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Ragged Edge Traverse is Huge 5.11 Along Okanagan Lake

The new 300-metre traverse took Steve DeMaio five years to piece together

Legendary Rockies climber Steve DeMaio and Sean Wilson have completed a 300-metre 5.11 traverse along the granite shoreline on Okanagan Lake, about one-kilometre south of Elison Provincial Park.

“I recently freed the last crux after many tries – the whole thing features climbing from third class to 5.11,” said DeMaio. “The rock for the most part is absolutely outstanding. It seemed fun enough, and substantial enough that I thought I would share it before it’s lost into the ‘sands of time’ so to speak.”

DeMaio, who established a number of bold routes in the Canadian Rockies like Iron Butterfly 5.11 A4 and East End Boys 5.12, stepped away from scary alpine rock routes over 20 years ago. But the routes he completed are still among the hardest test-pieces in Canada’s mountains.

DeMaio said it has a bit of everything with something for everyone. “The two 5.11 cruxes are boulder problems over deep water, or deep enough water to ‘work’ and take falls on,” he said. “There are also some ‘old school’ necky sections 20 to 25 feet up which have bad landings over rocks or shallow water.” The cruxes can easily swam around.

DeMaio started working on the traverse around five years ago while staying at his summer cabin at the Outback Resort in Vernon with his kids. During the first few years, he was climbing in a neoprene windsurfing booties on the 5.9 terrain and just swimming to the harder sections “or falling off, and carrying on.”

Steve DeMaio on The Ragged Edge

DeMaio describes the Ragged Edge Traverse: This year, however, I decided to designate an old pair of rock shoes for the “wet work” on the route. A “young gun” – age 20 – a fierce boulderer, and soloist named Sean Wilson, saw me working it – and he joined me on one outing. Sean did some impressive and bold pioneering on the route – climbing several sections which I had been too chicken to attempt – because of bad landings or shallow water. I managed to follow all his “leads” except “The Traverse of the Goats” – it’s a bold section about 25 feet up above shallow water – 5.8 or so, and loose.

I have backed off it twice so far. While he was climbing across on the grassy choss covered ledges at the end, he was still twenty feet up – I could see his descent line – a loose 5.5 wall that he would need to down-climb: Having been in “his shoes” many times… I soloed up and cleaned the loose rock off his descent line. And then when the old gray haired guy got up to the young gun we had a special moment about 20 up above the rocky landing: I said, “Sean, you are one bold fellow, with exceptional skill. There is an old saying, however, that there are “old climbers, and bold climbers… but no old-bold climbers… you have demonstrated boldness and skill here, you need to make sure it doesn’t kill you someday.”

Aerial view of The Ragged Edge Traverse

He listened quietly. It was clear he was quite comfortable in this element. Sean and I both fell off the “Spiderman” sequence. It remained the last five meters to be climbed on the whole route. Sean left for work – and I spent the next few weeks attempting it. It was right at the “Ragged Edge” of my current climbing capacity – which made it quite fun for me. It’s actually quite physical and gymnastic, and much like a modern climbing gym problem: super fun. After twenty or so falls over a few weeks, I finally got it.

The whole traverse takes about an hour to complete – it’s actually a bit like an alpine rock climb, just sideways over the water. Other than a few short sections, the rock is amazing as it has been wave scrubbed for thousands of years. Some of the easy fifth class sections are conspicuously fun: I’m always smiling the whole way, just in the joy of moving over such amazing stone.

The Ragged Edge Traverse topo by Steve DeMaio

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