Jason Kruk and Hayden Kennedy are guest speakers for the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival’s closing night February 18, 7:30pm at Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver.
As far as big, bold climbs go, you can’t get much bigger or bolder than a new route on the Southeast ridge of Cerro Torre in Patagonia. The featureless face on the near-perfect granite spire is permanently etched by Cesare Maestri’s infamous bolt line. And as far as climbing controversies go, you can’t get much hotter than the international conflagration burning over the chopping of Maestri’s 42 year-old bolts.
This is why the spotlight is on Squamish climber Jason Kruk and his American partner Hayden Kennedy. Squamishclimbing.com recently sat down with Kruk to get the full story on their controversial climb and the international row over the right of foreign climbers to rip out established bolts.
In 1970, Maestri used a gas powered compressor to drill more than 400 bolts up the Southeast Ridge of Cerro Torre. The Compressor Route, as it became known, was widely considered an artificial climb and a hollow claim of alpinism, much like the Italian alpinist’s claim that he climbed Cerro Torre in 1959. That climb was debunked when later expeditions failed to climb the route and found no evidence Maestri had climbed more than a quarter of the way up the mountain. More recently, there is growing suspicion that Maestri came up short on the Compressor Route too. He claimed he reached the summit after climbing to the top of the headwall. He stopped below the rime ice on the summit saying it was “not really part of the mountain” because “it’ll blow away one of these days.” But his true high point may have been just above where he left his compressor as his bolts peter out completely 20 metres from the top of the headwall.
In the last few years, the prize had been to climb the Compressor Route in the best style by eliminating as many of the Maestri bolts as possible. The goal became known as the “fair means” project. Kruk age 24,and Kennedy age 22, bagged it when they used only five bolts from previous fair means attempts and two of Meastri’s anchors. They graded the climb 5.11+ A2. Then, when the pair reached the top, they went down removing 125 Maestri bolts along the way.
The news went viral that the Compressor Route had fallen to a fair means ascent, and Kruk and Kennedy had chopped the bolts. Likely more than a few tons of green house gases were burned debating if what they did was justified. Some vilified Kruk and Kennedy saying they had no right to remove the bolts. A few called them names, comparing them to terrorists and referring to them with the initials KKK. Others stood by them, saying it was about time the widely condemned bolts were removed.
Kruk and Cerro Torre are well acquainted
“The first time I saw Cerro Torre I had to sit down. It takes your breath away. It’s the raddest peak on the planet,” says Kruk. At 3,128 m (10, 262 ft) it’s not the height of the peak that makes it so striking. Surrounded by lesser spires, Cerro Torre rises straight up out of the glacier and narrows to a small summit capped by a mushroom of ice.
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So all this wet weather has started to creep into the psyche and commentary of the Squamish Mountain Festival. Ed Cooper in his excellent presentation showed some slides of Squamish climbing under beautiful blue skies and says he doesn’t know what people are saying that the weather in Squamish is terrible. Thanks Ed, it was good to have a reminder that the sun can shine in Squamish even though those photos were taken 50 years ago.
Well, there is good news on weather front for Sunday, the rain is supposed to diminish to the chance of a shower and the sun may even make an appearance!
As I said, Ed did a great presentation, showing some slides of his and Jim Baldwin’s first ascent in 1961. He’s also made a great contribution to retaining a bit of the history of Squamish climbing by painstakingly restoring some of his old slides. He says some of them had turned magneta, had mold growing on them and had lots of scratches, but with Photoshop he turned them back almost to their original condition. — Thanks Ed for your efforts.
Ed Cooper
Ed recounted some of the stories of making the first ascent of the Grand Wall. He remembers the huge media story it was back then and how a reporter miss-quoted him by writing he and Jim sucked moths to quench their thirst instead of sucking the water out of moss.
There was also a little nod to the contribution this first ascent made and climbing in general does for the city. Squamish councillor and former mayor, Corrine Lonsdale says the climbing community has done a lot to put Squamish on the map and she thanked the efforts of the FMBC for saving Smoke Bluffs. Lonsdale, who grew up in Squamish remembers when Ed and Jim were climbing the Chief and how everybody wanted to watch to see if they would fall.
