Tom Wright Climbing Hard New Squamish Routes

Tom Wright has been on a bit of a new-routing spree in Canada’s climbing capital of Squamish this spring.

Wright, who has a big role with the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival as Director of Film and Programming, grew up in the U.K. and first moved to Canada to study in Montreal before discovering climbing.

Having spent the better part of the past decade climbing in and around Squamish, Wright has been pushing his grades on hew routes for the past few years.

One of his biggest new routes was the first ascent of Spirit of the West 5.14a in Paradise Valley a few years ago.

This spring, he’s added three first ascents to his list of hard sends.

The most recent being the first ascent of Chocolate Kisses 5.13a/b on the Pet Wall in Murrin Park.

In May, he climbed a new direct start to God Forsaken Land with Colin Moorhead called Godforsaken Direct 5.12a on Slhaney. Visit here for more.

Be sure to follow photographer Bradford Pope McArthur below who was there to take photos.

New routing is always fun to shoot. @tomhwright and @squamishrockguides putting up Godforsaken Direct 5.12a on Slhaney last week sure was a fun time. More photos of the crux pitches to come! . . . . . . #squamish #squamishcom #arcteryx #getolympus #squamishisawesome #tradisrad #hellobc #explorebc #beautifulbc #climbingrocks #climbing_pictures_of_instagram #climbinglife #multipitch #liveclimbrepeat #climbingnation #getoutstayout #travelstoke #exploregram #travelgram #travelbc #travelphotography #beautifuldestinations #borninthemountains #firstascent

A post shared by Bradford Pope McArthur (@bradfordpopemcarthur) on May 30, 2018 at 1:17pm PDT

At the end of April, also with Moorhead, Wright was part of the first ascent team that freed Bella Coola 5.12c on Klootch Buttress.

Wright is also working on a new nine-bolt direct start to Spirit of the West and was lending a hand to Tony McLane and Jimmy Martinello in established a new big route above Howe Sound.

With five more months of nice weather ahead, there will surely be many more first ascents to go down on Canada’s West Coast.

Watch Wright on Chocolate Kisses below.

New route on Pet Wall – 'Chocolate Kisses' (13a/b). Classic thin technical face climbing. It also climbs really well linking into Rocket (Chocolate Rocket 12d?). Amazing that this legendary wall still has good new routes up for grabs. One of the best single pitch granite walls on the planet.

A post shared by Tom Wright (@tomhwright) on Jun 1, 2018 at 9:03am PDT