Squamish Highballs Part 2

 

I filmed two sessions on World of Hurt in recent weeks including Jeremy Smith’s ascent which will be featured in Western Gold. I hadn’t had a chance to try it yet myself but was psyched to see what it was all about. After hauling more than a dozen crash pads to the boulder and engineering a landing, I was ready for my first try…or was I? After a few short moves you quickly get into highball territory. I stuck the huge move out left to the half-moon sidepull and proceeded to set the heelhook in front of the tree.

I pulled up to what I was hoping was a decent crimper. It wasn’t. It was a tiny quarter-pad micro edge. After grabbing the crimp and thinking about doing the next five moves WAY off the deck, I decided my best option was to jump off. I climbed to the same spot two or three more times before realizing this line was way too committing and hard to do ground up.

We dismantled our mega-landing and I fetched a rope to try the upper moves. My first thought after checking out all the holds and trying a few of the moves was, “shit, this is HARD!” Not only did the moves feel hard but they were insecure and gigantic, using every bit of my 6’2” wingspan. A very proud effort by Jordan and Jeremy to have climbed this boulder.

After some time searching the rock for every dimple and edge, I was able to figure out a sequence that seemed feasible to do with confidence. I managed to do all the moves but not quite the way Jeremy did. There is one move that I’m still not 100% on, it’s the one I dropped off from because you have a heel hook next to a tree and you’re doing an insecure slap with the left hand while your right hand is on a micro crimper. I think you could fall there onto pads and not get hurt so I feel ready to try the boulder again.

I’m currently sitting indoors feeling positively wrecked from hiking 20 pads, giving burns ground up, followed by the long roped session and more pad hiking. It rained again last night and has been raining hard all day. As is common here, the forecast does not look good but I’m trying to stick through it, wait for a good patch of weather and haul a couple truck-loads of crashpads back under World of Hurt. I don’t know if I will get that weather window and I also don’t know if I will commit until it happens. This would be a new level for me and I’m excited for it.

It’s been raining hard for three days straight and this is the current forecast…