11 1/2 year-old climbs Chief via St. Vitus Dance & Butt Face

[squamish climber]

This a cool blog post by Rob Wall about taking his 11 and a half year-old daughter, Kira up the Chief. Sound like the weather was kind of iffy and started to pour on the last pitch of Butt Face. He mentions that the last pitch is still quite loose and hard to protect -- anybody else feel the same way?


source: robjwall.wordpress.com

Their climb was also featured in the Squamish Chief paper
Congratulations Kira.

[RobWall]

Hi Dave,
Just to be clear we thought the climbing was well protected. But the topo here http://sonnietrotter.com/2010/07/28/a-l ... e-readers/ just says "scramble ledges to the top". That final scramble seemed to have less pro than anything else we'd climbed. BUT it could just have been where my head was at, after 7 hours of climbing with a kid in the rain, expecting it to be over . Like you I'm interested in what others reckon. Thanks for linking to the blog - hopefully there is some useful info in there for someone. cheers
R

[NateDoggOG]

I thought it was reasonable well protected..... You can get gear in by the difficult bits, and other than a few areas, you'd have to try to fall off the ledges. No complaints here...... I actually thought that the second bolt at the crux there was unnecessary as well.

[avit]

Great job you guys!

My daughter's 11 this year too. We've climbed Calculus Crack (last year) and Upper Black Dyke (this year), but a full-height route, that's a pretty huge accomplishment!

I'm curious how you handle the belays, if it's just the 2 of you? We've always climbed as a party of 3 with the kid in the middle. I don't think she could hold a fall without getting yanked around too much (not that I would climb something near my limit where I might consider falling...)