[TR] Squamish Apron- Unfinished Symphony 7/2/2006

[fern]

Climb: Squamish Apron-Unfinished Symphony

 

Date of Climb: 7/2/2006

 

Trip Report:

 

During last summer's bikram weather Unfinished Symphony got added to the list but never ticked off. At 85F and humid short and shady was more appealing. But on a sunny yet cool holiday weekend at the end of 3 months of travelling and climbing, J and I decided it was time to step up.

 

The guide describes various options to avoid this pitch and escape that pitch, I got annoyed and chucked it

across the breakfast table. The route follows the LINE, the stunning long open book up the middle of the apron.

 

What the guidebook DOESN'T describe is what gear to bring (as usual). So we racked up way too many little cams

and mini nuts, and chose double ropes in case the heat and sun scared us off the top pitch.

 

J dragged the rope up the shared starting pitch to belay in a tree and I followed slowly, trying not to get sweaty and getting used to the slabs again. The next pitch started right in with the laybacking off pin scars. The rock was quite filthy, but mostly dry and with the enormous collection of small widgets I was carrying I saw no reason not to sew the thing up. After a brief delay at the next belay, another party caught up to us while J lead up a short pitch to another tree, much easier than rated in the guidebook. This put us at the base of the main corner. I was a little intimidated, probably more by reputation than what I saw, but the corner gently arched right before breaking straight through shallow overlaps up so most of the pitch was a mystery.

 

Up I went, slotting fingers in a pinscar, walking the feet a little higher, wiggle a nut or cam into the scar my fingers had just vacated. I guess I was expecting it to be more of a straight in crack, but it was definitely laybacking - complete with the awkward neck-craning to look in the corner for holds and pro. A few meters off the belay the crack broke up and flared into a rounded flake that curved up out of sight. I reasoned that there had to be a stance or rest somewhere up there even if I couldn't see it yet, so I launched up the section running it out not that far really, but far enough to let out a squeak of relief when I came to a solid finger lock and a square cut ledge big enough for both feet. I breathed my usual mantra "god I hope that was the crux" and looked onward. Still couldn't see the anchor, but the line headed left over an overlap and LO! a bolt. "Probably just above that bolt" I said to myself and started up the balancy slabby moves changing corners. Back in the main corner - no station, but a surprisingly long line of shiny bolts. No-one told me it was bolted - I could have carried 1/3 the gear I had! The bolts are healthily spaced, and each one beside a locker scar from the fixed-pin it replaced. Initially I stitched it up with a nut or something between the bolts, but then my feet started getting tired and I was ready to be done with the repetitive climbing.

 

The anchor station was in sight above, so I dispensed with intermediate gear and climbed quickly bolt to bolt. Soon, the final protection bolt of the pitch was almost near enough to clip, with my right fingers in a good lock I reached up with my left to slot it in the scar I knew must be there ... nope ... must be a little higher ... inched my feet up a bit, felt around ... nope ... "Well, this is precarious!" I thought as I looked down between my legs to the last bolt suddenly uncomfortably far below me, and the next bolt just above my right shoulder and certainly clippable with my right hand - if it was free. I determined two truths: 1) I really wanted to clip the bolt, 2) I really didn't want to pull my right hand from the finger lock I was rather firmly wrenching on. I would clip it with my left hand! My feet inched up higher almost level with my hand and I twisted and crossed my left hand and pushed the 'biner gate against the hanger then reached down again and pulled the drag heavy rope over my feet and up past my shoulder and over my head and ... another squeak of relief. I scanned the corner and the slab above and saw the solution to the puzzle - a rusty 1/4" stub smashed flat on the slab; The crack pinched to a seam here, and had never accepted pitons - thus no handy finger lock. I switched to slab-mode and padded up the last 6' to the anchor.

 

J followed, swapped the gear and headed up the next pitch which was more of the same, but a little shorter. The leader from the party behind had started up pretty much on her heels, and I wasn't quite sure what his hurry was, given we might end up sharing an uncomfortable hanging slab belay. Both leaders climbed smoothly so just as J was nearing her anchor, Friend was approaching the cruxy last bolt below me - and looking a little shaky. Wanting to be helpful, I suggested he try clipping from the same pinscar I had used since there weren't any better ones higher. "I don't think I can!" he quivered, and jerked a few steps higher, madly fingering the shallow seam in the corner. With a little gasp he grabbed the bolt just before peeling. "Oh well, I cheated", he sounded a little disappointed, and straightened up to start looking for a quickdraw. "Yeah it just keeps coming right to the end on that pitch" I chattered as both his feet popped, his hands scrabbled at the bolt, he said a naughty word and went skidding 40 feet down the slab. Oh dear. I am sorry if you fell off because I distracted you by talking then Friend. He dangled at the end of his rope rubbing his sore toes and looking totally dejected, like he might cry. J had finished so I climbed away, and he was free of an audience.