And in Ed’s recounting, there are a couple of times that easily could have happened such as the time his rope came untied while leading the Split Pillar.
At the end of the presentation, Anders Ourom, a long-time climber who is writing a coffee table book on the history of Squamish Climbing got up to recognize Ed and Jim’s contribution as well as the place several other climbers have in the development of climbing in Squamish.
Here is a photo of some Squamish Climbing pioneers from left to right, Richard Strachan (FA Snake and Clean Corner, 1962), Ed Cooper FA, Grand Wall, 1961, Dick Culbertson, FA North Gully 1958 and guidebook author of Coast Ranges and Glenn Woodsworth, FA of University Wall 1966 and first guidebook of Squamish climbing 1967.
The next presentation after Ed was a complete change of pace as Tim Emmett took us through some of his exploits from hard sport climbing, DWS and base jumping. There’s a good story of how Tim met then married a local Squamish girl by actually falling out of the sky from a base jump and virtually landing on her at a beach in Thailand.
Tim Emmett at SMF
Some of us still had some energy at the end of this to rock and dance at the Robot Disco party. Props to the climbers who got it together and dressed the part.
Whoa, lack of sleep is catching up to me and there are still two days to go. I’ll be brief here and then hopefully come back later and post some photos.
Day started at 9am at the Adventure Centre for the CASBC and SAS volunteer trail day – thanks to Peter and Jeremy for organizing this and thanks to the sponsors for the great swag.
Good work was done on four areas: Rehab/check, Cat Lake, Area 44 and the Pet.
This evening’s film and presentations rocked. Nina Caprez was very irreverent. She showed a film of a bouldering trip to Argentina – the Eruos she was with had quite a sense of humor.
Her presentation was a contrast to Cory who sometimes laid it on the line and had a inserted some funny and strange quips and anecdotes. Then he got dead serious in his Film Cold. The first winter ascent of an 8000 meter peak in winter.
So that’s the short version. More later.
….Later, OK here are some photos from the great day yesterday
The CASBC and SAS trail day crew
Volunteer crew at Cat Lake
Charlie Harrison and Hoi-en Tang from SAS
CASBS director, Adam Connor explaining the benefits of membership to Kevin Henshaw and Lauren Baldwin
Nina Capriz
Cory Richards with his fiance Olivia Hsu
SMF Day 2 – Steep Shot Photo Contest
There was a big crowd tonight for this event, I mean we’re talking packed, not an empty seat, young, old(er), local, out of town, sold-out kind of crowd. And in it’s understandable, who wouldn’t want to see Squamish’s renowned photography talent face off in a photo contest?
Five shooters gave it their best shot to take home the $1000 first place prize — Dave Humphreys, Rich Wheater, Paul Bride, Chris Christie and Jim Martinello. Check out the SMF page for their bios. It goes without saying that all these guys are extremely talented and have a unique perspective on climbing photography. Chris Christie, was the crowd favourite and the judges agreed, they judged him first place. What stood out for me was the way he clever framed many of his shot using the landscape such as trees, rock formations and arches. Paul Bride who came first last year, grabbed second place. Jim Martinello came third, his shots of climbers in outline against stunning backgrounds drew audience appreciation.
I got a little insight in the work and stress producing a media presentation like this involves. Rich Wheater told me he dealt with a computer/hard drive crash last night. It took him until 2:30 am to rebuild and refine his project again.
Quite a few people took home swag that was flying around during the intermission.
Thanks to emcee Scott Milton, organizers Laura, Justin and the techies for a great evening.
Hello Squamish, here we come. The days are getting brighter, the sun is out a little longer and the rock…well it’s getting a little drier. Which can only mean one thing — the 2011 climbing season is just around the corner. So it’s time to refine that tick list and put those days of pulling on plastic to good use.
