Ascensiones como Onsight por Nick Boldt

#3/4. Cooldown after the 5.9. Easy as, with Danielle's rope already on the anchor.

#4/4 for the day. Took small cams and nuts. Placed a red cam, then a nut, which blew when I asked Sean to take on it, breaking the rock. Climbed to the next ledge and placed another cam, then a nut, then finally a cam near the top. Honestly, this could be climbed as a free solo - it's a super easy climb (except that it's dirty AF and therefore not super safe).

Sean's first rap of the season, my first time leading trad in over a year (and having to set up a top belay off a tree, too). Definitely shook out some cobwebs.

#1/2. Will led and found all the gear placesments, then to our surprise and delight, discovered there are new anchor bolts and quicklink rap rings after the initial 25m or so, saving us from the rambing ramp up to the lookout for a gear anchor or to walk over to the rings over White Rabbit. So... he clipped that, I went up and cleaned and rapped.

#1/2. Led then Sean went up to clean and realized he had no PA; attempted to improvise then decided to just come down so I could re-climb and clean. A fun route.

#1. I'm calling this an onsight because the last time I cleaned it was as ground-up cleaning day with Climb NS, so the route was completely different. It's much nicer now that it's not a complete bush/mud disaster.

#3. Will lead, can't recall what pro was used. Maybe a single purple cam, before topping out and walking over to the Crazy Train rings.

#5/5 on the day. Fun climbing, then an interesting top out. Will have to try the direct option next time instead of the left/right zig.

#4. Sketchy trad lead (no gear for the first half) but loads of fun on TR, even with the swing potential to the right.

Got to the anchor after an easy top out and walk over above Mr. Miagi.

#2. Will led; this was a fun route for sure.

NOTE: At the top of Sleeper Cell (the pitch below this route), there are a pair of rap rings, and a bolt lies to the left; if you head past the bolt into a 4th class scamble, there's a much better/bigger ledge, which also has rings. You can rap from the top of Deep Thoat to either ledge with a 40m rope, then do a second rap to get to the ground below Sleeper and Sleeper Cell.

#1. Will lead. Rough for a warmup with cold fingers, first sub-5-degrees-C climb of the season. Decent once past the 2nd or 3rd bolt.

NOTE: there are rings at the top of this just below a big block, with a single bolt to the left. You can rap to the ground from the rings on a 40m rope. For top belay, a more comfortable ledge is one bolt and a 4th class scramble above and to the left, where Deep Throat starts, which is a great 2nd pitch / continuation (and more fun than the second pitch of Sleeper, especially since you don't need trad gear).

#5. Last climb of the day, and my lead. Awesome route, but I don't see it as a 5.9.

#1. Led. Easer done than said.

#1. First lead in ages, and it felt great. Fun route.

A fantastic day out with Shep from Yamnuska Mountain Adventures.

Shep led, I TR'd and cleaned.

#5/8: clean... thought it was a 5.10a!

A fantastic day out with Shep from Yamnuska Mountain Adventures.

Shep led, I TR'd and cleaned.

#4/8: clean.

A fantastic day out with Shep from Yamnuska Mountain Adventures.

Shep led, I TR'd and cleaned.

#1/8: slipped off near the start, but hung on.

A fantastic day out with Shep from Yamnuska Mountain Adventures.

Shep led, I TR'd and cleaned.

#2/8: Slipped off near the start but hung on!

A fantastic day out with Shep from Yamnuska Mountain Adventures.

Shep led, I TR'd and cleaned.

#3/8: clean.

#1. Yay, slabs.

#5. Moved the anchor from Woolf at the Door to this route, and did it on TR.

#4. Fell off partway up, possible between 3rd and 4th clip. Jugged up, grabbed the draw in anger and just kept going after that. That's kind of an onsight, right?

#1. Will lead, I just TR'd. Could probably lead this next time, though would have to climb it differently.

#1. I cleared some deadfall across the trail above JP's arete (maybe near Univ. Wall?) while Will and his son set up this route, then had a quick go on TR. Nice route on TR, would be hard to lead.

#1. Lead, with Karla and Peter on the trad line to the left. Felt really good -- my slab game is improving!

#2. I'm calling this an onsight... even though I was 1 move from the anchor and was feeling rushed for time, so rather than flailing and maybe falling, I decided to just grab the quad that previous climbers had left and pulled up on that.

Next time might skip the stick clip and will also sort the ending slab-arrete madness all the way to the top.

Route climbs like a 5.8-5.9 until the upper third, when it definitely goes 5.10.

#1. An easy climb, easily protected.

#4: great route - mix of styles from jugs to overhang to delicate traverse to slab.

#1. Nice warmup and intro to Cachi rock. My guide told me it was too easy for me.

#4. An interesting enough climb but probably not worth the messy rappel off unless you like landing in bushes.

If I did it again I'd likely link it with No Call Waiting -- little value in the belay anchor at the midpoint. Felt easier than a 5.10a.

#3. Stick clipped the start because hey, why not?

Interesting couple of moves, then you're 3 clips in and it's a walk up / scramble. Almost missed the 4th bolt next to some bushes but clipped it cuz it was there, not because the difficulty merited it. Never found the 5th bolt.

