squamish

feels good to be back!

we love squamish and spent most of the summer here when we were living in the van,

so we did a quick squamish climbing trip with ally, carl, vinny, em, dan, lucia, and james.

here's a quick trip report with some climbing photos:

oh yeah

star chek

a classic 5.9 4-pitch sport route in cheakamus canyon, we have been wanting to do this one for a while. it is famous for one obvious reason:

it is very cool.

you basically hike all the way down into the canyon and then climb up this wall that hangs right over the rushing cheakamus river below, very cool. the other (in)famous thing about this route is that it is very run-out. like 3 bolts per 25m pitch. tiny holds, small feet, a little spooky. amy did a great job leading this one.

at the top is a very good view of the tantalus range

skywalker

another bucket list climb - a classic 5.8 5-pitch trad route in shannon falls. we did a 4 person party conga line up at sunset which was very fun. thankfully there was nobody else behind us.

carl fights through the crux pitch (stout for the grade according to the guidebook), which i actually loved - big hands the whole way.

dan selfie from the top of pitch 3

sunset over squamish from the top of pitch 3

group selfie before the start of pitch 4

at the anchor for pitch 4 is this plaque that says "may the force be with you" because you are about to start the "skywalker" pitch - a very cool traverse holding onto an undercling with a tonne of air beneath you and just friction for feet. airy. very cool.

skywalker

smoke bluffs

the zip

even amy is leading some trad routes

showing vinny the ropes of gear placement

he has not quite figured it out

rain day

no climbing, no hiking today because it is dumping rain

but we did check into an airbnb with a mini ramp

the black tusk

we have been wanting to climb the black tusk ever since the first time we came to squamish. it is this unmistakable distinct peak that you can see from miles around; a sharp gigantic tooth of stark black volcanic rock sticking out of the skyline.

the hike to get there is no joke, one of the bigger days we have ever done: 27km, 1760m.

the bishop's mitre, the volcanic ridge coming off the tusk

the real reason we have put this off for a while is because of the tusk itself: there is a scramble section to climb the tusk which is a little sketchy. essentially you have to climb up these very steep chimneys of loose, crumbly rock (people call it 'the black choss' for a reason). there's nowhere to put in any gear to rope up, so you just have to scramble it. when we were here in squamish last, someone died falling on one of the chimneys, which made us hesitate doing it.

the chimneys didn't actually turn out to be that bad, we just took it slow and spaced out so we didn't send rocks down on each other. but there was one move to get out of a gulch at the top where you had to chimney up out using both side of the walls to the top and make an awkward move to climb out, maybe even a little harder on the way down.

once through the chimneys it is mostly just steep loose rock to the top, but with some significant exposure at times

summit selfie

the clouds cleared for a second for view from the top

glissading the whole way down

stopped at garabaldi lake on the way back down for a very cold but well deserved swim

spirit of squamish

we couldn't leave squamish without doing one of our favourite all-time routes: the spirit of squamish; an 8 pitch 210m 5.8 trad route with one of the coolest settings ever

amy about to follow pitch 1: 33m of bomber hands, which is only a problem because the gear is the same size all the way up so you have to be conservative with your 2-3 pieces that fit that size.

amy fighting through the squeeze on pitch 2

james on the famous pitch - right beside a waterfall. so cool.

amy at the crux - the hands taper to fingers, then the crack disappears until you reach up and find a tiny, tough finger crack that eventually tapers back out to hands again

at the top you can go and swim in the pools of the waterfall, supposing it isn't absolutely raging - which today it is.

overall, we love squamish. excellent time - got to knock off a lot of our bucket list.

5 stars. will be back.