*Pictured: Top of the pitch with Toji, Luzie, Annabelle, Mia, Miranda, Emma, me, Sophie, Parsa and a good time*

It was Miranda’s birthday plus Annabelle and Luzie are leaving Canada shortly after the weekend, naturally a climbing trip was in order. The Perseid meteor shower was forecasted so camping somewhere with a good view of the sky was high on the priority list. Coincidentally, the past weekend I climbed a 2-pitch multi near central Chek with our friend Alasdair. I suggested the dumb idea of hauling all nine people and camping gear up this climb and they all seemed pretty excited about it.

Luzie, Beatrice (Miranda’s roommate), Mia, Miranda and I decided to head to Sqamish on Friday to get some bonus climbing in. A casual late morning start resulted in some frustration with finding parking at Murrin park but we succeeded eventually. It was Beatrice’s first time climbing but she was natural. I ran into Luzie the day before at a grocery store and learned about the birthday surprise for Miranda: a gluten free ice cream cake, which I thought was an outrageous idea (bringing it all the way from Vancouver). At some point during climbing Mir randomly mentioned her desire for a gluten free ice cream cake in her life. It was an effort for me and Luzie to not chuckle. “Wouldn’t it be crazy if you can have it right now”, I said.

There was extra cake so we shared with random climbers who were walking past and they were elated.

Soon the sun is setting and we converged near Miranda’s secret camping site, we parked our cars and carried stuff for the night. After consuming a hot meal we looked at the stars and went to bed.

It was a leisure wake-up time the next morning, followed by some breakfast. The night was warm and sweaty at first but chilly after midnight, though the inside of my elbows were oddly sweaty still. Quickly packed up our tents and we were excited for more climbing. Electric Ave has a variety of routes suitable for all levels and we had an abundance of ropes. The day was warm and sun was baking. I found it too warm to be climbing in the sun as my fingertips wouldn’t stop sweating.

Some of us frequent the crag and had climbed most routes, we decided to scout out some an new area that we haven’t climbed at before further up the FSR. I joined Mia, Miranda, Luzie and Sophie to the circus, which has mostly 5.12+ routes but a few highly rated ones in the 5.10 range. Miranda and I chose our respective climbs and both thought they were harder than the suggested grades. It turned out that it was because they were, we read the guidebook wrong. The pictures were rather hard to decipher. We bailed off the climbs and Miranda found the correct route, so she thought.

*Mia, Miranda and Luzie reading the guidebook, scheming.*

After she had clipped a few bolts the route seemed to be going to Narnia, with no obvious next bolts in sight and a suspicious traverse was required to reach the next nearest bolt. Through some semi-sketchy cross-route clipping she managed to get to the top with some pleasant rope drag. I was happy to not be leading that route.

Shortly after the other joined us. We watched people projecting hard climbs in the same area and it was entertaining. I wasn’t 100% certain if the top of the climb I had picked for us to camp on would have enough space for all nine people. I hence decided that it would be wise to go up and verify so I recruited Miranda to go with me.

The climb is technically 2 pitches but one can easily walk up the side to the top of the first short pitch. We ran into another party ahead of us, turned out it was the couple we had ran into the at Murrin the previous day. We remembered them because it was entertaining to watch them trying to unstuck a nut in the crack.

We had a brief chat with them and waited for them to finish climbing/rappelling off the climb. The route itself is 26m with a steep tricky first move to consistent face climbing above with a few finger cracks sprinkled in, which is always joyful. I quickly topped out the route as I remember the moves. The top was a perfect campsite with flat grounds and gorgeous 360 views, it was certainly going to fit nine people.

We knew it would be a time crunch to get everyone to the top and we would have to climb into the dark so me and Miranda devised quickly devised a plan. We left the rope fixed at the anchor with quickdraws in. Another rope will be tied to the fixed rope such that it would be possible to retrieve the rope once the climber has topped out. It would be a normal top-rope belay at the bottom for everyone except the last person.

We were pressed for time but good food comes first. Combining all the vegetables in a pot with exotic seasoning and rice noodles turned out to be a delicious meal. Luxurious to be having such a meal at the end of the day.

Sophie, Miranda, Mia and Luzie went ahead and started the climb and the rest of us cleaned up to save precious daytime. It was going smoothly but also was getting dark. We finished packing up and I headed up to the bottom of the climb with Annabelle, Toji, Parsa and Emma. The first group had made good progress and we were quite proud of our planning.

*Miranda looking down on top of the climb*

*Sunset, looking north, Mt. Fee in a distance*

Soon the night fell and headlamps were turned on. Belaying was tricky due to rope drag. There was a haul line set up to haul up all our camping gear and we heard non-stop giggling at the bottom so I assumed they were having a good time on top. Emma, Toji, Annabelle went up one by one and it was smooth sailing. We did take a quick shower from a fallen 1L Nalgene(which miraculously stopped at a ledge) but apart from that nothing went wrong.

*Me and Parsa managing ropes at the bottom*

No one died yet and I was the last one to go up. Climbing in the dark is oddly enjoyable. It felt peaceful to be in the bubble of the headlamp and the rest of the world seemed to disappear. I high-fived Emma at the achor at the top. We laid our mats and sleeping bags on the ground, turned off our headlamps and watched the meteor shower. The night sky was outrageous. I fell sleep at some point, last thing I remember was the itchy feeling of some tall grass scratching my elbow.

It again got cold after midnight and I had to get into my sleeping bag. I was told later that there were rats running over us but I did not hear a sound. At around 5 am Sophie was attacked by birds. I had earplugs in so I was not aware of the situation but saw Sophie standing up weirdly in my peripheral. I thought it was strange and went back to sleep. I remembered looking up seeing dark clouds and decided to ignore the possibility of being soaked if it started raining.

A hour later Toji screamed “RAINDROP” (interesting choice of word) and I felt the rain on my face. Everyone instantly got up and we were packed up in less than 20 minutes. Our descend plan was for Miranda to lower people who could not rappel off one anchor, and the rest of us rappelling off another.

Me and Emma getting ready for the rappel

We were being incredibly efficient and in less than 20 mins everyone was on the ground. Miranda was the last one down and the rain started pouring down when she was half-way down. Perfect timing.

*Looking up at the climb in the rain, Toji dropped a whole roll of toilet paper here, it probably is still dangling on the cliff despite our best effort to try and retrieve it…*

We drove into Sqamish for some morning coffee and bakery. It felt like we’ve been climbing the whole day but it was only a little past 8 a.m.. We then proceed to spend too much time and money at ClimbOn. It was decided that we were going to have a relaxed day at a lake and do some slacklining, until Miranda’s dad invited us to go climb his climb on the chief but that’s a story for another time. It was quite the eventful day with good friends, one that I will remember for a long time.

*Sitting outside the coffee shop, looking at the chief in the clouds*

Here are some bonus goofy photos:

Weekend Shenanigans: Starlit Snoozes and Rock Climbing Goofs

Throne of Kings(5.10b)

Indra’s Net