Grades Confirmed

I climbed Right Wing (again) with Katherine and Julie. Katherine impressively on-sighted the Filibuster over the course of an hour-long battle. I know that Katy Holm onsighted it several months back. Anyways, with all the activity, I think that the grades have finally settled as 10c for the bolted pitch, 10d for the Filibuster, and 10d for What's Left. Here's the topo.

The Filibuster was entirely dry and much cleaner than it was in the spring. All the traffic knocked off the grit on the right face, making smearing much more secure.

In Action

My friends Katy and Kelly went up on Right Wing yesterday; they thought that it was a great route. Comparing notes, it's much drier now (still not perfectly dry though) and cleaner... it's been seeing some traffic. They suggested the grades of 10c for the bolted pitch, 10d for the Filibuster, and 10c for What's Left. I went up today to try it but some folks from Seattle were on it. Here are some photos of them as I rapped down to inspect. They seemed to like it but also had to say that the Filibuster is full on and not the type of terrain for a 5.10 leader. It's a Buster of a 10d for sure.

<-- Here's the mighty Filibuster! She hollered over to me "Exasperator's second pitch is 10c. This ain't 10c!" That's right, it's 10d.


Below left: Looking up at "What's Left". Note the rope hanging vertically down.


Below right: meat and potato handjamming on Right Wing.

Updated Topo

In light of my recent adventure on Right Wing (see "Served" next), I'm posting an updated and more tentative topo. The grades are unconfirmed and suggest a range, somewhere in which the true grade exists. If you climb the thing and have any comments, please respond to this message or get in touch with me with comments/suggestions: jeremyfrimer(at)gmail.com

Served!

I finally found an opportunity to climb Right Wing yesterday, with my friend Jacqui. Let me start with the most important point: Oh My Goodness! P2, the bolted corner, was wet but the water wasn't a big deal. Jacqui did some mix free and aid past the bolts (+ a blue metolius) and found it to be a pitch easily frigged. I followed it and found the moves to be in the 10b/c range with the exception of the move past the 3rd bolt, which may be harder.

Then the "Filibuster". To put it simply, I got served.

Even after 2 weeks of dry weather, the bottom 15 m were wet. I suspect that snow melt run-off is a problem for this route. The climbing was unrelenting in the mid-10 range. Get a piece in, suss the moves, layback for 10 feet, NO REST, look for gear while hanging onto a 5.10 move, repeat. Then the squeeze chimney, then the steep hands. Then 40m up from the belay, even with a set of doubles and even triples in some sizes of cams, I was out of gear. I built a hanging belay and brought Jacqui up. The last 20m to the chains were easier (5.9/10a) but required the same sort of gear that I needed below so I'm happy with my decision to break it up.

"What's Left". Holy moly! A 15m corner that overhangs 3m. Getting up to the flake has a tricky/burly move or two. But then the flake: stuff in the 4.5, undercling up, kneebar, reach for the top, pull up, then throw a leg over it and straddle. Once back in the corner, a #5 camalot will then go in. But in the midst of all this monkey business, there's no gear to speak of. The final moves to the chains are burly too (overhung laybacking).

Take-away messages:
(1) Wetness is a problem in spring;
(2) The Filibuster is a pitch perhaps unparalleled in Squamish in the 5.10 range. The closest analogue is probably the 5.11a final pitch to the Truck Stop on Freeway.
(3) I'm not ready to confirm the grades of any of the pitches on Right Wing. I believe that the ones posted on the topo (they are the historic grades) may be sandbagged. I await feedback on that.

Right Wing is Now Clean

With some final scrubbing, belay bolting, and pin/bolt/flake removal, Right Wing is clean once again. Here's a topo of the route. Keep in mind that it is slow to dry. But once it is, wow! From the first pitch (Eagle's Domain), one can see the entire climb---every single metre. It's an intimidating and exciting moment looking up at the never-ending Filibuster corner. Enjoy!

Scrubbing Granite

A couple of weekends ago, here's a photo that Jacqui took of Sarah going at the lichen. I'm standing down below, working on unearthing Political Ledge.











As of right now, all of the climbing is clean. What remains is an 8m section of ledge to be scrubbed, a bolted anchor to be placed, and a big nasty flake to be sledgehammered out of the Filibuster corner. And that's it.

The First Ascent, 1967

I've been chatting with Fred Beckey about the first ascent. This is what he could remember offhand:

Frankly it is sort of a blur... I remember that there was some aid and the route was sort of strenuous and on the warm side when we climbed it. Cannot even recall if we scouted it first or went up and worked on it with ropes.

It's understandable that he'd have little recollection of it given that it in 2 months, it will be 40 years since the FA and that Fred is well into his 80's now. He suggested that I check the journals. And indeed in AAJ 1968, there it was:

Squamish Squaw, Right Wing Route. On June 24 and 25 Scott Davis, Al Givler and I made the first ascent of the Squaw via the crack system running through the main dihedral on the west face. Our first problem was locating the beginning of the dihedral at the head of the steep jungle growing against the Squaw lower cliffs. Once found, we climbed three pitches directly upward, where the difficulty increased from fourth class to aid. From a spacious belay ledge two long aid pitches, separated only by a hanging belay, curved upward and right. Pitoning was always awkward and slow, as we were forced right by the overhanging left wall of the dihedral. A final vertical and overhanging pitch, again largely aid, proved an awkward if not fitting end to a classic route. We used 67 pitons, two bolts were placed at and above the hanging belay.