A lot has been happening on the Squamish climbing scene over the last year so here’s a quick recap:
Starting right here. You may have noticed Squamishclimbing.com – the go to site for climbing in Squamish has undergone a significant upgrade. The forum is now easier to use, navigate and post. There will soon be a new user photo gallery where you can post your pictures and see what others have done in Squamish. And the crag and map pages have been upgraded allowing easier updating. Check it out, sign up and start enjoying the benefits of the community forum.
On the climbing front the big news is that the Malemute has been made part of Stawamus Provincial Park. Hopefully this will put an end to the illegal camping at the top of the Malemute which has been a problem the last few summers. While some of the lower parts of the crag remain closed to climbing because of the CN Rail right of way, look for improved rap stations that provide access to many of the lower climbs. The Malamute offers a unique seaside climbing experience with some of the best cracks in the Sea to Sky corridor.
An area that has seen a lot of work over the last year is the Smoke Bluffs. The park advisory committee has spearheaded a new trail from Crag X up to Lumberland and the top tier climbs. If you have never visited the park before you will be impressed by the climber-friendly ambience such as benches and picnic tables at the base of some crags, helpful signs and maps and several pit toilets. This has got to be one of the few urban parks in the world that not only welcomes climbers but goes out of its way to accommodate them.
On the new route front there’s additions galore, meriting an article on it’s own. Here are some highlights: On Tantulus Wall Jeremy Frimmer established the nine pitch Milk Road 5.10d A0 (5.11d). This is a fantastic route with crack, face and a memorable finish on a delicate dike. The climb is on par with the Grand Wall in difficulty and commitment. Also On the Chief, Sonnie Trotter put in a two pitch 5.9 finish to the Squamish Buttress called Butt Face, making a great moderate route to the top. Speaking of moderates, Slab Alley 5.9, one of the first climbs on the Apron got a big overhaul by Anders Ourom, and Kris Wild cleaned a new start to Calculus Crack 5.8. eliminating the bushy tree climb at the bottom.
More committing climbs have been put up on the North Walls and Slhanay including The White Feather, 5 pitches at 5.11d with reportedly the one of the best pitches in all of Squamish.
On the sport climbing front new bolted lines have gone up at the Pet Wall including the four star Underwire 5.10d/5.11a put up by Chris Small. For full on sport climbing the Chek area north of Squamish remains the place to go.
Lots and lots of new boulder problems have been established in the last year. Definitely check out Marc Bourdon’s book Squamish Bouldering Guide, Second Edition. It came out last year and is a brilliant and comprehensive book on more than 2500 problems.
Phew, that just starts to scratch the surface as far as new routes go. Check the new routes/cleaning thread on the forum for more info on the routes mentioned and many others.
Now to look ahead to events and happenings this summer. The highlight is going to be the Squamish Mountain Festival July 13-17. Every year this celebration of local climbing culture and international gathering gets better and better.
Speaking of culture, last year Live at Squamish had it’s debut. And by all accounts it rocked. This year the music and art festival is gearing up for even more fun and great bands. The lineup this year includes Weezer, Metric and Major Lazer. Needless to say August 20 to 21 is going to be very busy in Squamish. You may have trouble finding a campsite anywhere in town. But if you want to climb and take in a great music festival this would be the time to go.
Okay that’s it for now. Have a great and safe climbing season.
Along with Squamish Access Society president Jeremy Smith, Marc-Andre Leclerc is headlining the locals’ evening at the Squamish Mountain Festival. Squamishclimbing.com recently caught up with Marc to get a preview of what he might be talking about at the festival and what else the young Arc’teryx athlete has been getting up to in the last few months.
The short answer on the second topic is “plenty”. During the winter, Marc made his first trip to Patagonia, combining two back-to-back sessions with different sets of partners. With Jason Kruk, he wrestled classic terrible Patagonia weather and objectives around the Torre massif. Then, with Paul McSorley, Will Stanhope and Matt Van Biene he ventured out to an unclimbed wall in the little-known Rio Turbio valley, where the approach seems to have been as sketchy as the climbing. After that, a US road trip. In Yosemite Marc tried for what he calls the “half-pipe”: soloing the big faces on Half Dome and Mount Watkins in a single day. Now he is home in BC for the summer season.
