[TR] Lillooet- Carlsberg (attempt) / Rambles Center 12/3/2005

[Alex_Mineev]

Climb: Lillooet-Carlsberg (attempt) / Rambles Center

 

Date of Climb: 12/3/2005

 

Trip Report:

The trip was planned couple months ago as the way to save the weekend of a corporate party.

The assumption was that Whistler was close enough to the vast majority of ice routes and early December could be the right time for early ice. So the problem was to find a partner who would agree to climb during a day and enjoy amenities of stay at Fairmont Chateau at night, free food, spa and massage included.

Well, after a few weeks of hesitation Oleg agreed to be the poor victim.

So we met late Thursday at the bus stop in Seattle. Oleg arrived on a Grayhound. This evening we sorted gear, had some Russian brandy and watched Touching The Void.

Left for BC around 7am, passed Whistler at noon and proceeded north all excited to see the ice and climb couple short WI3s and get back for the evening party in the hotel. Well...

There were lots of road side ice. Some of it was thick. The farther we drove the more we thought we'll get some climbing soon. The first ice we clearly saw and stopped to scope out was Carlsberg. It was steep, thin, WI5, but it existed, good sign.

 

 

We proceeded to the second spot visible from the road - Wet Lady. This one was not so steep and was unformed. Perfect for mixed. We kept going north in hope to find some short WI3. We saw nothing. Passed Lillooet around 3pm. At this point we knew the day was gone and we decided to spend the rest of it to find at least something to the north of Lillooet. Well, surely we got lost in the mire of unsigned local roads and simply kept driving north till 4pm. No ice could be seen from road. We turned back, with a strong taste of disappointment. "Dru was right, its too early"... Crap.

It got dark, very dark, we were carefully driving back to join the party. "Wanna take another look at Carlsberg again? It's the only thing with ice we saw today" "Sure" Good thing Oleg took a GSP point, otherwise we'd miss it in the darkness. We pulled in, put on crampons, headlamps, rope in the pack and headed towards under the little notch in the skyline that we could clearly see in the starry night. Then was this severe nighttime bushwhacking in crampons. Couple cougars or smaller kitties crossed our way. We were trying to find that freaking ice. We knew we were close, but every time we thought it was ice - it actually was another snow-covered tree. Fuck.

So we wandered like two idiots for couple hours. Night was awesome, though. Crispy, not so cold. Like those each of us experienced many years ago in Russia. So I guess we just enjoyed the settings

When we got back to the car it was clear we missed the party and the dinner. Ok, we'll have our own with French brandy and Cuban tobacco. So we did.

Next morning we headed back to Carlsberg. Did not matter that it was WI5 and thin, we were going to lead as much as we could, then may be top rope and run laps. On the way in we stopped by two cars parked near the road and people filing their tools. Oleg asked if they were going to climb ice and what was the route name and if there is any climbable ice around. The guy replied "we gonna may be climb something, do not know what, there may be some ice around he does not know where exactly bla-bla". Yeah yeah, it did not look like full truth, but we did not want to take a chance. We proceeded towards the Carlsberg. This morning we saw the route clearly and we hiked in 20 minutes.

 

 

 

The ice looked beautiful, wet and thin in places, but it still had some good spots. Oleg leaded the lower part to a little cave. Above this point things looked very serious.

 

 

Oleg could keep leading but ice was not thick enough for screws or vthreads, so he got me up. We spent about 10 minutes cleaning the cave looking around and trying to decide if we want to make top rope here or try to get higher.

 

 

At this point water dripping turned into a full-scaled shower. All those thin and long icicles few dozen feet above were not looking like fun any more, so we rapped from a vthread and an ithread.

We still had some time before the scheduled massage so we wanted another chance. Either unformed Wet Lady or get back and check out what those guys were going to climb. Memories of them filing tools convinced us there was some ice. We followed their tracks and around 3pm we saw the ice. Looked like thick awesome WI3. Ok, if we climb the first pitch in an hour and get to the car in another hour we can still make it and get the free massage... I started leading, there was easy WI2 step and followed by WI3 step that ended in vertical curtain.

 

 

 

Ok, if I put screw in a thick side here and try to traverse there may be some easier ground around. The screw went thru and into the air in the place where I thought ice was thick. Not good, I tried couple other places lower, it worked, but confidence left me. No no, this does not look like easy WI3. "Oleg, you will have to lead from here". Changing leads took some time. Oleg climbed the step pretty quickly, then got off my sight and rope stopped moving. Then followed curses bundled with chunks of ice flying around. Speed of sound was higher, so I had a chance to hide in the small cave every time the other chunk followed another curse. As it turned out at the exit was mixed climbing that required some cleaning. We topped after sunset. The rope we had was four feet short of the beginning of WI2, so rappel was fun Oleg went first, then I; when I got to the knot it was dead frozen.

 

 

I had to chew it for couple minutes before I could get off the rope. The rest was trivial, of course we missed the massage, of course we compensated it with a good dose of brandy with a cigar when we got down to the car.

 

[OlegV]

Hey Alex, this is the most truthfull TR I ever read. I think we did just great considering fucked-up melting ice on Carl's Berg. Glad we didn't decide to continue up this waterfall - I doubt screw would hold if one fell.

I trully enjoyed mixed climbing on Rambles - my left crampon felt no friction on anything

[Ade]

The guy replied "we gonna may be climb something, do not know what, there may be some ice around he does not know where exactly bla-bla". Yeah yeah, it did not look like full truth, but we did not want to take a chance.

 

That was me and my buddy The Nugent. We'd just arrived and could see as much as you could from the road.

[Alex_Mineev]

Hi Ade we had a version that you were some sort of a guide with clients and did not want a crowd around

What did you climb that day?

[OlegV]

Thanks to these guys for the green light on two-way Rambles highway!

[DirtyHarry]

Glad to see the story had a "happy ending."

[Dru]

The way you can tell the difference is that a real guide would have filed his picks the night before.

[OlegV]

The way you can tell the difference is that a real guide would have filed his picks the night before.

[olyclimber]

Good show Alex. You're getting after it this season!