Crack Climbing in New Brunswick?? Yup it's true!!

Greg Hughes on the FA of Harvest 5.10- at McQuirks in St. George NB

Climbing in NB, for years has been centered around Welsford NB. Which is totally fair due to the amazing amount of stone found in the area. Cochrane Lane (the epi-center on climbing in NB with 350 routes), Sunny Side (predominately a sport crag), Mt Douglas, Bear Mountain, Eagle Rock and Bald Peak. There are a few other areas located around the St. John and Hampton area. Kingston Cliffs, Cedar Point, Hampton Marsh and Gondola Point to name a few (all within roughly an hour from Welsford).

Dom Caron climbing Human Eraser Direct 5.11a at Minkey Wall, Welsford NB Photo by Franca Zambito

Franca Zambito on-sighting Hitchhiker 5.11a at Upper Tier in Welsford NB

Franca on Hitchhiker!

More recently there has been some hard work put into developing new crags in the St. George area. The past 2 weekends I have ventured down to one of these crags (McQuirks) that, in my opinion, is the best traditional climbing in NB!

The other area, Utopia, that is being developed is a steep overhanging wall of granite that will most likely boost NB's hardest rock routes in the years to come. Thanks to Adam Morgan, Terry Melanson and Dom Caron (among others) for working hard at bolting and sending at this impressive crag.

I accompanied Greg Hughes, the main developer of Mcquirks, both this weekend and the last to climb at this 60-70m wall.

My first visit was fantastic and I got to climb pretty much all the established routes, which is around 20 pitches of climbing from 5.7-5.10-.

Beautiful granite climbing high on McQuirks Photo by Greg Huges

Each pitch I climbed I could stop smiling! The rock was excellent, gear was solid and most importantly the climbing was just so good!

Octopus Ink 5.8 Photo by Greg Hughes

Greg mentioned to me that there has been some talk that the grades in the area are a bit stiff. So as I climbed each route I took that into account. My feeling was that the grades are pretty accurate for the style of climbing which is predominately crack climbing and in NB there aren't a lot of routes you need to purely jam your way through a crux.

Second pitch of yet another awesome crack! Photo by Greg Hughes

Climbing there again this weekend I was in awe of how good the climbing is! I again climbed Neutral Tribe 5.8 (one of the best crack climb in NB... in my opinion), The Nose 5.8+, and I combined the crux (fingers) of Black Fly 5.9+ into the top crux (fingers & hands) of Crack Machine 5.9+ for a new line called Black Crack 5.9+.

Neutral Tribe! One of my new favourite routes in NB! Photo by Greg Huges

Neutral Tribe 5.8.... if you know how to jam ;) Photo by Greg Hughes

Greg climbing The Nose 5.8

After climbing Black Crack I started to rope up at the base of 50 Mission Cap. Presently that hardest route established at the crag at 5.10+(c/d). I added a few extra finger sized pieces of gear and started up. The climbing felt hard yet smooth and I soon found myself at the top pumped and psyched! This route is full value with great gear and exposure, a must really!

Onsighting 50 Mission Cap 5.10c. An excellent 35m climb with a beautiful corner/finger crack, delicate traverse and a steep finger/hand crack.  Photo by Greg Hughes

Pulled the first crux and starting into the traverse. Photo by Greg Hughes

We called it a day after that and went back to camp, a 2 minute walk from the crag and a 5-7 minute walk from the car. We ate dinner and chatted around the fire with the wonderful company of Mike, Melissa, and Lizzy Parker!

The next morning it started to rain a bit.... regardless Greg and I hiked up to the top of the crag and rapped down to the Party Ledge where we climbed a nice wet 5.5 or 5.6 before heading out.

Thanks to Greg Hughes and Mike Parker for all there hard work developing this crag! I highly recommend this area to everyone who enjoys climbing! It has excellent gear, solid stone and high quality climbing! There are rap/belay stations midway on the wall so you don't have to climb with a tag line or half ropes. This area deserves more traffic!

Climbing Adventures

Rockies!!

After our adventure on Mt Colonel Foster Bill went back to Campbell River BC and I headed for Nanaimo to start loading my truck with all my life goods to then start my driving/climbing to the east coast of Canada.

I made it to Squamish and had to get a little work down on my truck (new section of exhaust). Climbed some great routes!! Spent a day cragging with Sean Pickersgill at Penny Lane where he was on a sending spree. The next day Joel Beckman, Sean and I went up and climbed Mt. Haybrich via Life on Earth a fantastic 6 pitch 10c... great sustain climbing! I also got to catch some of the Squamish Mountain Fest events which was nice! Thanks Paul McSorley for a great slideshow! And climbed a few more awesome routes with Scotty Burrell, Cruel Shoes 10d 5pitches and Liquid Gold 11a 4pitches. Highly recommend both of them!

