The Chief is a massive rock face that towers over the town of Squamish, BC. The rock face and surrounding boulder fields are a mecca for world-class climbers who travel to scale the massive face and tackle smaller challenges in the surrounding area.
Polek is a climber, and he gave me a tour of the area. He mentioned one route in particular, called the Dreamcatcher, which was first climbed by Chris Sharma several years ago. We scrambled the boulders up to the route, and saw the carabiners left in place from the climb. The line is ludicrous. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, to hold onto. The initial pitch alone is a sheer face--it'd be like trying to climb the dining room wall using the texture sprayed on before the paint.
I also recommend this video which I stumbled across while viewing the previous clip. It's pretty amazing as well, if you've got a couple minutes.
Though the climbers made my efforts seem somewhat mundane, we did hike to the top of the Chief. The hike, known as the Stairmaster, was very steep and involved a fair bit of scrambling, but the view from the top was spectacular.
Polek is a climber, and he gave me a tour of the area. He mentioned one route in particular, called the Dreamcatcher, which was first climbed by Chris Sharma several years ago. We scrambled the boulders up to the route, and saw the carabiners left in place from the climb. The line is ludicrous. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, to hold onto. The initial pitch alone is a sheer face--it'd be like trying to climb the dining room wall using the texture sprayed on before the paint.
I also recommend this video which I stumbled across while viewing the previous clip. It's pretty amazing as well, if you've got a couple minutes.
Though the climbers made my efforts seem somewhat mundane, we did hike to the top of the Chief. The hike, known as the Stairmaster, was very steep and involved a fair bit of scrambling, but the view from the top was spectacular.
Polek, Garibaldi Peak in the background.
I scared myself silly doing this--that crevasse would treat my body like a pinball for about 500 feet before it got completely wedged. But seeing the mountains on the opposite side of the valley upside-down while so precariously perched was quite a trip. Check out the size of the cars below to gain perspective.
Seated on the edge of nothing.
I threw a bunch of snowballs down--average fall time was 7-9 seconds. You do the math.
Fall time was 7-9 seconds for other things as well.
Cool perspective shot by Polek.
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