Elitist climber writes article of self congratulation.
Elitist climber writes article of self congratulation.
against my better judgement, i'm posting a rejected article i wrote about putting up new routes in squamish. those who still retain an internet attention span longer than a twitter feed may be entertained for a few minutes. you could bring your device into the latrine with you, but unlike barley's (brilliant) guide, you won't be able to wipe yer bum with it. cue the haters.
Stylised new routing in Squamish
The Roark Building 5.12c, Ronins Corner, Squamish. February 2009.
'Climb Elephantiasis for about ten metres. From the crack make a long reach to a good hold. Climb down and right to the base of the hanging corner. From a stance on a good cobble make hard moves to get established on the face. Bolt. Commit to a series of face moves to a second bolt. Technical climbing on the arête and in the corner lead to a climax above a third bolt.'
"I don't intend to build in order to have clients; I intend to have clients in order to build." Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, by Ann Rynd
I and hundreds of other climbers had walked under this line so many times and so many times lamented it’s lonely position as a feature stuck half way up a wall on one of the most popular cliff’s in the most popular cragging area in Squamish.
Hungry for a new route project and realizing it to be one of the only real lines left in the Smoke Bluffs, I rapped in from an existing three bolt anchor (one spinning). Unless I could dyno nine feet up an overhanging holdless groove, it was not going to go from the ground. However, I found a sequence coming in from the splitter 10c hand crack a few metres to the left. Giddy now, I was sketching all sorts of engineering in my head. Double ropes, for sure.
The feature had no natural placements, I therefore resolved to drill it, keeping the riff-raff at bay, naturally. The threat of a big swing from bomber gear in the crack before clipping a bolt would set a tone for the climber to run it out above on good, but balancy face holds. From there, the meat of the route would be protected by two more bolts- just the threat of a mild lob at the crux to finish.
A high pressure spell in February turned out to be the optimum time for attempts (of which there were many)- the rock was sticky and the ice had melted in the manky first few metres of Elephantiasis. In order to make the transition from soaking 10c grovel to demanding cross-hairs 5.12 footwork, I taped towels to my calves and from the stance below the feature I did my best to transfer mucusy liquid from my shoes to the towels.
From here, my old 9mil was clipped to a number ten rock in the crack over on the left. My second rope- the trusty fatty, probably up to 12mil by that point was to be clipped into the three bolts on route. At the second bolt, a good hold allows you to swallow the run out you just chattered through. It also allows you to jettison the 9mil, formerly attached via a screwgate. This I did because during the crux above, the 9mil would drag right across a crucial smear, concealing it. This also happened to add an element of faux seriousness and made me feel like I was in Hard Grit.* I hoped walkers would pass by at this moment.
Protected now by old fatty and a couple of bolts, the climber is able duke it out, past another bolt before falling a metre from the top when the right foot smear, dependant on speed, poise and tension while the hands make five Marcel Marceau moves, cruelly gives out.
Howard Roark in Ann Rynd’s novel, The Fountainhead is an architect who ‘chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personnal vision’. Turns out it’s a fitting name, because this great route has had no known repeats and no one gets the literary reference. Philistines!
*Classic 1997 climbing film about hard gritstone ascents in England.
The Man from Del Monte 5.12c, Quercus Wall, Squamish. April 2012.
'Climb through a small roof via an obvious right leaning crack. Continue leftwards up a ramp. Sort out protection and climb forcefully through a steep groove (crux). Climb the sustained wall above. Protection is good but tricky to arrange.'
‘Stewart Hughes kept true to his UK roots and ruined a perfectly good sport route…’ Colin Moorhead
Growing up, canned pineapple was a big treat for us at Christmas breakfast. The toast rack would come out, just like in a hotel. We’d get butter instead of margarine and the slices of pineapple would sit in a bowl for presentation. My mother was from a poor background and would remind us how she’d work damned hard to put that food on the table.
The television adverts alerting the audience to the quality of canned pineapple seemed omnipresent in the late seventies and early eighties. Our ties to the era of the colonizing Empire were still taut and we thought nothing unbalanced by the image of a dapper, middle aged white gentleman in a Panama hat giving the go ahead, the yay not nay on the quality of a plantations’ pineapples. We saw nothing odd, by the celebratory smiles of the non-Caucasian workers who were going to get paid. This time.
