Mount Dag has a nearly 1,000-metre north face with at least three big routes. One of those routes is the all-free 950-metre Riding Skinfaxi at 5.11d.
B.C. climbers Jasmin Caton and Cam Shute just made an ascent of the big grade VI wall. There’s no way to know how many ascents the route has had since the first ascent in 2002, but it’s not many. The pair climbed it at 5.11c C1.
Mount Dag is a rocky peak in the Valhalla range in B.C.’s interior. The mountain has a number of sub-peaks, including Little Dag and Batwing. The traverse of Mount Nott, Batwing, Little Dag and Dag is a Kootenay classic.
The first ascent of Riding Skinfaxi was by David Lussier and Alan Jones in August 15 years ago. Lussier noted in his 2003 article in the Canadian Alpine Journal that there were no pin scars or gear on the route when they tried it, but that John Roskelly recalled a possible attempt back in the day.
Lussier noted in his article that, “It’s a sheer, aesthetic alpine big wall. As the saying goes, the rock here is gneiss, but don’t take it for granite.”
And that the wall is divided into three parts, with an easier start that led to a broken mid-section and ended in 12 pitches of steep climbing on splitter rock.
The other two routes on the north face of Dag are Ankles As Far As the Eye Can See VI 5.11 A1 and Ankles Me Boy VI 5.9 A2, both climbed in 2000.