Squamish Highballs Part 1

 

The weather for the past 6 weeks has been blue bird sunshine and 75 degrees. Last week the weather flipped out of summer mode back to nonstop clouds and drizzle. This was about the time I decided I had enough footage for my film and started focusing on my own climbing again.

We’ve been rallying pads for highballs lately and one of those sessions was under Animal Magnetism which was originally a three-bolt 5.13a. It was bolted and first climbed by Jim Sandford in 1992, before crash pad technology existed. The landing for this one is bad so you can’t throw two big pads down and call it good. Jason Kehl was the first to climb it without a rope back in 2006. It’s probably seen a handful of ascents since then.

For the first three months of the summer I didn’t even consider this a boulder problem. I saw the bolts, the terrible jumbled landing, didn’t see the holds, and couldn’t imagine bouldering it. It’s such an exposed line up an overhanging wall.

A few weeks ago I filmed Jeremy Smith climbing the line so I knew how it went but hadn’t tried it.

I went out in the morning with my roommate Jeremy Rush and rounded up some pads to try it. After setting off on my first attempt I quickly found myself at the crux which is the last move. I hesistated for a second and then went for it, moving my right hand with ninja speed to slap the jug of safety! Super committing and quite hard for V7. An amazing line and surely one of the best highballs in Squamish. You can see a few more photos of the boulder in Sonnie’s post from last year.
After that we hiked uphill and I climbed Ride the Lightning V8 which gets more traffic but involves a committing mantel 15 feet above a weird landing.

There was one more highball that seemed moderate enough to dispatch quickly, Teenage Lobotomy V6. On Friday it stopped raining in the morning and I waited in anticipation for the boulders to dry out. Often times I’m not the most motivated climber but sometimes I get an idea in my head and I have to make it happen. This time it was climbing Teenage Lobotomy. For some reason part of the mission I envisioned that day was to climb it by myself. The highball starts on a slab and kicks back to overhanging climbing to the peak of the 25 foot boulder (no exaggeration, we measured it!) It has the typical Squamish weird landing. I’d looked at it all summer but hadn’t tried it and hadn’t seen anyone on it.

When I got to the apron it started drizzling. I got angry, shouted a few profanities at Squamish and went up to check out the boulder anyway. I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to go for the 25 foot highball in less than ideal conditions and stashed one of my pads in Gibbs Cave.

Then it mostly stopped raining and I really wanted to climb something.

After running back to my truck to grab my cameras and tripods, I setup some pads under the boulder as the drizzle resumed, and started climbing.

I climbed through the crux pretty easily.
I had heard the last move was long and terrifying. I chose a foot and committed to the move.
The reachy move was a little scary but felt secure the whole time.

What an amazing climb, easily one of the best I’ve done in Squamish and not just because it’s the tallest I’ve climbed here. The rock is fantastic and the moves are really interesting.

A boulder that had been intimidating all summer turned out to be mellow but that’s just a testament to the mental aspect of climbing. I don’t consider myself a risk taker. I’m very calculated in everything I do and I think I know my abilities and can read a climb pretty quickly. I wasn’t scared climbing Teenage Lobotomy and I think that’s because I was 100% committed when I walked out the door that day and had no intention of falling or jumping off at any point. I’ve been more scared in Squamish on boulders less than 20 feet tall and I think it might be because you could potentially jump off them or reverse moves rather than committing from the start.

What’s next after flashing many of the classic highballs like Be On Four, Animal Magnetism, Funeral Arrangements, and Teenage Lobotomy? The next step up gets a lot harder and a lot taller. It’s name is A World of Hurt. It’s V10 and it is a big fella. This is the problem that everyone sees after walking past the black dyke area. It’s a massive overhanging face that sits prominently uphill from the trail. The landing is absolutely terrible. Without a lot of crash pads this problem blurs the line of bouldering and free soloing. Fortunately with 15-20 pads you can mostly level out the landing and make it look closer to a boulder problem.

It was established by Jordan Wright in 2007 and as far as I know has only been climbed by one other person, Jeremy Smith. Everyone’s first reaction to it (including mine) is ‘DAMN that’s crazy, who would climb that?!’ I’ve been showing this boulder to everyone this summer almost as a joke. ‘You gotta see this thing, it’s HUGE!’ At the start of the summer I had no intentions of trying it but I’m finding most of my inspiration comes from aesthetics these days, and it doesn’t get much more aesthetic than a really tall pure line. More to come from this one…

On a related note, our curiosity inspired us to measure the highballs of Squamish on a restday and this is what we found:

World of Hurt – 28.5 feet
Be on Four – starts at 9 ft (jumpstart), 20 ft to top (landing rises a few ft from the start of the climb). For comparison the top of a popular nearby boulder, The Egg, is 8.5 feet!
Animal Magnetism – Jug is 18 ft, top is 21 ft
The Ladies Man – 19 ft
Teenage Lobotomy – 25 ft
Funeral Arrangements – 18 ft to top tier of the weird landing.
No Excuse For Porn Hair – 16.5 ft to the lip.
Ride the Lightning – Lip is 15 ft from upper tier, 18 when done manteling.
Enchanted – We were told was measured at 24 ft.
Straight Outta Squampton – 21 ft to the lip.
No Honor Among Thieves – 14 ft to jug, 25 ft to top.