Don_Serl Posted February 7, 2006 Posted February 7, 2006 Climb: de Pencier Bluffs-soloing Date of Climb: 2/5/2006 Trip Report: Graham R and I were not quite keen enough to do the long drive to Marble Canyon (altho it sounds from Wild Bill's report we should have), so we skied up to de Pencer Sunday morning. The approach was just 1 hr from the parking lot; the snow was much firmer than I expected, with 15cm of fluff on top. There were only icicles on the "routes" on N side of de Pencier, so we spent a cpl hours soloing blobs and drytooling stuff in the approach "swale" - deeeeep soft snow below, so you could try as hard as you wanted and plunge off with impunity - fun! We later swapped back to a S facing bluff about 200m east of the bottom of the upper (Brockton) chair - probably the location of "Patrol This" and "Patrol That". This had a generous "dabbing" of ice, which again gave great, challenging soloing and mixed/drytooling, all within "plunge" range of the snow (so long as you didn't get too tempted by "the next bulge"). The only problem was extracting yourself after you augered in! We finished by sucking it up a bit and soloing a gully line at the left side of the face, which had a secure-enough exit to make us "bold". Then we bumbled our way back down the skiruns. And today on the drive to work I noticed the first cherry blossoms I'd seen this spring - what a place! Gear Notes: took the gear for a walk... Approach Notes: skis Quote
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