[TR] Lillooet - 5 Days in Lillooet 1/1/2008

[G-spotter]

Trip: Lillooet - 5 Days in Lillooet

 

Date: 1/1/2008

 

Trip Report:

Jesse, Steve and I left Vancouver on Boxing Day and headed up to Lillooet for some end-of-year ice climbing. This is how it went down:

 

DAY 1:

We left Vancouver and headed to Pemberton. Not much ice in until north of Whistler. Took a drive up to D'arcy, gaped at some ice, nothing much inspired us. Drove over the Duffy, no one at the Rambles, fair bit of ice but still, nothing inspired us. Drove through Lillooet, up the Bridge River, LOTS of ice but by now we needed something roadside. Just beyond the dam we saw some unclimbed ice up above the road in a spot that it rarely, if ever, has formed fat before. We stopped, grabbed the gear, ran up and had a quick good climb.

 

 

A couple shots from Steve of Pitch 2 of "The Walrus", 80m WI2+.

 

Back to Lillooet that night and a palatial ghetto room at the Mile 0. Being Boxing Day night, the only place open to eat was the Reynolds. We had a beefy dinner and played some pool.

 

DAY 2: Next morning we got up early and headed up the Duffy to try and do Solarium plus Wet Lady, all of which looked a bit brown but pretty good from the road. However after breakng a deep path through the concrete-like crust and up to the climb we discovered Solarium was not really in: a thin sheet of unprotectable icicles.

 

 

So we bailed. Back on the road we started talking to some climbers in a car with Alberta plates. It turned out to be Will Knott from Canmore and Tim Emmett from the UK out to climb hard stuff. We pointed them at Loose Lady and drove away. Our back-up plan was Marble Canyon; we got there a bit after noon and ran laps on Deeping Wall to work the steep-ice technique until it got dark. Back in Lillooet we ordered in pizza to the motel room and stuffed ourselves, drank Jaegermeister, watched Bond movies and passed out.

 

DAY 3: Up early again and off to the Bridge River. The objective today was the rarely formed Silk Degrees which was in and fat, except for the very bottom, although it looked like the variant rock start was go.

 

 

The route from the road.

 

I had brought real waders but Jesse and Steve brought one pair of garbage bags between them, which made getting across the river a bit time-consuming. But we did all get across and stayed mostly dry.

 

 

Up to the route and it was my lead again. I started off on some thin ice and mixed to gain the rock, got up about 10 feet, ripped both tools, took a somersault and landed on my ass in the snow.

 

 

My second go was more successful and I even managed to find some OK gear here and there. The crux bulge was a mixture of laybacking and stemming with hands on rock and thin ice for the feet. Above the corner, the traverse over to the ice was exposed but pretty easy.

 

 

Jesse took the second pitch, which had some short steep steps in between some more mellow terrain. This pitch was climbed at around noon and it was nice and suny and warm, pretty comfortable ice climbing actually.

 

 

This brought us up to the crux pillar which fell to Steve. He got on it and sent, pretty good pitch, steepest at the bottom and gradually easing off higher up.

 

Above the pillar, one can cut hard to climber's right to walk off down a ramp. We continud up the gully, simulclimbing some WI2 steps, to check out the base of Silkworm. It was in but by the time we were up there it was pretty late so we bailed off into the Salmon Stakes approach scree gully with a couple of tree raps. Back across the river by headlamp and off to the Reynolds again where we met Don and Graham.

 

 

Day 4: Steve and Jesse headed off back to Vancouver via the Duffey. I hooked up with my friend Doug, a new ice climber, to do some more Lillooet ice. We went out to the Bridge River again. With the benefit of a late start, we got to see lots of other climbers on routes: Will and Tim heading to House of Cards, Don and Graham on Silk Degrees, and a pair of WA climbers on Night n Gale.

 

 

Doug and I ended up at Cedarvale Falls where we climbed the main falls and played around on some mixed terrain along the edge of the falls. A short day but a pretty good one. We got back to Lillooet in time to drink some beers at the Reynolds with Will and Tim. Then pizza again!

