New Free Route in North Walls

[marc_leclerc]

I finished freeing the first six pitches of Chris Geisler's epic aid line 'The Last Temptation of St Anthony' on the North Walls of the Chief. This is an incredibly beautiful line, one of the great lines of Squamish in my fully biased opinion. Pitch 4 is a contender for the one of the boldest leads on the Chief and was climbed in headpoint style. The rest of the pitches were cleaned on rappel then freed on lead, except for pitch 2 which is a variation from the original line that was bolted on aid by myself in 2012. Pitch 3 is one of the best gear leads of it's grade in Squamish and is worth checking out for its own sake. A single 70m can get you down from the top of P3 with some directionals to reach the 2nd belay. Belays are bolted and most have chains.

The route is located just right of 'Alaska Highway' and begins with The Forgotten Flake.

'The Last Temptation of St Anthony' (P1-6) 5.13a R/X
FA: Chris Geisler (A4, Summer 2000)
FFA: Marc-Andre Leclerc (P3,5,6 Summer 2011,P2 June 2012, P4 October 2013)

P1: The Forgotten Flake - Climb the pleasant wide handcrack flake to the large roof, then hand traverse right and turn an arete to belay from a bolt and a 2'inch cam. 5.10a

P2: Interesting face moves lead left in an exposed position above the lip of the roof. 5.11c bolts.

P3: 'Shifting Gears' - Climb the beautiful arching splitter to a wild crux in the overhanging fingercrack. From a good rest in an alcove hand traverse right in an exposed position (rope drag!!!) to reach a classy right facing corner. Bust out the RP's and stem up the corner passing a hanging station at its end to step left to a bolted anchor equipped with chains. The crux is brief but very burly. 5.13a.

(Rap from here with a single 70m for 'Shifting Gears' 5.13a)

P4: 'Cerebral Fornication' - This may be one of the most beautiful pitches of face climbing in the known universe, but sports runouts similar to the 'Bachar-Yerian' at a harder grade. This pitch was freed in headpoint style. Climb an incredible white dyke splitting a featureless black face for 50 meters. There are 3 bolts to protect the first 30 meters of sustained hard climbing, after that the difficulty relents but the gear remains sparse at best, an easy traverse left reaches the belay. Bring some cams to 3'inches and wires/RP's. 5.12d R/X.

Pull up a fixed line through some bushes to reach P5.

P5: Climb easy cracks to a small roof then traverse right around it. Enjoy 15 meters of beautiful hand jamming behind the aesthetic flake before a short lived undercling crux reaches a nice belay ledge. 5.10d.

P6: 'Zephyr Cookie Power' - Walk left to reach some odd flake features. Layback moves and strenous gear placements lead to a powerful crux and an excellent mantle into 'Astro Ledge'. Short and burly, a crucial RP prevents this pitch from being dangerous, find it! 5.12b.

Walk off via Astro Ledge and the North North Gully, or rap with 2 ropes.


Pitch 3 - 'Shifting Gears'


Pitch 3 - Geisler following the upper section of P3.



Pitch 4 - 'Cerebral Fornication'

[brownie]

yay!!

[gnarnaphobe]

PUSSY

[Tricouni]

Yikes!!

[squamish climber]

Holy Smokes Marc-Andre

You certainly are burning it up this year. A new route on Tantalus Wall - Labyrinth 5.12c, Slesse Double link - NE Buttress and North Rib (6,000 alpine rock climbing), new speed record on full Grand Wall (beating Honnold), and now this.

The full realization of the boldness of this climb will dawn on everyone later when someone tries to repeat. For now, the comparison to Bachar-Yerian but at a harder grade is sure to turn a few heads.

For a great read about some of Marc-Andre’s exploits take a look at his blog

Well done Marc-Andre.

[supafly]

That second bolt ain't funny, you'd pendulum STRAIGHT into that corner

[smallman]

Dave Jones: That list you gave is only a partial list of Marc's exploits this summer. He also did a huge 22 hr? link up of Habrich, Sky Pilot, and Goat ridge starting by running from his house in Valleycliffe to Fluffy kitten wall, free soling Wonderful thing about Tiggers onsight, then running up Habrich, and Skypilot, then traversing goat ridge. He ended up in Furry Creek and ran to Murrin where he stashed his bike and rode home. 50km and 3500m elevation gain in 22hrs.

Then there was soloing Cowboys and Indians A4, Free soloing angels crest by head lamp, jogging down the Chief, then riding his biking to the Lake lovely water Crossing and climbing Alpha to end up on the summit at dawn and be down in time to catch the 3pm bus to Agassi. Sub 24hr I think.

He also freed a abandoned project route of mine at pet wall, Intolerable Tearing 12c R.

Mr Leclerc has been on fire this year.

[Tricouni]

That's an astonishing list! Probably never equalled and probably seldom to be repeated. Well done!

[Anders Ourom]

Congratulations! Monday must have offered ideal conditions for the climb. Hopefully not too many Higgs' bosons around, either.

Those interested in what tempted Saint Anthony - well, one of the Saint Anthonies - can see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_the_Great

[marc_leclerc]

Thanks guys, I'm just glad that I went back up to lead that one pitch. That 4th pitch was a bit over my head when I scoped the line, but I didn't want to take my ropes down and possibly see it get retrobolted. I didn't go up for a whole year, and when I did go back it seemed just fine to lead after practicing it on a fixed line for an hour or two. I fully headpointed that pitch, and the B-Y comparison isn't any sort of reference to the style I did the route in. It's just an reference to the spacing of the bolts so people are aware that its a legitimately serious pitch, particularly to onsight. There are 35ft runouts between bolts, and tricky moves just before clips. Its a phenomenal route, but please enjoy it safely .

Chris's ground up effort on that pitch with hooks is super bad-a$%, more intimidating in my opinion than head pointing it free. Respect. Finding that pitch in the state it was left in provided a different challenge, and a unique psychological multi-pitch climb for Squamish, thanks Chris! I'll bet the Cannabis Wall is something kind of similar, but I haven't checked that one out yet.

[squamish climber]

Came across some more stuff on Marc-Andre, seems this bold climb has sparked a lot of interest on Google and his SEO score is soaring.

Check out this Vimeo video profile of Marc-Andre, there are some great early shots of Marc working the route


And this article in the Chief: Leclerc solos Chief in record time:
Squamish man free climbs Grand Wall in 58 minutes

And this profile in Alpinist by Chris Van Leuven: Speed Soloing the Chief: An Interview with Marc-Andre Leclerc

[Ryan Unions]

That's great to know Jeff. How about climbing to the roofing of chief...will is still be wet this weekends??