[TR] Weekend Ice in Hope - Sailor Bar + Jarvis Bluffs 12/3/2006

[G-spotter]

Trip: Weekend Ice in Hope - Sailor Bar + Jarvis Bluffs

 

Date: 12/3/2006

 

Trip Report:

So after telling everyone that Hope was gonna be "out" and the Canyon was gonna be "in" this weekend it turned out that Hope was in and the Canyon was mostly out. Hmmmm

 

Fern, Chris and Mer came out on Saturday morning. Fern and Chris took off right away & ended climbing the unclimbed curtain above Happy Boy at Goldpan I'll let Fern describe that b/c I just heard Mer's end of the cell phone conversation afterwards. I heard something about a broken pick though

 

Mer and I drove up to Jackass, which had a couple big wet holes. So we drove back to Superheroes Cirque. Ultrawoman looked a bit iffy, so did the unclimbed thing next to it, but SBG was blue and fat so we climbed Sailor Bar Gully. 3 pitches, 2+, 2 and 2, fun climbing though. The second pitch is a ramp in a chimney, fun fun.

 

 

 

SBG

 

P2

 

P3

 

 

We finished Saturday off with some roadside bouldering

 

We did a little scouting up the Coq for Sunday, and then drove back to the Wack, where we saw this hotness in the sky

 

So today Shaun came along and we climbed as a party of 3. we headed to Jarvis Bluffs. Shaun was itching for a rematch with NW Passage but the first pitch had fallen apart (actually, whew )

 

So we climbed Momentary Lapse at the left end of the Bluffs. This is supposed to be a 4 but I didn't want to go up the normal finish because it was a little bit detached and there was wet dirt and cedar roots up there. Instead I made a fun traverse way right that felt more like 3+, and climbed a chimney between ice and rock to a ledge, where the belay ended up being some screws in a cracked icicle, a "bomber" Spectre in a crack and a slung cedar the size of my arm but we did find a better rap anchor thanks to Shaun's Tree Service arborial skills.

 

Double rope seconding

 

Brawl for the final chimney

 

Rap off

 

Shaun does some bouldering

 

Black and White at extreme left, As Seen On TV scary thing in the middle.

 

By the time we got down it was just after noon, and it had warmed p from -3 to +2 and things were wet and melting. We saw a big chunk fall off ASOT. Shaun took off right away, M and I decided all this roadside ice was unnatural so we went for a short bushwack through knee-deep snow and prickle bushes to look at some unclimbed thing that turned out to be only about 15m high, and melting too. Then we called it a day and hit the Blue Moose for espresso

 

I think that's it for this cold spell around Hope but I have high hopes for the rest of the winter

 

Gear Notes:

"Bomber" Spectres are mandatory. But in most places you could get 17cm screws in. I could have used some TriCams for the top of Momentary Lapse, but I left them in the car

 

Approach Notes:

Drive car to base of ice route and climb, both days :tup:

[Weekend_Climberz]

You're an inspiration Dru....

[eric8]

After hiking to mousetrap on saturday and seeing it spurt water my friend and I went to sumallo bluffs. We climbed the bus-kippan route. There was lots of snow on the ice and it was a bit rotten, not to bad though. There is a sweet looking mixed route on the wall of above the route. The posting holing through side alder or the river crossing was probably the crux. The other routes on the cliff look good too.

[jordop]

2000m freezing level on Thursday. Bring a mask and flippers.

[dbb]

and a slung cedar the size of my arm

 

that poor abused little sapling..

[Dechristo]

nice photos, G-man.

 

looks like a lot of fun

[fern]

Trip: Weekend Ice in Hope - Sailor Bar + Jarvis Bluffs

 

Fern, Chris and Mer came out on Saturday morning. Fern and Chris took off right away & ended climbing the unclimbed curtain above Happy Boy at Goldpan I'll let Fern describe that b/c I just heard Mer's end of the cell phone conversation afterwards. I heard something about a broken pick though

 

 

Chris's gear is all shitty and broken, both crampons popping off, both tools breaking, blunt screws. But he put the rope up the Happy Boy curtain and bought me pie later. So I will climb with him again sometime.

