Fluffy Kitten and Habrich Beta

[Mr_Sleazy]

Hello, Cascaders:

 

The new McLane guide has been out just a couple months now and I notice that the access info for my precious Fluffy Kitten is all out of date. Please note the following important points for the odd person that actually climbs up there:

 

1. The Stawamus/Indian road is gated right now at its junction with the Mamquam, just a couple km past the Squaw. The road was hit by a number of large landslides the past winter, the first of which is right where you park to go climb at the Kitten. The Squamish District has told me they fully intend to fix the road, but are not willing to say when this will happen or when the gate will be open. It is too bad as the road is fine right up until the Kitten parking area...

 

****I have heard that some hard-asses are mountain biking up there to go climb.

 

2. McLane's guide lists incorrect access information. His information was out of date 5 years ago. If you follow his description, you will miss a nice rope bridge in favour of devil's club bushwhacking. Yuck.

 

****The right access is to stop (park when the gate is finally open) on the Stawamus/Indian FSR at the first big washout after the 5 km sign. Walk down the washout and look left (upstream) to a rope bridge. Cross over and follow the flagging uphill and right to the base of the wall (45 mins hiking).

 

I have put more detailed info onto rockclimbing.com here:

 

http://www.rockclimbing.com/routes/listArea.php?AreaID=4564

 

Also check out the PDF topo attached above; hopefully it is helpful.

 

Any questions please ask, and I would love to hear if anyone has been up there this year (I haven't, I have been scrubbing at the Solarium!).

 

Brian Pegg

499431-Kittentopo.pdf

Edited September 13, 2005 by Mr_Sleazy

[jmace]

Thanks alot for your awesome map and approach info. The gate has been locked since last year as you probably know. I talked to the forestry company at the beginning of the summer and they said if they could fix the road it would take longer than the summer to fix it and even if they were going to fix it they dont have the money to do it as a number of bridges need to be replaced: either they have been damaged or are now not rated to hold any weight. So i doubt it will be open at all in 2005 and I doubt they will do any thing before this winters snow. I told them that the places I want to access are before the washouts/ broken bridges and they still wouldnt give me the key and they definetly wont move the gate further up the road. I doubt any one got up Habrich this year and the walk sucks, I once walked from the gate to Habrich in winter and it sucked big time!

[Dru]

It only takes 3 or 4 hours to walk to Habrich from the gate so sack it up. That's a (timewise) shorter approach than Lake Lovelywaters. Or you could just heli in if you had the ca$h.

[Mr_Sleazy]

I have hiked up to build trail at the Kitten from that lower gate a few times; even just walking it only takes 1.5 hrs or so to get to the Kitten.

 

Going the other way into Shannon Creek, it probably only adds an hour of approach anyways.

 

I am going to try to add some PDFs with the text descriptions for all the routes and also a PDF topo for the larger buttress right next door to the Kitten (2 routes). Any wizards know how to compress a 400K pdf down to less than 100k???

 

BP

[Mr_Sleazy]

I am going to try to add some PDFs with the text descriptions for all the routes and also a PDF topo for the larger buttress right next door to the Kitten (2 routes). Any wizards know how to compress a 400K pdf down to less than 100k???

 

BP

 

Alternately, I can email the files if anyone is interested - one is a complete guide to the Kitten (same as the Gripped article), and the other is a topo and route description for a line called "The Natural" that goes to Habrich summit up the big wall to the west of the Kitten.

 

bpegg@golder.com

[bigwalling]

Do you happen to be the guy that put up Sunshine Breakfast or something like that? The topo style is very familier, I did that route right after you finished it... fun but a little dirty. I wonder if it's cleaned up with traffic?

[Mr_Sleazy]

Sunshine Breakfast is mine too, and right now I am beavering away on some more routes around the Solarium.

 

I don't seem able to find any quality new routes that are closer than an hour's hike from the road! Curses......

 

Glad you enjoyed it. As to dirty! What an insult!(joke).

 

Honestly, Sunshine Breakfast crag was about as naturally clean as it is possible to get in Squamish, because of its southeast aspect (nice and dry, not wet and mossy). Unfortunately, KMclane only gave it one star (not true it is at least 2) and his photo topo is completely wrong. The Bourdon guide reports it correctly.

 

BP