Currently Marc is best known in Squamish for freeing the A4 aid line, Last Temptation of St Anthony, on the North Walls. Though he had sent most of the route several years ago, including the physical crux, an overhanging 5.13 flake, the most serious of the original aid pitches held out until October last year. Chris Geisler had climbed this off-vertical face pitch almost entirely on skyhooks with just three bolts and Marc wanted to respect that lead by freeing the pitch without any additional drilling. Though ex-Squamish-resident Sonnie Trotter estimated 5.13 after a top rope ascent, Marc compares the difficulty to some of Murrin Park’s 5.12+ crimpathons, though with vastly more risk: “like soloing Vorpal Sword or leading Mata Hari with one bolt”. Falls up to a hundred feet are possible from the pitch.
Though obviously capable of incredible focus in action, Marc comes over as extremely laid-back away from the rock. He says he dislikes being too structured about training or projecting routes, and prefers spontaneity and keeping climbing fun at all times. The big lead on Last Temptation was wholly unplanned. He had been up on the route alone working moves and was about to strip his fixed lines from the route before the winter, when his girlfriend jumared up from below to offer a belay if needed. Though conditions were not ideal, with a very strong side-wind, some instinct told him that this was the moment to try the lead … no doubt Marc will finish the story in his presentation at the festival. This year he is working at freeing the Raven, another old aid route on the North Walls. Like Last Temptation it involves significant face climbing rather than being a standard Squamish crack and corner line, but he doesn’t think there are any “R” or “X” leads to negotiate.
Marc’s other multi-pitch addition to the Chief last year was Labyrinth on the Tantalus Wall. This evolved after a rope-solo of the aid route Wrist Twister, which the new route criss-crosses on various dike features. Marc and partner Luke Neufeld tackled the route ground-up, cleaning and bolting on lead. Both took long falls after blowing hooks whilst drilling.
This spring in Indian Creek he attempted the infamous 5.13 R Air Sweden ground-up, taking falls up to fifty foot. He ultimately failed to send, but feels his attempts were more rewarding than if he had top-roped the route as most people do (the anchors are easy to access via a 5.11 crack pitch) then made a lead that would have had no uncertainty.
It might seem like Marc is making ethical statements with some of these ascents. But hearing him talk about them gives no impression at all that he wants to prescribe how other people climb. For him climbing is very personal, and playing with strict rules is his way of maximising his own experience. But come judge that for yourself: Marc’s presentation is on the 16th.
The 7th Annual Squamish Mountain Festival went out with a bang. Thunder and lightening rolled in this morning. But the real thunder was the applause that erupted later this afternoon when Elise Sethna of Banff, Alberta, set a new women’s world record dyno jump with a leap of 2.20m! Check it out here: New world record dyno jump. The sun came out to shine on the competitors at the The Flashed Dyno Comp. There was a huge field of men (over 20) , which ensured it would be a fierce battle to claim the top spot. Local boy Marc Andre-Lerclerc took it, being the only competitor to dyno without a fall until the very last round.
The crowd loved it all and cheered on the competitors who came from as far away as Boston, Texas and Mexico. Look below for some photos I took at the Dyno Comp.
I wandered around the trade fair today talking to some of the manufacturers and suppliers. I spent some time at the Black Diamond tent. They have got some impressive innovations in the pipe. Eddie Whittemore the Black Diamond rep showed me the Magnetron belay carabiners. These are the ones with a magnet that clicks and releases a locking feature on the gate. Some people seem skeptical of these, but having held one and opening and closing it a bunch of times I think this will be a solid piece of gear. There was no easy way I could see of the thing opening on its own. You need to place two fingers on either side of the gate to release the magnet. I don’t know about you but there have been times when I’ve forgotten to screw the gate closed on my HMS biner, so an simple auto-lock seems likes a nice idea. Eddie says these are going to be in the stores in September.
Perhaps even cooler than that were new Camelot X4’s. These are double axles in the bigger sizes, single axles and off-set in the smaller sizes. The cams feature narrow head width, with a flexible aluminium protection stem, (single) and centred thumb piece. Eddie says these are due out next March. Here’s a photo of one Eddie had at the table.