Joel Beckman and I tried for an adventure into the Chehalis Range. We made it in there both sick with head colds so we just strolled around and checked things out. Nice to get in there and see things! Excited to get back in there healthy!

Slab climbing in Squam... Cruel Shoes pitch 4. Photo by Scott Burrell

Sean on his red point of Crime of the Century 11c.

Sean climbing on Haybrich.

Summit of Haybrich with Sean and Joel!

Joel hanging out in the Chehalis Range.

Bardean.

As I got in my truck to drive east I had mixed emotions. I was thinking well I know I'll be back! And it was cool to be leaving because I was going to meet up with Cory Hall in Banff to get some climbing in in the Rockies. Never climbing in the Rockies prior to this trip I was excited to see what we were going to get into!

So I got to Banff and met up with Cory. We stayed at his friends Kelsey's place for 2 day while we deciding what objectives we wanted to tackle. We decided on the NE Ridge of Mt Alberta, which seems to have a hefty reputation and the Emperor Ridge on Robson which is huge! 2500m actually.... and that is just the climbing.

Since Alberta was on the way to Robson we stopped there first. We crossed the oh so warm Sunwapta River and hiked up Woolley Creek to the Alberta Hut.... they saw 6-8 hrs...... more like 5ish once at the little hut we made ourselves comfortable and ate dinner and went to bed.

Sunwapta River crossing. Photo by Cory Hall

The alarm sounds at 3:30am and we are slow to move but once we remembered where we were and what our objective was we started moving much faster! After a little oatmeal we were out the door... 4am. We roped up at 5am and started simu-climbing through loose 4th and 5th class terrain. As things steepened we started to pitch things out. The climbing was exciting, belays mostly good and gear moderate to good at best..... and few and far between. The amount of loose terrain keep both of us on our toes. Once off the rock the summit ridge provided awesome exposure and fun snow climbing as we weaved around cornices to the summit.

Looking at the headwall on the NE Ridge of Alberta with the N Face in the shade. Photo by Cory Hall

Cory starting up the headwall.

Climbing!! Photo by Cory Hall

Topping out the rock on Alberta.

Snowy ridge on route to the summit.

We topped out at 2pm knowing only of 4 other parties to have climbed this route. We descending the Japanese Route and arrived back at the hut at 9:15pm for a total of 17.25 hrs. We hiked out in 3hrs the next day and headed to Jasper to prep for Robson.

Heading down.

Summit of Alberta with the North Twin behind.

Cory walking back to the hut.

Unfortunately Cory got a gasto-intestinal bug and we decided not to head into Robson.... also he was supposed to get on a plan to head to India on August 5th. He is in India now with James Moneypenny with grand plans! I wish them the all the best on there climbing endeavours!!!

I said goodbye to Cory and started my way for the east coast. I stopped into Edmonton and visited Mac Schafers family.... what an incredible experience. Gene and Elaine you are wonderful people and I look forward to seeing you again soon!

I also stopped in Red Deer to visit my friend Emily Schnurr and family... thanks for the beers, food and company!

And my last stop, pretty much, before my alpine driving push was at my friend Steve Hazelhurst's in Calgary. Great to see ya!

And then it was on! I drove from Calgary, leaving at 11am, just west of Winnipeg I stopped at around midnight. Got up at 6am and drove to Kapuskasing Ont. on highway 11... 18hrs and the next morning got up at 5am and drove to Fredericton... 20hrs. Was going a little crazy by that point. Thanks to my little Ford Ranger for working hard and being nice to me :) it does have 426000 km.

Now I am home and in the middle of the wild blueberry harvest! Looking forward to working hard for the next month!

Thanks for a great first adventure in the Rockies Cory! I am going to make the Rockies a large part of my climbing in the near future!

Thanks to all my other climbing partners in Squamish for sharing a rope! Look forward to my next visit.

Into the Mystic on Colonel Foster

Boarding the plane from Anchorage to Vancouver my mind was racing around about Mt Colonel Fosters 1000m east face, the complexity of the wall, descent and which route to climb. It was either the Original route(Culbert Route) 1000m 5.8 or Into the Mystic 1200m 5.9. It didn't leave my mind for the entire flight.

Foster from Landslide Lake.

