Is Squamish Stiff?

[jonny2vests]

As an alternative to last year's 'Is Squamish Soft?' thesis (nay, theses), I've now been around for over a year, ticked lots of classics and a very few choss piles and have a somewhat more balanced view of things. I've also managed to sample wider delights including Leavenworth, Index, Red Rocks, Skaha, Smith etc.

So my take from that thread was that in general, the predominant style for an area is quite often stiff. For me, some slabs here feel like the living end. Take for instance 'Local Boys do Good', I've only been on pitch 1, and it didn't go well, I'm calling 'joke grade'. As for cracks, I consider myself reasonably decent at those, consequently the grades feel about right, if I were foolish enough to do a grade translation to Brit. Other fellow Brits tell me they get spanked stupid by Squamish cracks though. For the steeper stuff, in say Murrin, that feels easier, maybe because there there's not loads of it and that biases the grade consensus?

So is that an accurate summary do you think?.

And are we having another one of those psyche ledge shenanigans this year?

And has the blonde chick on the front page lowered her requirements for boyfriend material?

Psyched!

PS. For every person that says something like 'who cares, just go climbing dude', Jesus will kill a kitten.

[hevyduty]

Hey BB u takin the mick , in the uk we don't have the great crack routes like we have in NA , there all kind of short and burly. A typical hard brit crack would be Red Nails or Spider fly,climb 10 routes a session your ready for El Cap! Thats how i trained for the valley!Jonney if u need to hone up your slab skills we,have cleaned a new bouldering area in the Bluffs with a bunch of slab problems from VO toV2.Work these and you're ready for The Magic Carpet Ride!

[scrubber]

Slabs feel hard for many folks for the same reason that offwidths do: most of us aren't very good at the techniques required to climb them. If you beat yourself up on them regularly, the grades would probably feel much closer to on par with other types of climbing in the area.

I think in general Squamish is pretty mid-way as far as grades go in North America. I've seen lots of easier feeling areas, and lots of harder ones too. Imagine if you came from one of the really soft areas. Every road trip would feel like a continuous ego crushing sandbag.

K

[jonny2vests]

@bearbreeder: Agreed, Kangaroo is a joke. Its an eliminate for starters and its not mentioned in any description I've read, if you use the boreholes out left to bridge on, its about 10b. As for Brit cracks, you're right, proper splitters are rare, but they do exist. Fairhead in Northern Ireland has plenty. Fortunately what we do have is much more developed climbing

@hevyduty: So where's the new area?

@scrubber: I'm picturing someone visiting Index from Skaha, that'd be a bitter pill.

[hevyduty]

hi johnny theres a photo of the slab problems on squamish climbers post .Theres 8 problems v0 tov2 and a low traverse.enjoy

[imnotnate]

hey hevyduty, not quite sure what you mean there... where exactly is that photo of the new slab bouldering?

cheers,
nate

[squamish climber]

Nate,
It's in the Kids Zone at Smoke Bluffs Park. Scroll Dow the page here
http://squamishclimbing.com/squamish_cl ... f=1&t=4365

[imnotnate]

Ah, cool thanks.

[jonny2vests]

Yeah, nice one,

J2V