BD's new cams coming out next March
It’s been a great five days at the festival. I met a lot of super great people, reconnected with folks I met ages ago and talked to a few Squamishclimbing.com users. I heard some great feedback about site from a lot of people and I look forward to bringing in the changes when I can. If you have any more thoughts drop me a line.
I’d like to thank Laura Ferguson and her crew at Arc’teryx for putting on a great festival. As well a big thanks to Ivan Hughes of Fringe Filmworks who produced the event and all the volunteers and sponsors for a working hard to pull off a quality program. Until next year – happy, safe climbing everyone.
Some photos from Dyno Comp
The crowd gathers
Woke up with the morning rays streaming over the northern shoulder of the Chief brightening up the town of Squamish. What a beautiful place.
A lot of community and fun events happened today. For the first time I didn’t sign up for one of the clinics. But I saw everybody heading out and they all looked psyched for a day of hands on learning. I opted to join the CASBC Volunteer Trail Maintenance Day. There was a great turnout of over 25 people. Some excellent work was done at Murrin Park, Area 44, the Chek and North Walls. All the volunteers were rewarded with some awesome swag.
I stuck around the Adventure Centre after that and somehow got roped onto a team for the Maixm Ropes Tug-o -War. We crushed every other team to win a rope each!
It was Big Wall night at the Eagle Eye Theatre, featuring Glen Denny a big wall pioneer from the sixties in Yosemite and Squamish’s own Will Stanhope. The two offered great contrasts between what climbing was like in the sixties and how it is now. Perhaps not too surprising, there is a lot of similarities too, like the fact that generations of climbers pull pranks on their partners, push the limits and revel in the beauty of climbing.
Checked out the Tropical Themed party down at the Howe Sound Brew Pub to wrap up the night. It was good to see Jeremy Smith, a local who can pull down and climb with the best of them, behind the turntable spinning and playing some great rhythms.
Here’s some photos from the day
A great start to the day
Peter Winter, president of CASBC giving the crew final instructions for Volunteer Trail Maintenance Day
Now it's the end the day and the volunteer crew gather for a group shot with their swag
Crag Maintenance Day: keeping the green back
Fixing a trail up at a new crag in Murrin
Pull harder
Jeremy Smith spinning
Woke up to another beautiful clear blue sky today. The weather is just perfect. Anybody remember last year? It rained nearly the whole five days. Maybe I had a bit too much sun yesterday but I was feeling a little sluggish so headed into the forest of the Grand Wall boulders and did some bouldering. In the afternoon my energy picked up so I went over to the Malemute and top-roped High Mountain Woody. It was just me and the seagulls out there enjoying the ocean breeze. I don’t know where everyone was but that is a great place to climb. And HMW is very nice route, perfect finger locks and hand jams.
Tonight’s festival lineup began with a slide and film presentation by American climber Jonathan Siegrist and director Keith Ladzinski. They teamed up with climber / director Andy Mann and climber Nini Caprez (who was at SMF last year) to climb some of the classic lines of Verdon Gorge. There was some good material there and the photography was very good, but there was not a whole lot there to engage and sustain a documentary feature.
The highlight of the evening was Sonnie’s slide show on the trip he took with Alex Honnold and photographer Andrew Burr to the Copper Canyon in Mexico to climb El Gigante. Sonny calls this the Yosemite of the south, there is so much climbing potential there in a canyon that rivals the Grand Canyon. El Gigante is a 844m (3,000′) wall with a 27 pitch 5.13 route on it.
The trio were dodging shady marijuana grow operators at the bottom of the canyon. On the way in they were told a couple of people had been shot in the area. A memorable line in Sonnie’s story is that Alex told him not to yell off belay after the first pitch, Alex said he wanted to be well off the ground before they could have a chance to shoot him. Sonnie and Alex did the climb in under 24 hours. It looked very steep, technical and long. If any of you read his blog or any of his articles you know Sonnie is a strong writer with a talent for story telling. He can do the same in a slide presentation.
