Week 1

I arrived in Squamish late on Tuesday night and met up with Liz from the UK for some cragging on Thursday and Friday. I hadn't done much climbing in the previous couple of weeks, so I was feeling a bit rusty. But after a few warm up climbs, I was back to my old self and we had a great time climbing together in the bluffs. I took Friday to unpack, get groceries, and settle in and Kurt arrived late Friday night. We did some cragging over the weekend and then hit up the chief for some multi-pitch on Monday. While he was here, we climbed Calculus Crack, Vector, and Jungle Warfare, and planned on doing Rock On, but the weather was less than inspiring that day. We also did quite a bit of cragging, did a couple laps across the lake and Murin Park.

The Squamish Mountain Festival started on Wednesday night and I was super excited to see Sonnie Trotter give a talk. His presentation was planned for the Oh Canada night where Matt Maddaloni also gave a presentation about his crazy solo link up climbs of the chief and the many spires in the Buggaboos. Pretty crazy and pretty amazing, but Sony's talk was still the highlight of the evening for me and I let myself be the dork that asked Sonnie to pose with me in a picture.

The next night, we made it to the Howe Sound Brewery for an early dinner and then a really cool climbing photo competition. The slideshows were really great to see, but it was almost equally exciting to be sitting in the next table over from Sonnie Trotter and then look at the next table and see Ed Cooper hanging out with Fred Becky. It was just pretty amazing to be hanging out at the Brew Pub with some of the world's greatest climbers!

Friday night was Big Wall night were we saw a few movies and Ed Cooper give a talk that basically showcased some of his photography as well as his climbing accomplishments (including, but not limited to his first ascent of the Grand Wall) and lifestyle followed by Cedar Wright's talk highlighting his recent climbing travels to Alaska and Pakistan. Hearing Ed Cooper and Cedar Write talk back to back, I lost track of the number of first ascents!! LOL. Another highlight of the night -- both Kurt and I won prizes in the auction -- a cool Black Diamond summit pack and a climbing t-shirt. And shortly after Kurt and I took our seats, Ed Cooper and his wife meandered in and sat next to me. One of the movies was about base jumping and Ed's wife leaned in and whispered to him, "Don't tell me you're going to take up base jumping!?" LOL. He said he wasn't interested. Of course, that's what Steph Davis said when I saw her talk about a year ago. And now she's all over the news base jumping off of all kinds of things! Crazyness. I think I'll stick to climbing with a rope and rappelling or walking off of routes!

Sonnie Trotter at the festival


Jungle Warfare