After I got on the sky-train I called my partner for the trip, Bill Phipps, and asked him what he was thinking. He answered quickly with, "Into the Mystic". I was pretty excited and also a bit nervous. Colonel Foster hasn't been climbed to much (around 160 people) and only 4 parties have climbed Into the Mystic. Vancouver Island alpine is generally run-out climbing on moderate rock.

Bill approaching Berg/Foster Lake climber camp.

Mt Colonel Foster was first climbed in 1968 by Mike Walsh up a series of low 5th class gulleys and snow slopes. The east face was first climbed Dick Culbert, Fred Douglas and Paul Starr in 1972. In 1979 Joe Bajan (Canadian/BC climbing legend) and Ross Nichol climbed Directtissima AI5 which was the first winter ascent of the east face and has only seen one other ascent.

Fosters East Face!

On July 8th at 11:30pm I arrived in Nanaimo and promptly organized my gear to head to Campbell River to meet up with Bill the next morning. At 1:30pm we started walking in. We got to Berg/Foster Lake at around 5:30pm... it is about 13km. We set up camp, scoped the rope, organized gear, ate dinner and went to bed early so or 4am wake-up wouldn't came to soon.

Camp and gear sorting

Our gear: 1 sleeping bag, 1 pair of crampons, 2 foam pads, wind jacket, puffy jacket, first aid kit, 2L  of water each, 1 axe each, pocket rocket, 1 fuel canister, 1 650ml pot, 8 alien cams, .5-3 BD cams, 00,1-3 metolius cams, 2 sets of wires, 2 knife blades, 2 lost arrows and meters and meters of cord and webbing. For food we carried 8 bars, 250g of cheese, 250g of salami, an avocado, dense pumpernickel beard and 500g trail mix. This was for the climb, dinner and breakfast.

Me doing something important... probably not. Into the Mystic is up the buttress to the right of the obvious Y in the middle of the face. Photo Bill Phipps

We brewed some tea in the dark while staying warm in our sleeping bags.  At 5am we left our tent and remaining things and started up the moraine then to snow to the base of the wall. We touched the rock at 6am and soloed 4th to 5.6 terrain for about 150m before getting to a big ledge that you traverse on left for about 75m to the base of Into the Mystic. We started up steep sparsely protected terrain weaving through roofs and over laps on our half ropes. Each pitch was 50m-60m with at most 5-6 pieces of protection and half of those pieces were good at best. After 10-12 pitches of 5.7-5.9 climbing we had finished the technical crux. As we continued we found fun climbing from 4th class to 5.7/5.8 to summit ridge. Around 27 pitches of climbing.
We topped out on the ridge at 6pm summitted at 8pm.

Me soloing up easy terrain. Photo Bill Phipps

Bill soloing up easy terrain, wondering what Colonel's mystic has to offer.

Looking up the first pitch and more.

Find the gear.... Bill climbing the first pitch of Into the Mystic. Probably the crux.

 Bill climbing some steep moves on the lower pitches.

Again look for the gear. Photo Bill Phipps

Steep terrain high on the wall.

Looking north just below the summit.

We bivied on the NW summit that night. It was cool and windy while we ate and melted water. As the sun set over the mountain of clouds we finished eating and crawled into our sleeping bag, tired and inspired by what we just did. It wasn't long before I fell asleep and then woke to drizzle. We did some NW summit caving to escape the rain and wind. The only comfort found in the caving was shelter from wind rain and pointy rocks. Morning came slowly with a fair amount of shivering until we had melted water and ate our left over bars. We started descending at 6am.

Bill warming up in the morning after our bivy.

Rappelling into no where.

The rain turned to dry snow and veri-glass built up on the rocks as we down climbed off the NW summit to a series of rappels to the NE summit-NW summit col. We rapped and then climbed low 5th class terrain to below the NE summit and traversed around the left to a series of rappels down onto the west flanks and then traversed below the west face and up to the North Tower and back to camp. This took us 10 hrs.

Neither of us had been on the Main Summit before so we had planned to descend the NE ridge to Evacuation Gulley. That didn't turn out as you read above, which probably added 3-4hrs onto our descent. All went well regardless and we made it back to the truck by 8:15pm to Chocolate Cheese Cake and water which we enjoyed thoroughly.

We enjoyed burgers, beers, and salads in Campbell River around 10pm that night.

Our trip started on July 9th around 1:30pm and ended around 8:15pm July 11th. We climbed Into the Mystic in 12hrs, took 2 hrs to go up to the summit and back to our bivy on the NW summit and then took 10hrs to descend and 4hrs, of walk time, to hike out. So our adventure climbed & descended 1800m of terrain (1200m being Into the Mystic and 400m the hike) over roughly 30km.   