This climb, at the newly minted Quercus (pronounced ka-koose) cliff in Murrin park is a salute to a colonizing past and the pursed stoicism on the crags and tables of the British isles. On envisioning this line and spying its horizontal breaks up high, I was gripped with excitement that it might go on gear and zapped with anxiety that if I didn’t mark my territory with a fixed rope for cleaning pronto, then someone would soon have their matching draws and red tag hanging on their new proj.
Sure enough the thing went on gear. The best kind of gear too- wires slid into horizontal breaks, employing their beautifully simple curved camming action and cams placed below you in what were your hand-holds. And, of course double ropes. Bliss! My very own outpost of British ethics in this land of bolted savagery. And all at the gloriously attainable grade of E6 6b.
Several repeats followed, none of which utilized double ropes. But I was warmed to hear that one of our local climbers was pulled off the route at the final hard (and long) reach when she came up short on the deadpoint thanks to excessive rope drag. Riff-raff!
Stylised new routing in Squamish
The Roark Building 5.12c, Ronins Corner, Squamish. February 2009.
'Climb Elephantiasis for about ten metres. From the crack make a long reach to a good hold. Climb down and right to the base of the hanging corner. From a stance on a good cobble make hard moves to get established on the face. Bolt. Commit to a series of face moves to a second bolt. Technical climbing on the arête and in the corner lead to a climax above a third bolt.'
"I don't intend to build in order to have clients; I intend to have clients in order to build." Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, by Ann Rynd
I and hundreds of other climbers had walked under this line so many times and so many times lamented it’s lonely position as a feature stuck half way up a wall on one of the most popular cliff’s in the most popular cragging area in Squamish.
Hungry for a new route project and realizing it to be one of the only real lines left in the Smoke Bluffs, I rapped in from an existing three bolt anchor (one spinning). Unless I could dyno nine feet up an overhanging holdless groove, it was not going to go from the ground. However, I found a sequence coming in from the splitter 10c hand crack a few metres to the left. Giddy now, I was sketching all sorts of engineering in my head. Double ropes, for sure.
The feature had no natural placements, I therefore resolved to drill it, keeping the riff-raff at bay, naturally. The threat of a big swing from bomber gear in the crack before clipping a bolt would set a tone for the climber to run it out above on good, but balancy face holds. From there, the meat of the route would be protected by two more bolts- just the threat of a mild lob at the crux to finish.
A high pressure spell in February turned out to be the optimum time for attempts (of which there were many)- the rock was sticky and the ice had melted in the manky first few metres of Elephantiasis. In order to make the transition from soaking 10c grovel to demanding cross-hairs 5.12 footwork, I taped towels to my calves and from the stance below the feature I did my best to transfer mucusy liquid from my shoes to the towels.
From here, my old 9mil was clipped to a number ten rock in the crack over on the left. My second rope- the trusty fatty, probably up to 12mil by that point was to be clipped into the three bolts on route. At the second bolt, a good hold allows you to swallow the run out you just chattered through. It also allows you to jettison the 9mil, formerly attached via a screwgate. This I did because during the crux above, the 9mil would drag right across a crucial smear, concealing it. This also happened to add an element of faux seriousness and made me feel like I was in Hard Grit.* I hoped walkers would pass by at this moment.
Protected now by old fatty and a couple of bolts, the climber is able duke it out, past another bolt before falling a metre from the top when the right foot smear, dependant on speed, poise and tension while the hands make five Marcel Marceau moves, cruelly gives out.
Howard Roark in Ann Rynd’s novel, The Fountainhead is an architect who ‘chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personnal vision’. Turns out it’s a fitting name, because this great route has had no known repeats and no one gets the literary reference. Philistines!
*Classic 1997 climbing film about hard gritstone ascents in England.
The Man from Del Monte 5.12c, Quercus Wall, Squamish. April 2012.
'Climb through a small roof via an obvious right leaning crack. Continue leftwards up a ramp. Sort out protection and climb forcefully through a steep groove (crux). Climb the sustained wall above. Protection is good but tricky to arrange.'
