First Ascent: from Cleaning a Cliff to Climbing It
- Greg Luesink
- Apr 13, 2024
- 7 min read
Mike invited me to join in scrubbing a cliff to climb. This was a really fun adventure! After a few days spent scrubbing, we geared up for the first ascent (FA). I played a support role while Mike crushed some hard pitches.
For this post, I thought it would be fun to interview my friend Mike about the process of finding and developing new climbs, as well as about the experience on the First Ascent.
A little backstory is that I was between jobs, and Mike was just finished with school. Thus, we both had time to kill during the week. No better way to spend it than outdoors working on a project.
INTERVIEW
Mike, can you briefly describe for me your process of finding unclimbed rock?
I do nerd out pretty hard looking for good unclimbed rock. The most obvious tools - Google Earth and just keeping your eyes out are the best. I have a number of other tricks and tools: user photos from hiking trails nearby, new publicly available forest-penetrating LiDAR elevation datasets, digital geology maps to help determine rock type, iMapBC for the land ownership info, and QGIS to handle the data. The funny thing is that even with all the tech, my process is still mostly bushwhacking around and looking at big piles of choss. The amount of choss is endless out there, though there's gems hidden in it all.
What is your favourite part of the process of route development? What is your least favourite part?
My favourite part of development is, after discovering some cool new piece of rock, figuring out how the rock will actually be climbed - working the moves for the first time without knowing whether it'll be easy, impossible, or somewhere in between. It's always amazing to me how much rock there is in that sweet spot where the climbing is difficult enough to be fun but not impossible.
My least favourite part is having the time slip away from you while you're on the wall and having to bushwhack back in the dark. Forests get spooky in the dark.
If other climbers are interested in route development, what advice would you pass on to them?
Oh boy, there's a lot. Talking with the local developers is the biggest thing I suppose. And to get your friends out on it!
How many hours did you spend cleaning/scrubbing Ladybug?
I definitely spent more time walking up and down the trail, rappelling and ascending, guessing which trees might lower me into the right spot on the face - all those other things - than actually brushing the holds. I've been up maybe just over a half dozen times? Although a couple of those times I didn't do much other than eat a granola bar with a great view.
THE FIRST ASCENT - Ladybug, 3p, (5.11c, 5.10b, 5.8+)
We hiked in and set up our the ropes to rappel down the face, brushing off debris as we lowered. After 3 rappels, we were down the face and at the bottom. Thankfully, if the climb didn't "go," we could simply rappel back down and hike around to the top if needed!
At the base of the wall, we pulled the rope down from the anchor. Mike tied into the rope to gun up the first pitch, which he felt would be in the 5.11 range.
Pitch 1
It was a little wet and seeping in a few spots, but Mike was psyched to give it an effort. The last visit to the cliff he had rehearsed the gear placements and moves, so he was ready to execute.
Here's what Mike had to say about pitch 1:
On the first pitch, the 5.11c, I was in a pretty good flow state; I knew the moves, I knew the gear, I just had to rest on the rests and try hard. There's a low crux I do with a foot hand match that feels wildly cool, but the moment to remember came between the second and third cruxes when I grabbed the red cam I had racked up with, and went to place it in the thin-hand size crack. Instead of a #1, there was a #0.1 in my hands. “I got the wrong cam!” I cried down to Greg at the belay, my voice wavering, “wait, frick, I still got one!” By pure luck I had racked an extra just in case - I slammed it in blind and pulled into the final mantle crux. I managed to fight my way through a pistol squat on a sloper despite some serious Elvis leg while my fingers began opening up on their own accord on the last hold of the pitch. I'm sure you can attest to my shrill cry as I stood upright and clipped the chains; I'm not sure if it came more from the terror or the relief.
It was my turn to follow, laden with the backpack of water, snacks, and extra gear.
The first crux was within 10 metres, and I tried my hardest, stretching out to reach a tooth-like hold. Just before I was about to fall, I lashed out to snag a jug hold. A few moves later, I was too pumped out to continue and had to rest on the rope - it was the hardest crack I'd climbed!
Mike lowered a length of rope so I could clip the bag to it, and he hauled it up to the anchor so I could climb unencumbered. After several more rests on the rope for the upper cruxes, I managed to pull up to the belay ledge. Phewf, finally finished.
