Mindgames on the Rock

The Chief looms above the sea-green waters of Howe Sound in almost 2,300’ of towering black and white granite. Gaping gullies and tree-lined ledges cleave the face and a sweeping slab known as the “Apron” skirts a large portion of the dome’s base. The monolith, indisputable evidence that I’ve returned to Squamish, contains a lifetime of climbing in itself.

At the base of the Chief is nestled a walk-in campground. Tent platforms scatter along trails among towering firs and cedars and cushy moss, accompanied by bear boxes (there’s a certain resident ever-present terror this summer), a few pit toilets, and a miracle of a large covered cooking shelter equipped with picnic tables, spigots, and a single sweeping counter. On the fringe of the forest, old telephone posts driven into the ground provide framework for a slackline jungle gym overlooking the sound, next to which we cook meals in clear weather. Looking north, Mt. Garibaldi rises from the hills. Its glaciated dome and single point bring to mind a similar familiar view of the South Sister as it rides my memories.

Squamish provides a welcome ego boost. The granite’s geometry is easy to work with when placing gear, the grades are soft (meaning the same difficulty climb may receive a higher rating than elsewhere), and some pitches are simply cruising fun as I reach high, insert my fingers into a crack, sink into a constriction and know with absolute certainty that, no matter if my feet slip, my hand is locked into place and I’m not going anywhere. It’s these pitches that I absolutely love, especially when I’m hundreds of feet off the ground.

However, there’s also something to be said for the feeling of ringing triumphant disbelieving relief that comes at the end of a particularly spicy (mentally challenging) section of rock. When I simply can’t fall because I’m twenty feet beyond my last piece, there’s nowhere to place any gear, if I fall on the slab below there’s a solid chance that half my arm and leg will lose skin (at the least), I’ve got an ever-present niggling doubt that the last piece I placed will actually hold (even though when I put it in the rock I knew it was bomber), the rock is seeping water, I’m feeling exposed on insecure feet and moves that are a bit more technical than I really want to be making at the moment, and my hands are sweating in the sun and my calves cramping–– I guts up, take a breath, tell myself I’m going to damn well stay on the rock, and then I keep climbing…  When I finish the sequence and get an anchor built and clip in safe, profound elation makes itself known. This is how I build confidence and trust in myself.

And then there are climbs where I simply flail. I follow my partner up a climb called Split Beaver classified as an “off-width,” meaning it’s too wide to climb by shoving a fist into the crack and too narrow to fit my entire body into and treat as a chimney. Not only do I feel that these require the most brute full-body strength of any style (I’ve seen it described as a wrestling match with the rock), ascending them can also require an obscene degree of creativity. For the most part, I “chicken wing” my way up, throwing an arm in and exerting pressure against rock on opposite sides of the crack with my hand and elbow. Along the way I also throw my leg in to use as a lever (it becomes very stuck), “stack” hands against fists to extend their collective width, and tumble off the face. Repeatedly. I suppose it’s beneficial for my ego.

Some pretty awesome people swing through the area, as well: the day after climbing Split Beaver I attend a movie showing and guest presentation by Alex Honnold, a climber most famous for free soloing (climbing without a rope) various big walls. He’s down-to-earth, soft-spoken, happy to give advice, and freely talks about still finding himself in terrifying situations. It’s incredibly refreshing to realize that even though the guy does some things that are pretty out of this world, he is, in fact, still human.

When the rain comes, it hits as an unrelenting deluge. Slender clouds snake into the sound, hugging mountainsides and expanding to sock in the region. We retreat beneath the campground’s cook shelter, playing chess and cribbage, sharing music and simply connecting. When I go to sleep, the water pounds my skylight so loudly that I truly question whether the car will manage to shed the entirety.

By night, clanging metal rings up from the town’s shipyard as floodlights cast the Chief in a golden sheen. Communities truly form as food and drink and stories are shared, puppies are mooned over (Basil the Baby Basset Hound constantly stands on her own ears), debates initiated, climbing partnerships formed and back rubs traded. The big dipper and north star shine, ever-present points of light intermeshed among electric towers’ geometric struts. Falling stars appear by the minute, and time simply carries us forward.

