Chasing the Top 100 in Squamish (Angel's Crest)

I took this time off for a variety of reasons: mostly just to take a break and poke around; but maybe scope out some next steps in my life. Definitely, I want to spend time thinking about problems which are not computer related and to experiment with some different lifestyles.

On my first sabbatical I travelled thousands of kilometers and visited thirteen different countries on three continents. It was a great experience but at the end I was left wishing that I had invested more in relationships  and wished that I had taken the time to explore places more deeply. There would surely be a tradeoff - meeting fewer people and seeing fewer places – but I'm sure it is the right way to do things this time around. So my goals for this sabbatical are focusing on fewer pursuits, smaller distances, and increased depth.

After returning from the Sunshine Coast I had a very mellow birthday with friends and the new Batman movie. Thanks to everybody (both local and remote) for a great day (even though the movie was crappy).

I loaned my only pair of house keys to a friend and he unfortunately took them on his trip home to Ontario, so I was locked out of my house for about six days. I embraced this and decided to get deeper into climbing and head up to Canada’s most popular climbing destination: just an hour’s drive to Squamish.

I'm playing around with a recently published list of Squamish’s best 100 climbs - called the Squamish Top 100. They are distributed across a variety of difficulties and many different climbing areas, so it really encourages quite a bit of exploration. I roughly go for one per day and explore the area around it.

Tim and I started the exploration on the first weekend with Angel’s Crest. This is about a 500 meter climb which using traditional protection up a crest to the summit of the Stawamus Chief climbing at 10b. It is one of my favourite long routes from the ground to the top of the chief. 

Tim leading Angel's Crack (10b)

Kenn leading on Angel's Crest (10b)

Tim and I have some history on this climb. We tried this route for the first time two years starting at 5am and accidentally walked beyond the start of the climb until we found a different but similar looking climb. We followed our noses up and up for over twenty hours of wild and dirty climbing and when we finished (well after midnight) we thought we had completed Angel’s Crest “give or take a pitch or two”. Two weeks later we figured out that we wandered into a totally separate gully system and climbed a line up the infamously dirty North-North Arête.

In stark contrast to our first attempt, our climb this week went smoothly. In fact, the crux pitches felt relatively casual for the grade and we finished the route with enough light for a swim as the sun went down. Great day!

Don't have a good summit shot of the both of us - but have one good one of each of us. This has made me really excited for a few weeks in Squamish exploring new vertical terrain - just one hour’s drive from my house!