Pitch 2
Mike estimated that the next pitch would be about 5.9, but I was far too pumped in my arms to continue. Thus, Mike quested sideways for a traversing pitch. Here's what Mike had to say about it:
Pitch two was much scarier. It's a long traverse left along a sloping ledge before it returns up and right to the anchor. During development I had tried all the moves and decided that it was probably 5.9, although a bit thin and balance-y at points, and figured there was plenty enough gear in the crack at your feet. It turns out that the climbing is runout, and that the gear at your feet is incredibly hard to place when not in the safety of a top rope and even harder to check. Long minutes passed as I placed the minimal gear I could and I made it to the first crux, a few meters past my gear. It was not 5.9. A bouldery hand foot slab match and a desperate sloper undercling let me stab a foot out to the next foothold and I shimmied my hands over, safely through the crux. I gazed into the crack as I realized I'd need a #0.3 for it to fit. I had left my #0.3 at the belay, mistakenly thinking this pitch was mostly purple or larger. I made a futile attempt to wedge a nut into the flaring horizontal crack before giving up on the gear. I was now 6 or 7 meters past my last piece, and I couldn't even remember if it was bomber or only so-so. I looked hard at the steep blank slab beneath me across which I'd tumble on a fall. I mumbled something to Greg, my voice lost to the rock. I didn't think I could make the moves in reverse. The next few holds were slopers, and the thin slabby feet that I needed were covered in moss from a previous cleaning effort somewhere above. Unable to retreat, I pressed on. The thin feet stuck, the sloper held, and I made it to a small ledge where I slammed in a couple cams to mark the beginning of the section that really was 5.9. The rest was easy, if still a bit runout - but yeah, I felt the fear on that pitch.
Later, Mike estimated the pitch to in the mid- 5.10 range... quite a bit harder than anticipated! Climbing with the backpack on, I was pretty skeptical of being able to finesse the technical footwork moves.
As I progressed along the ledge, I was gobsmacked at how sparse Mike's gear placements were... if he had fallen it would have been bad news! Alas, it was quite tricky to remove the gear, and harder to place it in on lead.
At the crux, I was feeling the possibility of a massive swing if I fell off the wall, so I called up to Mike to lower a section of rope to me so I could jug up to him. I ascended the rope using a jumar, grigri, and a micro-traxion system.
Pitch 3
This was my lead, up a pretty dirty and unexciting 5.6 pitch to the upper trees where we had rappelled from. There really isn't anything to write about this, just cruising up some mossy rock.
After completing all the pitches, Mike decided that the second pitch could use some bolts along the traverse for protection. Thus, we decided to come back a few more times to clean the ledges off of moss and drill some bolts in where needed.
We proceeded to pull moss and dirt off the ledges so that they would be climbable. It felt like some cliff-side gardening! Brooms and rakes in hand, we methodically swept off lots of debris.
While Mike bolted, I cleaned out a short alternative exit pitch. I scrubbed and scraped out the cracks and then tested the gear placements before top-rope soloing the pitch to try the moves. I wasn't feeling confident enough to lead it and the rock was wet, so we decided to come back another day.
We came back a week later to finish off the climb. Mike wanted to reassess Pitch 2 with the new bolts in place, and I wanted to get the First Ascent on my small exit-pitch.
After a bit more sweeping, we rapped to the anchor for Pitch 2, eager to test out the efficacy of the bolts. Mike led once again, and this time, I followed. I tried the karate-kick move to exit the ledge, but fell and ran sideways across the rock as the rope became taut. I climbed up to Mike on the ledge, marveling at the fact that Mike did the moves without error.
My lead was up next, so I racked up my cams to send my mini-pitch to the top. I'd rehearsed the moves and gear, and it went smoothly to the top. Somewhere around 5.8//9 and quite fun despite it's truncated length in opposition to the two prior pitches. And with that, I'd just completed my first First Ascent!
Overall, the process was enjoyable, and I would be excited to find a cliff and clean it for the reward of being the first or one of the first to climb it. It is a labour of love, route developing, and now I have a whole lot more appreciation for all of the route developers in the Fraser Valley - it takes a lot of dedication to create a piece of art on the rock.
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