Entering the Alpine

 Looking over the gear I planned to take north spread out before me, my brain decided it was high time I owned a car. Three days later, I drove home a rusty-colored Honda Element. Actually, consensus in camp leans toward “Burnt Cinnamon.” Its name is Blaze, and I am in love.
 
I promptly removed the back seats and spent a solid day and a half building a system of storage boxes and columns in their place, all of which have removable lids. Boxes got linoleum tops, windows got curtains covered in Mt. Fuji, an old weight-lifting mat got repurposed into a sleeping pad running behind the passenger seat, and I got a personalized home on the road.

After a few stops to stock up on beer and food (BC has a 15% sales tax and booze bleeds even more) I drove to Vancouver via a solid interrogation by border control, met up with a friend and headed straight out for eastern BC.
______________________

The approach to Bugaboo Provincial Park covers approximately 50k of heavily potholed dirt roads winding up out of a valley and into a steep river gorge fed entirely by rushing glacial melt. Along the way, a bear cup gamboodles onto the road in front of us and topples back onto his butt in surprise, exposing a light tan chest patch, before hightailing it back into the woods. Dark, angular peaks jut forth above, impressing the feel of titan guardians. When at last we round the final bend to the parking lot, glaciers pour down the valley in front of us, punctured by massive dark spires and flanked by bowls and ridges streaked in dense, deep green conifers and brilliant alpine shrubbery.
 
We hike in early the next morning, after surrounding Blaze with chicken wire held in place by dozens of giant stakes and rocks to protect its tires and brake lines from rubber-eating porcupines and monster marmots. The approach to Applebee Camp climbs approximately 3,050’ in 3.4 miles. I leave behind vegetation and swarming mosquitoes (and oxygen), climbing the ridge adjacent to Bugaboo glacier and feeling more drunk by the second. My relatively light pack presses my shoulders and quads into the rock. I can’t decide whether I want to eat or puke, so I do neither. The flat stone top of Appleby Dome embraces me with splattered tents and bear boxes.

 We spend the rest of the day relaxing, crossing a small snowfield to climb a couple of shorter routes and bask in our current unreal reality. My sense of perception is completely distorted. Among the glaciers, divided by name but ultimately a single ice field, granite spires rise thousands of feet around us. I have no idea how massive they truly are until I see people crossing the glacier at their base, barely specks on the ice. To the south, the Purcell Mountains spread before us in a continuous snowcapped field of peaks. The sky is pure, cloudless blue– almost unheard of in the Bugs. The sun blazes down upon us, glancing up off the snow. We reapply sunscreen religiously. On the way back to camp we stop to refill water and wade in alpine pools. Crisp, clear turquoise water takes on a milky sheen in places where the glacier intrudes beneath onto the rocky bed, and in places where the surface remains frozen (it’s early enough in the year that smaller pools freeze over on a nightly basis). A huge, flat sloping stone edges in on the pool, providing a snooze spot that puts any other to shame.

In the evening we hang our packs from racks designed to protect our gear and ropes from pack rats and take advantage of the rare cloudless skies, laying our sleeping bags out under the stars. The full moon rises perfectly centered over the mountains to the south, bathing them in an ethereal white sheen as we go to sleep.
 

As the moon sets between spires in the early morning, we cross a snowfield and skirt lakes to approach a formation called the Crescent Spire. Although we plan to climb a relatively mellow route to the summit, we soon discover we’ve started up an unknown line. While the granite is solid, the spire seems composed of thousands of blocks all waiting to topple over… so we continue up, testing rocks before we pull or step on them and making careful choices as to where we place the gear and anchors that hold us. Throughout our climb the sounds of snow and ice cracking and caving in the alpine heat reverberate up through the bowl below us. As we rejoin with our intended route, avoiding the possibility of cliffing ourselves, we climb beautiful corners and traverse around and up sloping slabs, ending our roped ascent on a small, airy arête before scrambling up an incredibly exposed block next to a thousand-plus-foot drop to gain the summit at about 9,300’.
 
The view takes my breath away.
 
After scrambling and rappelling the majority of the adjacent gully we save time on the descent, abandoning our attempt to step down through rotten snow and simply sliding down the snowfields on our butts.
 
