Buttress Boulders and B-Branch Photos - Eldred Valley

Just a few snap shots I snagged from Matt Hodgson. Hope everyone is staying warm and dry this winter. The first two photos are of the awesome new boulder discovered in the 'other' side of the road in the Buttress cluster. Eldred Valley bouldering at it's finest. This thing looks like it's right out of Ferngully. It's tall, and the rock quality is stellar. The line moves into a few crimps before hitting the crack to top out.

Anna's Green Fables - (Ungraded) 

Low Card - V1 (The shortest problem in the valley, it's an odd one)

Bulge Project - B Branch

This boulder in the Buttress area needs a bit of scrub down to get shiney, but after the carpet moss was pulled back some rad problems revealed themselves. Not a bad view of the Mainer in the background either.

Blessings in Disguise - Ungraded. West Main Wall in background.

Unknown problem, right side of Blessings

The classic block hold on the Open Canvas Boulder

Happy New Year....?

The Leprechaun's Wand

Here's a brief clip of Matt Hodgson right before getting the FA of the Stillwater project, which he's named The Leprechaun's Wand. He's decided not to grade it yet, and it may need another ascent or two to come to a consensus.

Of course, the video doesn't show the brutally small, fingertip sized slit that you start off in matched, and somehow Matt makes hopping on with the awkward backstep look easy - after a dozen attempts I couldn't even get off the ground into that position.
Being much shorter and not being able to start without a pad stack, I tried to find a different beta which will likely add a few moves, but I wasn't able to put it together.

It's great to see gems like this coming out of an area once thought 'totally tapped out.'

Support Your Local Developers!

If you've ever been to the Colin Arthur Dionne Memorial camp site in the Eldred Valley, you can't help but immediately wonder: "Wow, who did all of this?"  The climber's camp site, all of the structures and amenities, and all of the trails are the product of a very small group of local climber's hard work. Much of that original work was done by Colin himself, and the impressive scale and quality of the area is a testament to the man's unstoppable passion for sharing what he loved.

 Of course, no one can do it alone, and it takes a community of climber's who share that passion and love of labour to keep developing the areas, as well as to maintain them. This is no easy task, and everything is done for free. They spend their own hard earned money to purchase tools, supplies, the giant tarp, keep the out-house stocked, and anything else that's needed every season. Not to mention the hundreds of dollars it takes to buy bolts and hangers for routes...

 Every May, the Access Society (http://www.access-society.ca/) helps to sponsor the 'Adopt a Crag' event where we band together to do some heavy labour on the trails. Other than this, it is the unseen and un-recognized devotion of local climbers that give us all the incredible opportunity to climb here.

 While in the Valley this summer, a group of Americans were so impressed with the camp, that they had trouble digesting the fact that it was free to use. They were adamant about paying something, despite repeatedly being told that 'There's no one to pay, we do this for free!' Finally, they just left $40.00 on the table and told me to use it for something. I realized that maybe other people would be inspired to generosity in the same way, and so now I've created the Donation button.

 Since this is not a business or organization, the donations go to my personal e-mail address. To ensure transparency, whenever a donation is made I will post the tally, and whenever a purchase is made will post what it was for and a receipt if I can. If you don't like that system, please donate to the Access Society. Though not as direct, the money will still go to a good access related cause somewhere.

Oh and PS, the $40 they gave me was going to go into a splitting maul for the wood shed, but Matt discovered an apparently amazing bouldering area across the river, so the money went to him to eventually buy a cable for a new crossing.

Donate now! The donation button is on the top right of the home page. Thanks in advance!

Khartoum Road Closure

The road to the Khartoum Valley wall has been de-activated.  It is still easily accessible, but for now, you must park your vehicle and hike an extra 45 minutes or so along the road. Unfortunately this detracts from the appeal of Khartoum having such easy access, though at least it is an easy walk.

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/khartoum-/106861637

The de-activation is just passed 19 mile on the 3rd lake road. After walking passed this, stay on your left when you come to the next fork - the next road is on your left after a few minutes and trends uphill. This is the '4x4' road as described in the above link.

You'll know when you're at the climbers camp site, as it sits atop a cliff with a great view of the side of the wall. Continue up the road (not through the camp/waterfall) for 40m and follow the trail at right to the wall. 

