December 2006 - January 2007
rock news
Mountain Monks on Yamnuska
Leading Canadian climber Will Gadd has put up Yamabushi, a major new line on Mt Yamnuska, one of the most famous cliffs of the Canadian Rockies. It is an eight pitch alpine sport climb on the last major unclimbed buttress. The project, conceived and started in 1999 with Raphael Slawinski, launches up a steeply overhanging face with multiple roofs and a distinct lack of cracks. Most of the intervening years were spent cleaning and placing bolts, a time-consuming and strenuous process done on lead hanging from hooks and marginal gear, in keeping with the adventurous tradition of the area. Nonetheless, a brief experiment showed that rap bolting the climb would be even harder.
Adding to the difficulty, Gadd said that this is by far the most difficult multi-pitch climb he has attempted. “We only felt fit enough to try it each fall, then it would snow, then we would say ‘oh well, next year,’ and repeat that process for years.” Finally, this fall, after an exceptionally good rock season for him and an always available (something the otherwise game Slawinski was unable to match) Cory Richards, all the ingredients were in place to finish equipping the route and go for the redpoint. On October 12, Gadd succeeded on his second attempt at a redpoint, sending the climb in a continuous ground up one-day push with his second following on jumars.
Yamabushi, Japanese for mountain monks, presents a sustained challenge. After the opening warm-up pitch, the climb follows a shallow dihedral to a big roof, creating the crux second pitch, weighing in at a hefty 5.13a; with the rest coming in at four pitches of 5.12b/c climbing and two 5.11+ pitches, varying in style from steep athletic climbing to thin technical faces, with occasional friable sections to add excitement. Some gear may be helpful in reducing the odd run-out, but is not absolutely necessary. Gadd does caution, however, that he has spent so much time working this route that he has “no idea if the above grading is accurate or not. Everything started to feel sort of the same by the time I managed to link it all together.”
According to Gadd, extensive effort was put into bolting and cleaning the climb in an effort to “build something that other people would want to climb, rather than just get the route done as fast as possible. While there are some excellent routes on Yam with good rock, there are also many routes that emphasize difficult run-out climbing on loose rock. I wanted to create something physical and enjoyable that would attract climbers to the great climbing the cliff offers.”
Euro Sportster Cleans Up on Trad
Little known in North America, Belgian Nicolas Favresse is well respected in Europe, possessing a solid track record on limestone sport climbs and quietly repeating many Yosemite classics and adding his own, L’appat 5.13a/b R. On tour this fall in California, Favresse jumped in at the deep end and along with partner Ivo Ninov established Lost In Translation, a new free route on El Capitan.
Inspired to put up a new route in ground-up style, rather than repeat existing lines, the duo scooped a corner that presented a logical line from the ground as the best candidate for an attempt. However, both also wondered why such an obvious line hadn’t already been climbed, and whether there was an unseen blank section that had thwarted an earlier party.
Gambling that their instincts were correct and with a new free line up El Cap as the payoff, Favresse and Ninov set off with a big free rack, a few pitons, some copperheads and a bolt kit. They carried no bivy gear, a few energy bars and only three gallons of water. After eight pitches of mostly 5.10 climbing, the duo arrived at the base of the corner with only 300 ft of unknown climbing and failing light between them and the top and opted to bivy. The pair came up big winners the next day, as their gamble paid off and they freed the corner at 5.12b/c of technical stemming, overcoming the last real obstacle of the route.
Leaving Yosemite behind, Favresse travelled to Donner Summit and redpointed Father’s Day at the Star Wall. The striking overhanging crack was originally a 5.13a clean crack line, before a bolted extension raised the difficulty to 5.14a. Hearing that the extension had since been done without bolts, Favresse also chose to eschew the bolts since “the line is so pure, clean and logical,” relying on clean gear for the entire route.
Without the aid of bolts and unable to stop and place gear at the crux, Favresse found himself left with no choice but to commit to the hardest moves and take repeated 45 ft whippers. After five days of effort, Favresse successfully redpointed Father’s Day, placing all gear on his attempt.
Frankenjura Action
Markus Bock is a man on fire these days, having recently repeated Biographie at Ceuse and put up Hattori Hanzo at his home area, Frankenjura. Both routes are 5.14c, but were merely warm-ups compared to his latest testpiece. Bock has solved the long-standing open line to the left of Burn 4 U, an abandoned project of early 90s strong man Andi Hoffman.
