Lost time at Squamish ....

Better late than never, Squamish is in the past and i'm writing this from a Starbucks in Bend, Oregon because it's too hot to even think about going outside, we have to start climbing at dawn till it gets hot or wait till dusk to get anything done
Two weeks at Squamish ... where did the time go? well, i do know the answer to that ... some of British Columbias finest produce that we weren't able to take across the border ... well i had to do my best to use it up ;) We had a pretty good run of weather in Squamish, only 3 or 4 days that we weren't able to climb due to weather and a couple due to being sore and resting. Even when it was sunny and we were on the rock, the temperature was bearable and the sun not vicious at all ... the crags at Squamish are really well set up and it was nice just hiking through the cool green forest, picking wild rasberries and boysenberries on the way to different areas.
Climbing at Squamish took abit of getting used to and the first couple of days made me a little more cautious and rethink my wishlist. The first climbs visited were afew easy sport routes, to get back into the swing of things ... apart from one day at Barrier Bluffs, near Banff, we'd not been on the rock since Thailand in January. I'd had the thought in my head that we'd do a trip past the Bugaboos, on the way to Squamish, but reluctantly put that one away as it would have been even earlier than last time i visited and that was considered early ... the weather proved it back then and was looking similar this time, i hadn't been as cold as i was during that visit back to the Bow Valley since we'd left it six weeks earlier to go to Alaska. It was abit of a bummer, we had some new lightweight crampons and iceaxes (Kahtoola crampons and Camp Corsa ice axes for the gear nerds) that i was looking forward to using before we put them away till we got to Sth America but the upside of it was that i was looking forward to getting in some decent time at an area ... until those first few days and we encountered slab climbing. It's been a long time since i've been on some real slab and that last time i probably said something like "i've really got no need to slab climb ever again" but during the first week i had several occasions of finding myself standing well above some tiny gear placement where the crack stopped pondering the next sequence of moves on vague ripples in the rock which could have even been imagined ... and this was just on the 5.9's There was just one slab climb (Ridge Runner) which i think, now that i'm off it, was brilliantly bolted ... bold enough to be terrifying but good enough that you'd only loose lots of skin if you fell.
The slab actually got alot more comfortable and we did some very cool climbing, we climbed 'Diedre', on the Chief, which is a really fun day out, and a bunch of stuff in Smoke Bluffs. 'Rock On' is a 5 pitch 5.10a in the south gully of the Chief and a couple of pretty exciting moments, i was running it out on the first pitch, as it was only 5.8, when i kicked out my only piece of gear for a long way as i went through the crux and got myself into an awkward position, requiring some sketchy downclimbing ... that kind of rattled my nerves for the next pitch and a half. The first pitch of 5.10a had a thin layback, over a bulge, straight off the anchor and with only one very small TCU in a pocket i had a moment of fear as i pulled over the bulge with dodgy feet. Other than that it was awesome and definately deserved the stars.
The camping was pretty cool there, we found ourselves a spot (free) on the forest road at the base of the Chief and were able to claim it most of the nights we were there. The Aquatic centre was a highlight of Squamish when not climbing ... cheap, big pool with a diving board and cool toys, hot tub and sauna. We made a day trip to Whistler, on one of the rest days, where i was keen to have a go on the downhill bikes but in typical Nth American fashion (just to be different) they have their front and rear bike brakes on the opposite hands to Australian bikes (maybe it's us that's different) and i was too worried about going over the bars by grabbing the wrong brake at a bad moment but the trail system looked fantastic ... maybe next trip will be a bike trip ;)