Season Ending Injury + Hardest Problem in Stillwater

I've been in Squamish for a few weeks, bouldering and trad climbing in hopes to get stronger for the valley. After a slew of onsights in Skaha and Kelowna, I'm convinced the time in Squamish has paid off. Things were going great, and I arrived back in town stoked and ready to help Matt Hodgson finish his project on the West Main Buttress.

The new problem follows the thin right crack above the over hang.

Matt has been climbing strong, nabbing the first ascent of "the future project" in Stillwater, a boulder problem with strenuous technical moves on micro crimps. It had been walked passed for years, assumed to be too hard until Matt suggested I try it - and we quickly figured out the sequence. (You just never know till you try it!) After a few sessions Matt put it all together, though it's yet to be named or graded (though I'd guess it's around a 7...I originally thought it'd be a double digit until I actually tried it).

The day before I arrived, I had a gnarly fall while bouldering alone in Squamish. I felt I would flash the problem, a moderate V4, but I lost my focus and slipped. My foot blew off and I slammed hard into the rocks below me, a few feet away from my very poorly placed crash pad...in fact, it wasn't under the problem at all. Lesson learned - play it safe. I finished the problem immediately after, but noticed pain in my hand which became fairly severe later that night. 

Learning to be a lefty

After not being able to hold a tooth brush the next day or turn my car key, I thought I'd stop into the ER in Powell River. What I hoped would be a sprain turned out to be a fractured scaphoid, requiring a cast for 4-6 weeks. There goes my chance at helping put up the route in the Valley, sending any more projects, scrubbing new lines, bolting anything, and heading to California for November. Time to heal and reflect, re-connect with friends and focus on other things. This will also give me time to rehab a knee injury that's kept me from heel-hooking for 2 months. So, until next season, wishing you all great health - don't take it for granted.


In other news, a
great night bouldering session went down in August at Stillwater, which may have been the largest bouldering session in PR history.

Krista on Huff - V0+ during the first annual night bouldering party

Drinks and good times flowed, and I may have even ended up with a first ascent - though if it had been climbed in years passed by Colin or Rob and crew, I may have at least got the first intoxicated night ascent....though that's also debatable. At least I had spotters! 

Gripped Magazine's area profile on Powell River and the Eldred Valley

In the August/September issue of Gripped, http://gripped.com/magazine/current/ there's a feature on the climbing here in town. Considering the crew had something like 3 days here and had mostly poor weather, the finished product is impressive.

It was cool to see some attention given to the three areas in town outside of the Eldred, and very surprising to see the article didn't publish a single photo of any of the big walls, which are generally the eye candy of the area. Most surprisingly, the Flickr photos don't include the standard shot of the West Main Wall - guess it's old news!

Hat Trick - a 5.9+ TR route at Stillwater. (Or a highball bolder problem)

The article is well written, and the photos turned out great. The only two published bouldering photos were taken in the Carag Dur area, which has hardly been developed, and is extremely dirty. Hopefully this doesn't give Eldred bouldering a bad image, since there has been so much work put into scrubbing good quality problems in other areas. At least it shows that there are quality problems hidden in the valley waiting to be cleaned, and will let people see that there is more to Powell River climbing than just massive isolated big walls.

Check out all the photos on Flickr!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomsaint/sets/72157633879401446/

A correction to the caption printed for the photo of the boulder with the giant cedar snag on it: I called the problem Hollow Cedar Skies since they needed a name for it, though it is actually an un-climbed project. The boulder is un-named.

All photos credit  Sean St.Denis

Must Do Climbs - Volume 1

Anna working the rail

Instead of doing an area profile of each area in town, which would take a whole lot of time and work and people to photograph - I'm going to do a 'best of' list. This is the kind of project that will probably take several seasons to cover, but, it gives me something fun to constantly have on the back burner.



For the first installment, I'm going with one of my favourite climbs - Knobulator (direct) 5.9

Strechin' out mid route

Located in the Destruction Zone at Higgy land, it's the first climb you come to through the short trail from the parking spot.



This was the first route I ever top-roped, lead, and free soloed. It's also the route that many of my friends, and likely many other local climbers discovered as their first sport climb.  The rock quality is bomber, the opening moves follow a pure sequence, and the direct route through the roof is exposed and mega fun.

A grainy low light shot of Alyssa making the early reachy move