We hike out later in the afternoon and spend the next two nights at our companion’s farm. We meet the mammoth donkeys her father breeds and laugh as she sets up a trio between her piano and collie and German shepard as thunder storms move through the valley. And finally, after a half-day of climbing at a local crag, we drive back across BC to Vancouver, crossing multitudes of mountain passes and spending the night in the hot, humid Okanagan, where we buy nectarines and cherries and peaches and blueberries sold by dozens of farms along the roadside.
 
I suppose the Bugs qualify as my first experience in alpine climbing. More exploratory, with less advance information and less certain rock, taking more care to stay safe during approaches and descents to and from camp as we cross snow and ice with ever-changing characteristics. It’s tough, remote, peaceful and exhilarating. And we got damn lucky with the weather.

Entirely Off the Grid

Never again will I wear chacos to bushwhack through cactus-infested steppe. In southwestern Idaho, sage and grass grow thick for miles in a sprawling bowl nestled amongst rolling mountains. Short, stubby cacti huddle agains the ground, pink, orange and yellow blossoms burst wide open. Lupine, yarrow and a myrad of other windflowers brighten the land. Squat pines for the landscape, coalescing into forests as they move up hillsides. Aspen groves, lines by wild iris, wind between crags and along drainage lines.

From afar, the steppe appears to be scattered with pebbles. Up close we realize that the exposed granite, product of uplift and erosion, rise from the land into monoliths hundreds of feet high. Divots and tunnels and bowls cover every face, formed by billions of seasons of snow and thunder storms. Chartreuse, orange, black, brown, white and forest green lichen streak the rock in patchwork rainbows. 

I spend my first few days in the City of Rocks climbing mellow routes, taking time to refamiliarize myself with movement and gear placement. The granite is here is coarse, providing strong, trustworthy friction beneath my feet. 

As I climb I slip into that point of focus between myself and the rock's lines of weakness, problem-solving directions of pull and complementary geometry between cracks and constrictions and the gear I carry. I reestablish confidence and trust in myself and my ability to place the pieces that catch potential falls. 

Better judgement occasionally prevails over my desire to climb. When storms move in, they come with astonishing speed. Wind whips out of nowhere, howling around the rocks as rain pelts down from dense gray thunderheads; at 6,800' elevation, the air holds little moisture. At this point, we bail off the rock and spend the day's remainder soaking in hot springs in the nearby "town" of Almo (consisting of perhaps ten buildings, cell/3G service and a handful of cows). 

On the evening showers move through during sunset, the entire atmosphere is set ablaze as we gaze through fiery veils of water to the hills beyond. When we turn around, a massive double rainbow shines bright against the darkened sky. 

One day we hike up to a tall, slender formation called Jackson's Thumb and climb four pitches (rope changes) up 2.5 billion-year-old rock— some of the oldest exposed in North America. 

The second part of my stay is spent in AMAZING company. I split a campsite with a father and daughter who provide me with a bin in which to store my food (the rodents here are voracious) and inform me they've left me a "treat." I return to camp in the midday heat to find six of my beers on ice in a miniature cooler. 

With Larry and Lane travels Tsu, a 67-year-old Korean man with the body of a 20-year-old who's been climbing since he was 13. He lives in Joshua Tree and casually free solos (climbs without rope or protection) moderate routes on a daily basis. Tsu is one of the nicest, most humble and enthusiastic people I've come across. I hope I die as happy as I perceive him to be. 

As for climbing, I lead harder routes and flail up behind my partner around some beautiful roofs and long, insecure cracks. We hike out to Stripe Rock and climb the white dyke splitting the feature. Protection is sparse and insecure. We sling webbing around chicken heads (protruding pieces of rock) to break potential falls and belay off anchors that belong in a textbook under the "Don't Do This" heading. I learn A LOT. 

On my last day, we climb a narrow spire called the Incisor, pulling through a beautiful crack and slightly nervewracking traverse to super fun, airy and exposed climbing up an arête that leads to the rock's tiny summit. From here, I look down upon the entire City spread around me. 

I go to bed utterly bone-tired and completely satisfied.