Fred Beckey

Sounds to me like (1) Right Wing was the FA of the entire Squaw; (2) They followed one of the bushy cracks near Eagle's Domain rather than Eagle's Domain itself; (3) There was a lot of awkward "pitoning"; (4) Let the Legend that is Fred Beckey be an inspiration to us all.

The Vision

"The Squaw" is a 180m high rock crag in Squamish that hosts perhaps the densest collection of multipitch 5.10 crack climbs in Squamish with Jungle Warfare (10a), Birds of Prey (10b), Optimus Prime (10c), The Great Game (10d), Pipeline (10c), and Godforsaken Land (10d, AO). But when looking at the crag from the town of Squamish, I've often noticed that the most obvious feature---a 65m long right-facing corner---is off the charts. The corner belongs to the somewhat forgotten and vegetated "Right Wing" (10c-ish). With heavy praise for the potential of the route (if it were only cleaned up) in the Squamish guide, I decided to take on the project this winter. Along with some of my friends, I've set out to clean the thing up, with hopes of reintroducing what I think will become an excellent addition to Squamish climbing.

The Story of the Core Shot (or how Right Wing Almost Killed Me)

Before I selectively forget what happened when Right Wing nearly killed me, I better write it down. I write it here because there are practical lessons to learn about rope fixing, wet ropes, grigris, and how they can interact in a bad way.

In November, I spent a day cleaning all the big, loose rocks on the route. While working on the long 10b corner, I noticed that the ropes were drenched and that my grigri was difficult to control. I would pull and pull on the release to no avail until finally it lost grip entirely and I would fly down the rope for 10 feet before stopping abruptly, and bounce to a stop. After bouncing my way down the rope, I jumarred back up, cleaning loose rocks, until I came over a bulge to notice that the sheath of the rope 20 feet above me was kapput and the sheath below the shot had slid down a foot or two. Upon later inspection (I just ruined the end of the story by letting on that I didn't die), it turned out that the core was in decent shape and showing only minor abrasion. But still. The core shot came from the rubbing against the most subtle of bulges---virtually flat granite. Think of a ball 60 feet in diameter. There was scarcely a crystal poking out of it. That's what's most scary about the incident: the lack of a cutting edge. The problem was that I had such a long section fixed (70m) with dynamic ropes and without an intermittent anchor. My repeated bouncing expressed itself as sawing action at the point in question. I've since built an intermittent anchor and installed a second (back-up) rope. Future cleaners, take heed.

Bolting

I did most of the bolting yesterday. In a sense, I'm glad that I was alone for it in that reaching consensus between any two individuals about if and where to bolt is difficult. In the end, I decided to put in fixed stations throughout. I won't justify that decision here. What does seem worthy of mention is how I handled P2, the short, wet 10c corner. The pitch begins by stepping off a ledge, across the wet streak onto a series of moves off of good holds, bad feet, and big moves between them. All the while, the wet streak looms closely nearby. The photo at right shows the pitch. The yellow circles (x for bolt and P for pin) show what was there when I arrived. After trying the moves out myself and giving it a good think, I decided put in two new bolts beside the wet streak. The lowest bolt is there because the original move across the wet streak has a pretty nasty ankle-breaker potential (thanks Chris Geisler for letting me know about the deckfall potential on this pitch). Once onto the face, if it's dry enough, it's now well protected for some pretty tenuous moves. And if it's wet, it's an easy A0 bolt ladder. After talking with Don McPherson (FFA) and others, I got the sense that this pitch was a little too memorable (as in scary) considering how short and wet it is. My goal as was to make it more forgettable, as it is not what makes Right Wing great. I put in a final bolt at the top as there was no decent gear. The pitch is now all fixed. In the end, it as a 1-for-1 pin-for bolt swap. I pulled the pins. The angle was a good piece albeit erroded substantially; the baby knifeblade was half-driven, and the z piton was only 1/4 driven.

Almost done

Yesterday, Sarah, Jacqui, and I spent the day cleaning and the route is nearly ready to go. Just 20m of rock in need of cleaning. And bolting. After much deliberation, I've decided to make all the stations fixed and to place 3 new bolts in the 10c-ish pitch. The new bolts in that pitch will both allow me to pull out the existing, rusted, half-driven pins, and for the route to climb some interesting face beside the wet streak, making the wet streak less of an issue. The crack adjacent to where the bolts will be is slammed shut anyways: most of the time, too small for fingers or anything more than knifeblades.

Pre-Cleaning

Here are some photos from the day that I first fixed ropes on Right Wing with Anders Ourum.

Pitch 4: The climb will finish up the original finish to The Great Game, an overhanging 10b corner (The Beak Flake). Here's looking down it. Yup, looks full on.








Pitch 3: The next pitch down will probably be the one that gives Right Wing it's name (whatever name that ends up being): a full 60m rope-stretcher of 5.10 climbing. Plenty of chimneying and powerful climbing, and not a good rest on the entire thing. The belay is the first stance in 60m. Excellent cracks, fantastic gear, and stomach turning exposure. Here's a photo looking down it (note the ledge way down there, marking its beginning).
















Pitch 3: Here's looking down the lower half of the pitch.















Pitch 3: The lowest 10m of the mega pitch, properly vegetated, with the belay ledge below.



















Pitch 3: Panicing yet? Looking up the mega pitch from the belay ledge. The belay at its top (not visible) is located at the base of the corner visible on the skyline. Bring all the gear you own, and your friends' too.













Pitch 2: Looking up the short 10c-ish pitch. Note the unfortunately permanent wet streak. The climb will step across the streak to some good face holds (dry) before re-joining the corner at the top of the wet streak.










Pitch 1: The connection with Eagle's Domain (the white finger crack in the slab behind the climber).