Bock has yet to decide on a name for the climb, but he is willing to venture that the new climb may be 5.15a, since he feels it’s harder than Action Direct, the benchmark for 5.14d and a route that Bock has repeated. The description of the climb certainly backs up the claim. After the initial start shared with Burn 4 U, the 35 degree overhanging route veers off into the business of the climb – a six-move V13 problem, made up of long moves off bad two-finger pockets with bad feet, typical of the style of the area. Bock fell from the last move of the boulder problem crux roughly ten times. It is followed by 15 moves of technical 5.13d crimp climbing.
If Bock’s testpiece proves to be as hard as he thinks it is, Action Direct will be eclipsed as the hardest climb in the Frankenjura, an area with no lack of difficult routes. Yet it seems unlikely that it will overtake Action Direct as the prestige route of the area. Austrian Kilian Fischuber, the latest to climb Action Direct, says the status of Action Direct actually affected his attempts.”Action was important for me, and so it was hard to stay cool during my tries.”
French Canadians Clean Up in New Hampshire
A miserably hot and humid summer has sent the hard men of la belle province scrambling to the gym to get strong in the hopes that when cool and dry fall weather arrived they would be ready to send. The plan worked for Sacha Deschenes, as he made the second ascent of Welcome to Jam Rock, a 5.14b/c at Orford established by Chris Sharma earlier in the spring. The climb, a personal best for Deschenes, features technical, bouldery and dynamic climbing. Starting with some awkward crimps, you set up for some “funky heel hook business,” to go through a set of long moves and pumpy lock-offs. With no good holds in sight, you set yourself up for a five ft dyno and finish the route with 5.12 climbing. The climb is likely to be the hardest in eastern Canada.
Things went similarly according to plan for the Québec Crew (as they are known to Rumney, New Hampshire locals), as Vincent Legare, Denis Mimeault and Stephane Perron Whit practically made Rumney their home crag. Vincent Legare came away with redpoints of Rhythm X 5.13b/c, and Riviera and Dodge the lemon, both 5.13d. Mimeault also snagged Dodge the Lemon in addition to Stone Monkey Low Start 5.13c and Mauie Wowie 5.13d.
Whit was so dogged by the heat that he developed a rubber, tape and super glue combo to allow him to continue climbing when his skin was no longer up to the task. His unorthodox method (and persistence) paid off with successful redpoints of Urban Surfer 5.13d and Alpha Gamma 5.13c/d.–Andre Cheukmountain news
North Face Routes in Rockies
Two of the most imposing faces in the Canadian Rockies saw some notable ascents in September, including the seldom-climbed North Face of Mt Alberta, first climbed in 1972 by Jock Glidden and legendary alpinist George Lowe. In 1980, American climber Tobin Sorensen fell to his death from the upper rock band. Canadians Chris Brazeau and Jon Walsh simul-climbed the first two pitches and soloed the ice field before tackling the rock band to the right of the original route with six pitches up to M6 and 5.11 rock climbing. They completed their climb and the difficult descent in just 30 hours, having made the first one-day ascent of the face.
The north face of Mt Geikie near Jasper is hardly roadside alpinism, with a 24 km approach, which is made more arduous by the fact that the face requires a rock rack for steep climbing on vertical quartzite as well as full ice paraphernalia for the top of the face. In August, Americans Steve Holeczi and Mike Verwey free climbed the Lowe-Hannibal Route at 5.9 A3, at 5.11a in two days.
Long Free Routes in Eastern Canada
Sean Therien and Sean Cassidy finally sent a project three years in the making at Cape Clear, Nova Scotia. The route, Feel The Love 5.12 A0, climbs the impressive overhanging 200 m Wave Wall for three long pitches and involves exposed climbing on solid granite with good protection. Gear recommendations include a 60 m rope, 14 draws per pitch and some longer slings to reduce rope drag. Therien and Cassidy completed the route in five hour push. Much scope for new routes remains in the area.
The remote, Blow-Me-Down cliff in Devil’s Bay in Newfoundland – at 1,500 ft, Newfoundland’s biggest cliff – saw a rare new route this summer. Americans Justen Sjong and Chris Wiedner put up the 12-pitch Lucifer’s Lighthouse, 5.12c. They used only nine bolts and some pitons as fixed gear.
Both of these routes show eastern Canada’s incredible potential for multi-pitch climbing.