A bigger crowd was out tonight. I met a couple from Tucson, Arizona Lauren and Andy, I hope I remembered their names right. This is there third time to Squamish. So I guess they like it here. They say the climbing variety is amazing.
I’ll post some photos of some people you may recognize but before I do a couple of programming notes; Saturday and Sunday are big Festival Days
- At 3pm there’s a Tug of War and at 4pm a mean Dodge Ball happens.
- The very popular guiding clinics start at 9am at the Adventure Centre. All the clinics are sold out except the Adventure Photography and Multi-pitch clinics.
- There is also a Trade Fair and Gear Demo happening all day at the Adventure Centre and a Flashed Dyno Comp.
- And hopefully there will be a good turnout to the Climbers Access Society of BC (CASBC) Volunteer Trail Maintenance Day. I have gone for the last three or four years and can tell you it’s a good rewarding time. You can feel good giving back to the community and you are guaranteed not to go home empty handed from give-aways by generous sponsors. This starts at 8am at the Adventure Centre.
Some photos from Day 3
Squamishclimbing.com is a proud sponsor of SMF
Adam Connor volunteers out at the CASBC table - join up climbers it's the right thing to do.
Good turnout tonight
Two Big-Time Squamish Route Developers - Robin Barley and Jeremy Frimmer. Robin told me he doesn't use a computer so he may never see this.
There's guidebook author Marc Bourdon and his wife Pam - Nice work Marc on the an excellent Squamish Select 3rd Edition. Marc has also stepped in and is a new director on the Squamish Access Society board. - Thanks for that too, Marc.
I’ve been doing more climbing than blogging and tweeting for the first two days of the Squamish Mountain Festival. The weather here is fantastic. I’ve had some great days out climbing a bit more of that later. First, it’s time to recap some of the great films, and presenters the last couple of nights.
Day One: Squamish Rocks!
This was locals night and a couple of films shot in Squamish provided a great segue into some great slide shows and presentations by Squamish residents.
The highlight for me was hearing Glenn Woodsworth talking about the early days of climbing in Squamish. We’re talking the early and mid 1960s. Glenn had some great photos I had never seen before of people like Hamie, Lief Patterson, Tim Auger and others. He also introduced the film University Wall, about the first ascent of the climb, it included some great footage of UBC students scaling campus buildings in the sixties.
Local climber Kinley Altken had some fantastic landcape shots of the Chief from the water in her presentation. The granite dome looked golden in the evening light bouncing off the water.
Perry Beckam and Brad Zdanivsky were also on the program but didn’t make an appearence, too bad. Jeremy Frimmer however was there and the audience got more of the back story about motivations and rewards that drove Jeremy to develop some great moderates climbs. Although he’s moving to Winnipeg he has left behind a legacy and challenge for others to contribute their own climbs for the climbing public.
Day Two: Dean Potter makes a surprise appearance
He wasn’t on the program but his timing was bang on when he drove into town Thursday afternoon. That evening the National Geographic Film, The Man Who Can Fly which is about his winged-suit flight from the top of Mt Bute in BC was the feature film. Squamish locals and filmmakers Christian Begin and Bryan Smith with camera, producing and rigging help from Jim Marinello, Matt Maddaloni and Damie Kelly made this stunning and emotive film. The discussion and audience Q&A afterwords was equally engaging. I wish I was not so tired now to remember some of the finer points made but it was very interesting to hear Dean’s philosophy and spiritual motivations behind what he does. Dean’s dog Whisper was there, the dog seems to be Dean’s constant and perhaps closest companion. He was even featured in the film. I think it was telling about how Dean values life and his care for others when in the film, Whisper the dog is wearing a life jacket for the sailing portion up Bute Inlet. Here is a guy who in the film slack-lined, ropeless across the South Gully and free-soloed a section of El Cap, but puts a life jacket on a dog.
That’s about all for now. Here are some photos over the last couple of days.
The Film crew from L to R Matt Maddaloni, Dean Potter, Whisper the dog, Jim Martinello, Bryan Smith, Christian Begin, and Damien Kelly.
