The Day before Day 1 at the SMF 2012

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