Redemption on Canadian Border Peak

TLDR: At last, standing on the top of Canadian Border Peak! Brennan and I blitzed up CBP for an 8 hour car to car trip up the intimidatingly jagged peak. This time, well within comfort zone and skill level, the day went smoothly.

Brennan texted me,

Wanna climb CBP?

...

Yep. