A Rope?

 

I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t climbed a route involving a rope in well over a year.  I’ve done a fair amount of sport climbing in the past and a bit of trad but have never been super psyched on either. For the past year and a half I’ve been on a perpetual bouldering trip where I’ve had the luxury of chasing cold weather. Back when I lived in the south, bouldering in the summer wasn’t an option so we would always go out sport climbing. It’s been a long time since those days!

Today I finally tied into a rope again.  It started with an epic hike to the Smoke Bluffs, just look at the steep, treacherous trail we were on:

Actually we live next to the Smoke Bluffs in a neighborhood called Valleycliffe. It’s literally a 10 minute walk from our house to the crag! The weather has been wonderful lately which made for a great day to get out and climb something. I haven’t climbed in over a week due to my bout with vertigo and won’t be doing any bouldering anytime soon due to my unhappy tendon so it was fun to scramble up some easy cracks.

I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t know how to crack climb but it’s still fun to get up there and find my way to the top. Jeremy is more into bouldering but has been getting into the trad stuff as of late. Last week he had an epic on the Grand Wall with Max where they topped out at 10 without headlamps and had to scramble off bellygood ledge in the dark!

Jeremy led a few classic 5.8s and 5.9s and I followed him up. The best part about it was the view once you get above the treeline. You can see everything in Squamish and it all looks spectacular! The climbing was super fun and a challenge to make it feel as easy as it should!

We topped out the last climb Penny Lane as it got dark and then walked back to our house for dinner.

We’re going back to the Smoke Bluffs tomorrow and then the youthful energy arrives and we’ll be back to the boulders giving a classics tour of the forest!