Québecois in Pakistan
Last summer, Montreal’s Louis-Philippe Ménard and Max Turgeon surged onto the alpine scene with a first ascent of Spice Factory AI5, 5.10 R, M7, 1,600 m, on Alaska’s Mt Bradley. This year, they turned their sites on the coveted North Ridge on the North Face of Latok I. After they arrived in Pakistan, Ménard had to spend time finding replacements for boots and other gear lost by the airline, just to have the lost gear appear at basecamp in time for the climb. Unfortunately, bad weather and two metres of fresh snow turned them back partway up the ridge. Their consolation prize was three first ascents on smaller neighbouring peaks, including a 2,000 ft long 5.10 they named Chili à la Wahab 5.10.
Remembering Jim Haberl
In 1993 Canadian Jim Haberl became the first Canadian to climb K2, the world’s second highest peak and probably the hardest of all the 8,000ers. Sadly, Dan Culver died on the descent. Afterwards, partly to come to terms with Culver’s death, Haberl wrote and self-published K2, Dreams and Reality, which became a national bestseller. In 1999, on a new route on Ultima Thule (3,230 m) in Wrangell-St Elias Park in Alaska, Haberl was killed in an avalanche. In June, a hut named after Haberl was opened in the popular range near Squamish, where there is extensive mountaineering, alpine rock climbing and ski touring. The Alpine Club of Canada, Haberl’s Widow Susan Baker and the Canadian Forces 192nd Airfield Engineers contributed to the construction of this five person hut which is one of the most modern in the Canadian mountains.
Solos and Female Firsts in the Himalayas
In October, Spaniard Iñaki Ochoa de Olza soloed a new route to the left of the normal route on the northeast face of Shishapangma (8,046 m). It was his eleventh 8,000 m peak. On Cho Oyu (8,201 m) in Nepal, Slovenian Pavle Kozjek soloed a difficult new route to the left of the Japanese Route on the Southwest face of Cho Oyu. The crux was steep rock climbing at about 8,200 m.
In the Karkoram’s Trango Towers, Slovenian Andrej Grmovsek and the legendary Silvo Karo made the first one day ascent of Eternal Flame on the steep and difficult Nameless Tower, free climbing up to 5.12b and tackling the final mixed ridge with one set of ice gear between them. Another notable Slovenian ascent was the first all-female climb of Nameless Tower by Tona di Batista, Tanja Grmovsek and Aleksandra Voglar.
Squamish Mountain Film Festival
Squamish climbing legends and locals, some of whom were still carrying gear after a spectacular climbing day, gathered August 4 and 5 to celebrate in their own backyard at the first Squamish Mountain Film Festival in Squamish, BC. Produced by the duo behind Fringe Filmworks (‘In the Shadow of the Chief’), Ivan Hughes and Angela Heck say that SQUMFF’s mantra is rapidly becoming “come for the films and stay for the adventure.”
On opening night, a capacity crowd gathered to tell tall stories and watch local legend Peter Croft’s retrospective slide presentation, “A Life of Adventure.” Peter kept the crowd laughing by recounting tales of misery and hardship and confiding that his most dangerous escapes were not all from the mountains. The biggest laughs came from photos of early climbing days in Squamish wearing the latest, and shortest, Adidas shorts and the story about being rescued from eating peanuts (and their shells) in a British airport by a priest with dishonourable intentions. Peter’s old friends Greg Foweraker and Hamish Fraser heckled and howled from their seats in the crowd.
The audience’s favourite film of the evening was a local short entitled, ‘University Wall,’ which recounts the first ascent of the route with the same name that was put up on the Stawamus Chief in 1966. It also contains old 8 mm film footage of the buildering scene at UBC at the time. Other films screened that night included ‘Jack Osbourne – Adrenaline Junkie,’ ‘The Obscurist’ and ‘Kayaks on the Roof of the World.’ The evening was opened with a few words from Squamish guidebook author Kevin McLane.
The second evening of the festival was a night of first ascents. There wasn’t a dry eye after the screening of ‘Back to the Wall,’ which chronicles Brad Zdanivsky’s 10-year journey back to climbing after a car accident left him as a quadriplegic. ‘Dreamcatcher,’ by fabled climbing documentarian Josh Lowell, featured Chris Sharma’s attempts last year to put up a new 5.14d sport route in Squamish. Sonnie Trotter, who has been calling Squamish home for the past six years, topped off the evening with a multi-media presentation, that included the first screening of his 5.14 b/c trad route, Cobra Crack and stories of fun and fast times along the way.
The festivities were helped along by the generous support of Whistler Brewing at intermission and a strong sense of community building among the speakers, filmmakers, local guides and the enthusiastic audience. Plans are under way for an even bigger and better festival next year. More information on the festival can be found at www.squamishfilm.com.–Ivan Hughes
