the thing as it was encircled by a mean ice cliff on all sides, but it appeared to be the thing to do at the time. We gained a notch low down and started soloing for a few hundred feet, confident that we would be able to keep things pretty light the whole way, maybe simul-climbing a bit here and there. Well Andrew soon suggested a belay and the rock got a lot steeper and a lot more exposed. And a lot shittier.

 

 

And then it just kept going. We resigned ourselves to pitching out every pitch and scratched our heads at anybody calling this "fourth class". And the belays and protection weren't that great either, typically small nuts -- the pins we had left in camp were starting to look pretty attractive. With Andrew starting the first pitch and Don belaying, I found myself as the continual “third" in the arrangement and though I felt guilty for not sharing in the leading work -- Don and Andrew just leap-frogging through the belays -- I was actually somewhat glad as the climbing was downright pants-filling on occasion. There were two rotten and knife-edge notches with drops straight down to the glacier that had to be crossed. Maybe these were the fifth bits? Who knows, it all felt pretty consistent in the 5.6-5.8 range for us!

 

 

Don led across a brutal gully where he found (novelty!) an assortment of protection for a belay and got about 4 or 5 excellent pieces strung together, just because he could for once. After another pitch Rennie got us to the top of the rock where HORRAY! a moderate ice tongue got us up onto the summit plateau -- about 14 ropelengths in all.

 

In the register the second ascent party of the National Pillar commented on the route simply: "Holy Loon". We were the third ascent in forty years. Popular place!

 

Looking south over the entirety of the Lillooet Icefield

 

We took nine and a half hours getting to the summit, but the day was nowhere near finished: trudging back down the south side of Winstone and back up to the west col, I could feel myself getting stupid, the feet taking on minds of their own. After jumping a slot, we soon had to pull out the ropes again to make a rappel over another big crevasse as the sun went down. The trudge back to camp on the glacier at midnight was nice: aurora borealis flaming above and all these wonderful voices singing with visions of forests in my peripheral vision. 21 hours on the go

 

The next day we imbibed and passed out in individual ditches on the river's flood plain. For the entire day. No, wait, I made a grilled cheese sandwich around noon

 

The day after Don wanted to go up the Beast, but Andrew and I liked the sound of the firm granite on the Beehive just north of camp a little better. The hike was tiring but after humming and hawing about various 5.11 lines, Don and Rennie decided to try a system of cracks right out of the notch that looked quite nice. I don't know why, but something in my head didn't feel like going up anything that day. I think I got a bit spooked on the National Pillar, it was quite above most of the local routes I have done and though I go zipping around on glaciers a fair bit on ski traverses, it was just the sheer scrappiness of the thing: it was downright angry!

 

So anyway, I didn't partake of the Beehive, but I did get maybe one of the nicest shots ever out of the day:

 

 

Andrew led three bold-looking pitches (reportedly to 5.10b) to get the two of them to the summit Somewhere left (west) of their route is the Culbert line, but I sure couldn’t find anything that looked like it.

 

We stumbled back to camp and watched a haze of smoke drift in from somewhere:

 

 

The next day I awoke with the smells of a campfire. Don must be burning something, I thought from the lazy confines of my sleeping bag. The valley was full of blue smog and everything was quite obscured, so with the nagging reality of having no spare tire on the way out, and me having to make a wedding only three days later, we decided to pack up. We took the direct route through the swamps and game trails and though it was a bit wet, we managed to avoid any significant bushwhacking and got to the truck and beer in only three hours.

 

We knew if we got another flat on the way out we would be SERIOUSLY hooped. It was a LOOONNNG way to any repair shop, if we managed to get a ride. And wouldn't you know it, another tire started losing air. But we managed to keep it inflated all through the all-night drive back down to Vancouver and life being so damn funny at times, the tire decides to go on the Second Narrows Bridge right at our veritable back door Oh well, at least we weren't in Hanceville!

 

A beautiful area and a good lesson for me in the realities of the "bigger" mountains of the Coast. The National Pillar has got to be one of the most understated and deceivingly-reported climbs around; all the pitches were consistent in being bold and viciously exposed. The rock is not granite and the cracks were more like spaces between boulders. Belays were at times a webbed-collection of thin nuts that were not too reassuring (there was more than once when I was not belaying that I unclipped from the anchor). Don’s custodial work in clearing the route of errant and dangerous rock lying about gave the whole day a soundtrack of bombs going off.

 

We admired the Kafers, for they were obviously damn hard climbers in their day. Christ, in any day! They certainly deserve admiration and congratulations for their climb, one of the first technical routes on the Coast. Somewhere on the climb I wondered if a bottle of wine would be appropriate. And maybe a copy of the Yosemite Decimal System for grading too!

 

 

Gear Notes:

Had samall rack, would have liked a larger one and some pins.

 

Approach Notes:

Bash up Falls River valley.

[Stemalot]

fine trip