This Squamish Crack Gets 5.10d, But Most Say It’s 5.11a

Something Short on the Spiderfly Wall at the Smoke Bluffs in Squamish is a classic trad route that was first climbed in 1979 by Peter Croft and Randy Atkinson. Watch a send of the tricky line below.

The guidebook gives the powerful climb 5.10d, but a majority of climbers suggest that it is 100 per cent at least a 5.11a. A comment on mountainproject.com reads: “While the books give this thing 5.10d, myself and others consider that a total sandbag for Squamish and the Bluffs in particular. Feel free to give yourself 5.11a credit if you fire this one- especially if you onsight. Worth doing, despite the two stars it gets in the book.”

On climber said, “We did Yorkshire Gripper after this climb, and if that’s 5.11b, this is 5.11+.” The majority of climbers on Sendage here give the it 5.11a, including Kim McGrenere who said, “Awesome. So sustained, so painful and so crack-climbey. There was no way to ‘cheat’ my way around this one. I really had to fight, and I learned so much more about jamming from this route than any other gear lines I’ve tried so far. Also feels like the hardest trad route I’ve gotten on.”

Something Short