We where the 5th party to climb this route since it was first climbed by Chris Lawerance, Phil Stone and Corrie Wright in 1989.

Thanks Bill for another awesome adventure! The Vancouver Island Alps are a full value experience!!... there isn't anything easy about climbing here. These mountains have turned me around more then any other range I have been in.

For more info on climbing on Vancouver Island check out www.wildisle.ca

NE summit starting to show itself.

Wondering in the Chugach

The Chugach! photo by Zena Wolcott

Well you know climbing this spring has been pretty sweet to me! I got to adventure in the Vancouver Island Mountains for a bunch of days before heading to NB to visit family. There I got a few great days of climbing in with good friends! From there I made my way to Squamish where I climbed a number of routes I have been excited about. When my time in Squamish ended I boarded a plane to Alaska to work a NOLS Mountaineering course in the Chugach Range.

Sean on this way up the 10c corner pitch on the Great Game in Squamish BC photo by Max Fisher

Climbing in the Chugach consists of big glacial approaches and lots of snow time. Our course started on June 3rd when our Instructor team came together to meet and discuss our objectives for the course. Over the next few days we organized gear, fuel, planned our food and pulled maps. On July 5th our students arrived.

We outfitted our students with all the gear necessary for an adventure into the Alaskan Mountains and on the 6th we made our way to the toe of the Matanuska Glacier to start our adventure. Our first 7 days involved introducing the NOLS Leadership curriculum, basic camping/cooking skills, basic mountain and dry glacier travel skills and awareness and getting some ice climbing in.

Sean and others traveling up the Matanuska Glacier photo by Matt Valentine

Zena, Wes and myself photo by Matt Valentine

Traveling on the Mat photo by Matt Valentine

We then got a re-ration and the rest of our technical gear, which was flown in by Meekins Air Service, along standing NOLS supporter! We made our way into an area known as Scandi Peaks where we taught the students how to travel on a rope team through firn zone (the area where winter snow has accumulated enough to cover the crevasses), probing ( a 2.5-3m pole the push vertically into the snow to find crevasses as you travel up or down glacier) and camping on snow. After a few days in Scandi we decsended back to the Mat (Matanuska Glacier) where we continued our up valley progression with the ultimate destination being Turtle Flats (A classic NOLS Alaska climbing area for courses). After a few days our students where probing out perimetres (using the probe to find a safe area with no crevasses so we can be un-roped and roam freely in that area) for camping in good style and finding that camping on snow is hard/fun work.

Our kitchen at Scandi peaks photo by Matt Valentine

Student kitchen in the first snow camp photo by Matt Valentine

We navigated through an ice-fall and got onto Turtle Flats where we planned to base camp for a week so we could teach technical mountain skills and go climb some peaks.

One of the many beautiful nights on Turtle Flats... 24hr Sun photo by Zena Wolcott

During our 7 days in Turtle Flats we got more food from the Meekin's Air Service, climbed 3 peaks, taught snow protection, anchors, single team crevasse rescue, more leadership, and environmental studies such as glaciology and ecology.

Looking down at Turtle Flats on the approach to peak 9620ft photo by Matt Valentine

Navigating the bergshrund and onto the ridge photo by Matt Valentine

Up the ridge into rotten snow photo by Matt Valentine

Anthony on the "Au Cheval" with exposure all around! photo by Matt Valentine

Pretty cool place! photo by Matt Valentine

Looking down the ridge at Will and Anthony on there way up. photo by Max Fisher

Sam and Prince William Sound hanging out photo by Matt Valentine

We started our way off Turtle Flats with students leading the way. They took us down towards the Powell Glacier and after 3 days lead us through an ice fall, the firn zone and on to "dry ground".

Our last 5 days were focused on our students travelling independently of us for 2 days.  So we finished the first aid curriculum and travelled 2 more days with then through the Alaskan bush before setting them free. We then went ahead to our final meeting point and waited there for then. They travelled successfully in 2 groups to our point. They worked together in these 2 separate groups to navigate there way to us. It is awesome to see them use there skills to make good decisions with risk management and navigation and finish there course in style.

Gear we are sending out on the plane before we send the students on small group travel photo by Matt Valentine

The next day we made our way to our pick up spot and back to the branch where we had some fresh food, flavoured juices and drinks, and a small graduation for the team.

Thank to all the students and instructors for a great experience in Alaska!!! Mason, Sam, Merrick, Sean, Reid, Erica, Diana, Will, Anthony, Cliff, Wes, David and Max.... Zena, Jorn and Matt (my I-Team)