 

At the belay J was stoked at her onsight, since she's never liked or felt solid on slab climbing. It was a good pitch with quite a few tricky section interspersed with good rests and put us in an alcove at the top of the main corner system. One more pitch of slab up an old bolt ladder and we would be at Broadway. The sun hadn't really come fully around to baking yet, and there was a little cooling breeze, so I decided to give it a try.

 

Leaning out and looking around from the belay it seemed there were bolts heading out all kinds of ways and it wasn't clear what was the best way to start. But I knew I had to exit the alcove basically leftward on to a slab and from there go straight up through the friction crux. So I made a few moves up the alcove and clipped the nearest bolt with one of my ropes and started looking around for likely holds. Back and forth, back and forth, hard to make a decision. Directly left of the belay the height of the sidewall of the alcove was shortest, but the move would involve a very highstep onto a smear with no real handholds simultaneously turning my body 90 degrees, looking at a pendulum onto the belay. Straight up past my bolt was steep and unlikely looking. Farther left was mossy. Ah, moss! Moss grows in dirt and dirt doesn't collect on just nothing! So I set to gardening, looking for a salvation foothold. And I found one, a perfect little bump the size of a nickel.

 

So now I could probably at least get out of the corner maybe without falling - I had the path to the crux potential sorted out. I set myself up, warned J that I had no clue what I was doing, would probably fall off, and wouldn't be able to reverse what I was about to do, and stepped up onto the slab. The really blank slab. Where the bolts now looked really far apart. I crabbed a little leftward and clipped my other rope to a bolt that may have been off route. I looked at the slab between me and the next bolt above right and it looked back at me and clearly said "Failure". So I looked up the more direct path to the NEXT bolt above and launched. Crystals crunched under my toes as I pretended I was on good holds. The guidebook says this pitch is sustained padding and edging, "edging on WHAT?" I wondered. I clipped and passed my objective bolt and continued climbing straight up ... into a swath of moss well to the left of where I should have been. Over to the right I could see the 'edges', getting to them involved some very thoughtful downclimbing and traversing and by the time I was approaching the next bolt - the last one before the slab became more reasonable - I was so frazzled I overextended to clip the draw and knew there was no way I could pull slack and clip the rope without popping. So I grabbed the draw and hung to decompress. It would have been nice to onsight it, but even so I was proud of climbing through some of the most sustained and hard slab I have attempted.

 

After a brief moment to regain my composure I climbed quickly up the last bit past the worst and uselessest bolts I have ever seen, wandered around some more moss and water streaks and found the belay. J followed and finished up to Broadway where we headed back down, pleased with ourselves for ticking a Squamish Apron classic in pretty good style.

 

Overall I would say that this is a quality route, but the line is better than the climbing. There is something inherently lame about free-climbing on pin-scars. The last hard slab is out of character with the rest of the route, though in character with climbing on the Apron, it's possible with some long reaches to French-free through the hardest part.

 

Gear Notes:

6-8 small to medium nuts, offsets especially

6-8 micro to finger sized cams (eg Aliens black to green type sizes)

A few larger cams up to red or yellow camalot

[slothrop]

Great TR, Fern.

[G-spotter]

[willstrickland]

The guide describes various options to avoid this pitch and escape that pitch, I got annoyed and chucked it

across the breakfast table.

 

Surly.

3 month trip? Looks like you got ripped at the creek.

 

Tell us about the Black. Scenic Cruise?

[fern]

no Scenic Cruise this time ... unless you count a beer run to Hotchkiss with Leonard Coyne? ... tales probably best left to the campfire ...

[CascadeClimber]

Sendbot Fern!

 

I like the truthiness of the word 'uselessest'.

 

[tanstaafl]

What was the lie you were telling over in the photo thread about 10b at Squamish?

 

Way to go and nice writeup too!

[olyclimber]

Nice fern! But how many pushups can you do? I've been training!

 

Someday I'm going to go climbing at this Mighty Mt. Squamish. Will you aid Diedre with me?

Such a sweet pic...once more:

[layton]

nice fern!

that's my favorite climb at squamish!