Guidebook calls it a 5.10a but there's nothing really to it once you get the first couple moves done.

If I did it again I'd likely link it with Safety -- little value in the belay anchor at the midpoint.

#2. Since we had rapped down from the Whiskey rings to the Whiskey ledge, we figured why not do the upper part of the route on TR. LOADS OF ROPE DRAG. SO NOT RECOMMENDED. But a fun route nonetheless. I did not succeed in jamming the crack, so I went to the right and bypassed it with some flakes. Bianca struggled for a bit but DID find a way to jam the crack.

Will have to try it again on lead from the ground, not the ledge -- looks like only one cam is needed to protect the top bit and then above the crack it's back to bolts.

#1-#2. Kevin led the ramp to the ledge, and set up the gear anchor in the crack that starts the route. I then cleaned the Access Ramp, led the LoC up to the anchor rings, topped out, and walked over to the chain anchor to the left, where I promptly forgot how to tie a clove hitch.

#2. Might have cheated a bit by grabbing a draw but hey - first time on a 5.10a in ages. Lovely route!

#2. Quick climb, nothing much to write home about.

#1 - after a morning belaying Scout kids, got to run up this fun little route.

#3. Has some good cracks partway up, but then suddenly the route is over.

#2 and #3. Fun route. Karla was having heat issues and did not enjoy it as much as I did.

#1. Rough start to the day. Ok climb, but very sunny, hot, humid day.

#4. Some pants-moistening moments involving a popped nut (Karla was belaying from too far back from the wall, girth hitched to a tree, and yanked down on the rope to tighten me up (by request) which popped a mini nut out. Luckily I was 2 or three cams above so it didn't matter. Later after a big run out section put a BD #.5 purple cam in a deep crack in the left side of the corner, which walked out of place and deeper into the crack. No danger of coming out -- in fact it took Karla 2 attempts to remove it (including nut tool gymnastics) and me finally going in w/ 2 hands to get it out. Also tied a sling around the tree at the top on the left wall because was feeling skeeved about the distance since my last cam, but ultimately the traverse over to the rings at Cocksure was easy peasy, and didn't need that extra pro. Still, safety third, right?

Karla had no problems with this one; John got stuck at a tricky layback stem move.

Medium cams, some nuts.

#4. Felt like a 5.9 start, then just fun after the first couple challenging moves.

#2. Karla moved the anchor and we did a lap each on this one.

#1 of the day. Good.

#5. Karla once again moved the anchor over and we did a lap on this on TR. Not surprisingly, it was a walk in the park. THEN we decided we were done for the day and proceeded to climb it again... with packs on.

#4. Turns out I suck at hand cracks, so did this more as a series of gastons and grunts. Yay?

#3. There's always money in the banana crack. Confusing at first but fun.

#2. Hadn't planned to climb trad today, but low on options, figured this was worth a shot. Wasted a lot of energy at the start placing gear too high above my head instead of just climbing higher; also terrible gear management resulted in wasted effort. But a fun climb nonetheless.

#1 of the day, #1 of the spring season. 1 day out of quarantine and back on the rock. Intended to climb stuff at either the Castle (rammed w/ double-capacity cars) or the Spot (chock a block with people), so opted to go for a longer walk over to Jessie's and see if the crowds had made it that far inland. They had not - had the place to ourselves.

Fun little short easy 5.6 crack line. Good times. Karla's first lead too - I left the gear in so she could clip it, then she cleaned on rappel.

#3. This was definitely more challenge than the 5.6 warmups (duh) but also more fun.

#2 of the day. Frozen toes couldn't hold me back from trying this - since Jamie was so kind to rope solo it and leave the rope up, it gave me a chance to TR and clean it. Good route, will have to take a closer look at it when I'm not freezing my toes and hands off.

#1 of the day. Very fun route. Downclimbed a bit near the start to remove a draw to eliminate some drag; skipped some draws to help with drag too, but it's probably hopeless. Can't fight the drag. Next time would use fewer draws entirely as it's a pretty safe (if runout) route that way. It's also been suggested to do it in 2 pitches, perhaps using the rings above Tradasaurus as a belay ledge.

Guidebook recommended rapping back down on Phat Tuesday rap rings, but we overshot that and ended up rapping off one of the Industrial Area routes - possibly Memories. It was dirty, slabby, icy, and only looked fun at the top over the roof, so... pulled the rope instead of making a TR boondoggle of it.

Second lead-n-clean of the day. Mostly just scrubbed off a bunch of the slippery grey lichen on the face and the crunchy black stuff too. Fun climb, even with pauses to scrub.

My first ever ground-up lead-n'-clean (clead?). Bit of a pain to scamper up the face, but with the big crack cleaned out a bit, should be more fun (and possibly a trad line now?). Unclear if that'll make it a lower grade or just a more fun climb.

Still more dirt to be scrubbed from the crack but at least now there are side pulls above and below it.

Got out for one quick Xmas Eve climb, preceded by a big ol' bushwhack right up to the far left of the crag because we walked right past the trailhead.

OMG awesome climb. Great hands for getting introduced to trad climbing and if you're not great at climbing cracks, this route gives you layback, stemming, and face options too.