 

DAY 5:

 

Doug and I headed south of town down the Texas Creek road in search of some more moderate ice. Spray Creek Falls was not looking so good (big holes) so we hiked in to Texas Creek. The lower climbs were not really in, but Longhorn was there. We got to Texas Twostep to find the second pitch fat but the first pitch very thin. Still, it's relatively low-angle so I decided to head up.

 

The ice was 5cm thick or less for the first 20m, then gradually thickened to 13cm at the top. Surprisingly I got in a Spectre and two stubbies; I had thought it was going to be a roped solo. The second pitch was pretty fat.

 

On rappel we checked out a neat mixed line: the fatter ice (directly above Doug in the photo to the roof), then a right-facing corner with a 3" crack above it. Not having any rock gear today though, we settled for rappel inspection. Back to the car with a warm front cming in and out down the Canyon with melting snow, finally hitting rain around Hope.

 

More detailed conditions report sent to westcoastice.com so check there to see exactly what was in and what wasnt.

 

Gear Notes:

Standard ice rack

Spectre or Bulldog

Small rock rack from wired nuts to #2 camalot.

 

Approach Notes:

Car

Hip waders

Snowshoes for breakable crust

Ski poles for walking in.

[Ade]

It's me and Mark B on Night n Gale. Nice pictures!

[Don_Serl]

boy, what a good weekend! plenty of ice, not very many people.

 

we came up a couple days later than dru and co, so hit marble canyon friday. TR'ed the unusual column which has formed on Dales Route - not super-hard, but not easy to get screws at all.

 

 

then chipped our way up Deeping Wall on TR (still feeling a good deal less than totally confident) and climbed the 1st cpl pitches of Icy BC. upper tier looked OK, but light was fading, so we headed to Lillooet for beer, food, visiting, and bed.

 

Drew's description of Silk Degrees sounded good, and it hardly ever forms even as well as it has this year (still incomplete), so we did the creek crossing in the cold early morning and tackled the route. the start is VERY delicate, and there's probably no gear at all that'll keep you off the ground till u get to the good nut under the roof about 20m up. the middle pitch is lovely undulating ice, and the upper column starts quite hard and slowly eases (great photo of steve pulling the crux in drew's report). we rapped once from a tree to the left (55m), then another 55m from the rim of the middle section to the ground (V-thread).

 

back in town, we talked to jeff street and john (?) who had climbed 3 ring circus, and decided since (a) that route also seldom forms and (b) there was a track beaten in, we'd go there next day. took just under an hour to walk the road to the 7th switchback, and only 45 or 50 minutes to tramp down and around to the base of the route (you lose maybe 200 ft to the first gully, then probably another 200 ft to the route). graham won the draw, so got the 'money' pitch, which was pretty hard on the initial 10m column (probably 5-). i led the lower angled 60m 2nd tier, then we walked up a way and soloed a short step, then walked off right. there was a short (20m) rap to regain the base.

 

 

ade and mark had climbed Jade, and the presence of another track appealed, but we decided to finish with carlsberg the 4th day before heading back to Vanc. there was a LOT of ice, but much of it was pretty wet too. I got the 1st section and belayed in the alcove at 40m.

 

 

G moved right across some delicate terrain to reach steppy Gr 4 ice for the final 20m and to keep from bombing me.

 

the drive down was casual, with fine weather, snow-free roads, and minimal traffic out fo Whistler. all-in-all, a fine start to the season.

 

cheers,

 

 

[Sherri]

That's cool, G! Great photos and details.

[rat]

"p-s dihedral" + "eagle ears" makes for an excellent pitch...bring stubbies for "ee" or clip the bolts.

 

"closet secrets" is in but much thinner than the guidebook photo...short screws and rock pro to 2" on 12/29. it didn't look like a person could yet snag "shreddie" from "prophet maker".

 

"after the gold rush" is still in. we continued up to the wi2 smear above and right of the last pitch described in the guidebook. fun rambling.

 

good to hear "3 ring circus" was climbed.

[ken4ord]

Damn Don real nice pictures. I miss ice climbing