Squamishclimbing.com climbers Luke and Aislin (sp?)
Wow, the Arc’teryx Squamish Mountain Festival starts tomorrow. After looking forward to it for so long, it sure seemed to come up fast. I drove into town this morning, the sun was shinning, the wind was blowing and people were smiling…oh yeah, summer is here. And the weather ahead looks fantastic, they are calling for slightly cooler temps, mostly sunny before heating up for the weekend.
Walking through Smoke Bluffs Park - looking nice and green
I climbed some at Smoke Bluffs Park over at Tunnel Rock – that’s a nice crag btw – stayed in the shade and some nice long routes. Also we climbed down in High Cliff area – another quiet, shady spot.
Guess this climb at High Cliff
Saw some kids and their leaders from Bold Mountaineering, a YMCA type program up from Seattle. They were having fun at Burgers and Fries crag.
Kids and their leaders up from Seattle at Burgers and Fries
The crags were pretty busy and everybody it seemed had the new Bourdon Squamish Select Guide out. It’s kind of funny walking around the Chief Campground you see people with their heads buried in the new guide or knots of climbers gathering around a copy of the guidebook open on the table, talking about this or that route they’ve done or are gonna try.
Yeah that new guide is a hot seller. Dan over at Climb On was telling me he usually sells about 15 guidebooks in June but this year he sold 80 and nearly all them were the new guide book. I’ve been pouring over my copy since I got it last week and I’ll have to post a more detailed review. From what I’ve seen Marc nailed it with this one. The book is nicely laid out and colour-coded, and it’s very easy to find climbs and approach trails. The colour photography is excellent and make navigating easy.
Happy climbers at the Chief Campground
Don't forget the dogs
The Chief Campground is packed, I noticed plates from New York, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, California, Alberta and of course Quebec — Salut toute le monde. All these folks are here for the climbing of course but I hope they know there’s a festival going on. They could partake in some traditional Squamish hospitality. It’s great to walk around and see all the happy, smiling people. The guitars our out and I can hear some laughing and joking.
The Climbers Car Lot
So head on up here if you can. Tomorrow looks like a great launch.- with Squamish Rocks! This where six people will have six minutes to present a rapid-fire slide show claiming bragging rights about why Squamish is the best place to climb and live. There’s a bit of irony here, because one of the presenters is Jeremy Frimmer, who’s made a big impact on Squamish climbing by developing some of the newest, classic lines in Squamish such as Skywalker, Milk Road, and others, But the guy is leaving for Winnipeg at the end of the summer. Too Bad, so sad that you had leave in the first place Jeremy, I’m sure you’ll be back.
I’m going to hit the sack. Tomorrow will be big day. – Happy and Safe climbing — Dave
Mt Atwell and Garabaldi in the evening light
SMF Day 5
The Squamish Mountain Festival ended with a Flash flood, err scratch that the rain came later, what I meant to say was it ended with a Flashed Dyno Comp at Pavillion Park. I wasn’t there, but I know it was a crowd pleaser because I could hear them cheering from where I was climbing in Smoke Bluffs. If anybody knows who was crowned the 2011 Dyno Champ please post up on the forum.
Then the retailers and sponsors folded up their tents — thank you guys for all the loot you gave away and making this event possible. It’s also great all the volunteers were thanked and fed with a volunteer bbq ath the Howe Sound Brew Pub. They also made this event a huge success.
After that it was time to say goodbye to people we met at the festival and to people we reconnected since last time. That has to be one of the best things about this festival, the friendships made, the stories swapped and the laughs shared. Call it what you will, a community, tribe or sister and brotherhood, but climbers the world over share a unique connection. It’s at events like this that show us climbers why only other climbers can really understand why we have to and love to climb.
I’ll add some photos to this post soon, in the meantime check back the Squamish Mountain Festival page, they have some highlights and recap of the festival.
Thanks everyone for a great festival see you again next year.
Trade Fair and Demo Gear tents
The Dyno Wall
Jeremy Smith, VP of Squamish Access Society Board
