[TR] Duffey Lake Road - Duffeys Delight & Cowabunga Dude 2/18/2007

[jmace]

Trip: Duffey Lake Road - Duffeys Delight & Cowabunga Dude

 

Date: 2/18/2007

 

Trip Report:

Jeff and I thought we would have at least one more round up in lillooet before admitting the season was over, well its not quite over but getting there. We drove up Saturday morning with the intentions of doing Closet Secrets but as usual we puffed one too many and we decided on something a little closer to the road. Cowabunga Dude fit that description and after scanning the cliff side for potential large human seeking icicles we determined that most lay off to either side and the climb seemed relatively safe. Arriving at the base there was a short 10 m section with poor ice that Jeff led then it was just smooth hero ice for 70m. A really nice climb!

 

Jeff leading the lower pitch of Cowabunga Dude

 

 

 

Then it was off to the Renyolds for Beer and a bit of pool then back to the mile-o. The next morning dawnwed a tad cooler, at least the chinooking was gone and we made our way to Duffeys Delight, wow, what an amazing climb!!! A must do for sure!!

 

Crampons and tools out 3 mins from the road make for a nice warm up. We just powered up till it got steep then a little more ice and rock brought us to the main attraction.

 

Duffeys Delight Upper Pitches

 

 

me getting it started

 

 

Jeff on the upper Pitch

 

 

then we just walked down and 2 rappels and we were home for the second period in the hockey game. Lots of washington folks up there and the only place we saw cars were parked at the rambles which looked great!!

 

Gear Notes:

ice gear

 

Approach Notes:

real tough

[jordop]

Crazy - it looks like JUNE in those pics.

[Jens]

Nice pictures and TR, jmace.

Four of us Seattlites were up in Lillooet over the weekend.

It was fun but it looks like the season is just about done. (+11C on Saturday).

Saturday we climbed all pitches of rambles central. Shreddie was coming apart. Afterwards we had a molson at the Reynolds. Sunday we climbed at marble. I led Deeping Wall and we also top roped a lot of other stuff on the lower tier. A good time was had by all.

Time for some spring skiing and rock climbing!

 

[Alex]

Actually Shreddie was still leadable Sat. We were silly for messing around with Loose Lady in the AM, and missed the boat.

[G-spotter]

Looks alot like last March except that Cowabunga is touching down now. Cold weather coming on Friday but it's still supposed to be high +7 low -5. But honestly if it's +11 you could have more fun rock climbing in the sun on the north side of the road at Marble

 

How come hardly anyone is going up the Bridge this year? Weather like this is great conditions for Night N Gale etc.

[jordop]

Would be cool to be at Marble and see both ice climbers and rock climbers depending on which way you looked.

[G-spotter]

Yeah but you can't see most of the crags from the campsite where you can see the ice climbs...

Need some ice farming across Pavilion Lake.

[jmace]

Re: Bridge River, maybe cause its so freakn warm, I bet Night n Gale is good per Dons Report but it was 6.4c today at Carpenter lake...didnt get above freezing at cayoosh summit today!

[Rafael_H]

... Shreddie was coming apart...

 

Shreddie was in superb condition! Too bad we wasted ourselves with the very-very Loose Lady and only had energy for Closet Secrets - nice fat WI3 also in great condition.

 

Carl's Berg from the road looked to be in very respectable condition, hard but not necessarily rotten.

[Stemalot]

good work Jess!

[Weekend_Climberz]

Damn, there goes my weekend plans

[Don_Serl]

How come hardly anyone is going up the Bridge this year? Weather like this is great conditions for Night N Gale etc.

 

some stuff was good early on out the Bridge (like Jade, when you and your partners, and then Graham and I climbed it), but it was strange - the lower popular stuff (Old Dogs, Salmon Stakes, etc) didn't come in well, then got hit badly by the warm spell in mid-Jan. some of the hard short columns survived OK, and you're rigth about Night n Gale, but pickings are slim. besides, while ti was limited, there was a bunch of good unusual stuff 'in' up on the Duffey. I think most people just decided to drive 45 mins short of Lillooet rather than 45 mins beyond. understandable in a kinda sketchy season.

 

btw, good going Jesse and Jeff. a cpl good ticks. isnt it a shame that Duffey's Delight doesn't come in every year?

(actually, maybe it's there more than we think - just that nobody knew where to look until the past cpl seasons...)

 

-2.3C at Cayoosh summit at noon today; but 1.7C at Carpenter Lake. again, the Duffey looks reasonable; the Bridge looks in trouble, 'cept for Night n Gale and probably Shriek.

 

cheers, don

[Don_Serl]

Shreddie was in superb condition!

 

 

i just have the suspicion it'll stay up for a while yet. the blobs on the side (which u need to use to get up the thing) will deteriorate slowly, so the pulling will get sketchier, and the initial cpl of screws will be wankier, but i don't see any reason for the whole mess to fall down yet.

 

cheers, don

[Jens]

I didn't slog to the base of it but it looks like it is in give away shape this year.

[Rafael_H]

Hmmm, Don, if the blobs plastered on the right hand rock are instrumental, bad - they were the only thing looking rotten that day, like a soggy heavy glacier ice, with wettness on the rock, likely detached... The rest looked so damn healthy though. I ain't going, no time, but hardmen should go using the column only. That's a cold spot, the ground was frozen even from half-way up the gully.

[Don_Serl]

rafael,

 

there didn't seem to me to be any way of starting the column without actually starting the blobs instead, if u get my drift. the blobs were pretty scary, but the bottom of the column was worse, just an aerated mess. the most effort on the route went into getting established on the first blob, and I know graham got to wondering - i was out of sight, the rope wasn't moving, and chunk after chunk after chunk of ice kept coming down. he mentioned afterwards that he kinda wondered if i was going to follow shortly. once u get up the first 2 or 3 bodylengths or so it'd be possible if you're really strong to climb only the column. certainly beyond me, but i ain't so strong, eh?

 

anyway, without going up there, one can't know for sure. that was kinda the point of my TR about the climb, and one of the essential elements of climbing in general. you frequently don't know what you're capable of till you give it a try. course u gotta balance that against getting killed, but danger and do-ability aren't the same thing. anyway, you can't tell about either, standing on the ground and speculating.

 

cheers,

 

p.s. pls don't read the last paragraph as me saying one MUST go onto things to find out whether they are doable or not. it's perfectly acceptable to stand under something and say "i don't like the look of that", and to go away. done it plenty myself. but it's better, so long as the danger factor is acceptable, to actually TRY. the 'flash' for me on Shreddie was that far more of my fear was about personal inner doubts about my ability to climb the thing than about getting hurt. once i'd taken the step to actually engage the route, it turned out to be easy to separate the hazard stuff (not too bad) from the doubt/ability stuff (no problems).

 

maybe the warm weather has changed the equation some, but i kinda hope someone goes up there to stick a tool into the thing before is melts away again, even if the answer is "no fucking way, man!" then we can all just go back to waiting for the next chance, instead of flailing ourselves with our doubts...