 

The first pitch of Jackass was fun, brittle blobby cauliflowers and ice daggers hanging overhead, then a short squeeze chimney with no room to swing crampons or tools. Top pitch was just the wrong side of stable-looking. There was a climbable line, but it thinned down to only about 1 foot thick around the gushing hole at 2/3rd height. One day earlier it would have been fine.

[G-spotter]

bought me pie later.

 

Airport pie or Canyon Alpine pie?

[fern]

Green Canyon, good pie but no ambiance.

[jmace]

Aweseome Fern...cant believe you guys got on Jackass..looked a little to sloppy to us..at least for what we were expecting..

 

We climbed after the gold rush which was ok...very short lived difficulties

 

 

Was that your car at the campground..please tell me you didnt trade the truck for that..?

 

geuss now we just wait till January..

[fern]

 

Jackass was actually kinda brittle

 

was that your rig with the sea kayak?

 

that's Chris's car. My truck was in east van leaking a puddle of power-steering fluid all day

 

looked like all the best ice was on the other side of the river as usual. Next cold snap in the canyon I am bringing a boat.

[jordop]

was that your rig with the sea kayak?

 

You saw wrong. That was a helicopter.

[G-spotter]

Some dude from Washington with a kayak on top of a Element was booting up for Sailor Bar when we left.

[jordop]

We came to realize that kayaks are aid. Real climbers swim. With packs on.

[jordop]

looked like all the best ice was on the other side of the river as usual. Next cold snap in the canyon I am bringing a boat.

All the good ice over there is very incoveniently located for suitable put ins. Ie in rocky/canyon parts of the river.

[jmace]

that's Chris's car.

 

Thank God...the bumper stickers and dreamcatchers made me worried...

 

Ya that was it..it was a great gas saver and was really fun as we 4X4'd up to some flow in Lytton..never a widow or sumtin or never married..dunno, as the rest of the ice in bc it was still flowin

 

I do know I paid 80$ in gas to link up two 10 meter pitches of ice, almost forgot what its like to ice climb in BC..

 

[G-spotter]

Some contractors with a railway traveller rig on their F350 actually offered to give us a ride up to the ice across from Yale, when we met them in the Chevron parking lot on Sunday morning. but we had to say no cause Shaun had to be home by 2 and they were gonna be working a 10 hour shift up there

[chris_stolz]

Chris's gear is all shitty and broken, both crampons popping off, both tools breaking, blunt screws. But he put the rope up the Happy Boy curtain and bought me pie later. So I will climb with him again sometime.

 

The first pitch of Jackass was fun, brittle blobby cauliflowers and ice daggers hanging overhead, then a short squeeze chimney with no room to swing crampons or tools. Top pitch was just the wrong side of stable-looking. There was a climbable line, but it thinned down to only about 1 foot thick around the gushing hole at 2/3rd height. One day earlier it would have been fine.

 

Yea, I think Fern and I got the first ascent of the Happy Boy curtain at WI4 or so. It went something like this:

 

 

Fern: "I'm not leading that. But I want to climb it."

 

Chris: "Well my crampons are iffy, my picks are loose, it's late, we have no idea what's up there or how hard it is."

 

Fern: "Hm. I guess."

 

Chris: "Plus I'm a massive f*cking pussy, might have to bail, leave a screw, etc."

 

Fern: "Your screws are crap. Old school. $30 to replace. Big deal."

 

Chris: "OK fine but overall it's best not to climb it."

 

Fern: "Sure, I suppose..."

 

[long pause while climbers stare at lovely curtain of WI4]

 

So we climbed it. Aside from my crampons almost falling off and my ancient Pulsar folding like a well-lubricated Swiss Amry knife in the crux, it was fine.

 

Moral of story: if you climb with Fern, she will uhhh subtly ah um "encourage" you on. We are working on a name for this route-- perhaps "Fern 1 Reason 0"? ;-) of course I had to buy her some pie after. I mean, she was prepared to drag my carcass out of there and all.

[glassgowkiss]

as seen on tv doesn't look much different then when we did it a couple of winters ago. it is steep, but offers good rests. btw it is one of the better pitches around these parts. how did nw passage look like? we drove by on the way to the rockies, and from the road looked like it had some ice on it.