‘Stewart Hughes kept true to his UK roots and ruined a perfectly good sport route…’ Colin Moorhead
Growing up, canned pineapple was a big treat for us at Christmas breakfast. The toast rack would come out, just like in a hotel. We’d get butter instead of margarine and the slices of pineapple would sit in a bowl for presentation. My mother was from a poor background and would remind us how she’d work damned hard to put that food on the table.
The television adverts alerting the audience to the quality of canned pineapple seemed omnipresent in the late seventies and early eighties. Our ties to the era of the colonizing Empire were still taut and we thought nothing unbalanced by the image of a dapper, middle aged white gentleman in a Panama hat giving the go ahead, the yay not nay on the quality of a plantations’ pineapples. We saw nothing odd, by the celebratory smiles of the non-Caucasian workers who were going to get paid. This time.
This climb, at the newly minted Quercus (pronounced ka-koose) cliff in Murrin park is a salute to a colonizing past and the pursed stoicism on the crags and tables of the British isles. On envisioning this line and spying its horizontal breaks up high, I was gripped with excitement that it might go on gear and zapped with anxiety that if I didn’t mark my territory with a fixed rope for cleaning pronto, then someone would soon have their matching draws and red tag hanging on their new proj.
Sure enough the thing went on gear. The best kind of gear too- wires slid into horizontal breaks, employing their beautifully simple curved camming action and cams placed below you in what were your hand-holds. And, of course double ropes. Bliss! My very own outpost of British ethics in this land of bolted savagery. And all at the gloriously attainable grade of E6 6b.
Several repeats followed, none of which utilized double ropes. But I was warmed to hear that one of our local climbers was pulled off the route at the final hard (and long) reach when she came up short on the deadpoint thanks to excessive rope drag. Riff-raff!
Re: Elitist climber writes article of self congratulation.
Good stuff Stu. But I never got the pronunciation of the Quercus crag. I always said it like it sounds, when referring to trees of the Oaken variety by their Latin names. But maybe I'm not elitist enough to get the inside joke? Maybe some day I will be.
Still no repeats of The Roarke Building? Cryptic double-rope techniques are a deterrent I guess, or maybe folks are more well-read than you thought and they're leaving it to the obscurity it's destined for.
"Let's go climb that Roarke thing."
"Naw, it's too obscure. Let's go climb those routes on the Squaw named after some snails. "
Either way, thanks for your contributions to the Squamish scene.
Still no repeats of The Roarke Building? Cryptic double-rope techniques are a deterrent I guess, or maybe folks are more well-read than you thought and they're leaving it to the obscurity it's destined for.
"Let's go climb that Roarke thing."
"Naw, it's too obscure. Let's go climb those routes on the Squaw named after some snails. "
Either way, thanks for your contributions to the Squamish scene.
Re: Elitist climber writes article of self congratulation.
Thanks for the fun post - a great read. Unfortunately, my modest climbing ability precludes any attempts of your new lines, despite owning -- and occasionally using -- double ropes. However, I wonder if you would consider substituting "heartened" for "warmed" in the second sentence above? In any case, please keep the adventure writing coming.slhughes wrote:
Several repeats followed, none of which utilized double ropes. But I was warmed to hear that one of our local climbers was pulled off the route at the final hard (and long) reach when she came up short on the deadpoint thanks to excessive rope drag. Riff-raff!
Oh, and I really liked the back story for the name of 'The Man from Del Monte' route.
ps: I've read 'The Fountainhead' long ago...
cheers,
Steve
Re: Elitist climber writes article of self congratulation.
This is posted now because:
A) you've been drinking
B) to add context to your bolt bashing on the other "page" of this forum
C) you've been drinking
Stewart, if you're bored, we can go climbing sometime......
A) you've been drinking
B) to add context to your bolt bashing on the other "page" of this forum
C) you've been drinking
Stewart, if you're bored, we can go climbing sometime......
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MichaelRose
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2020 1:38 am
Re: Elitist climber writes article of self congratulation.
Something I haven't heard off...And Steven, if you are bored why not try replacing your popcorn ceiling with a concrete one 
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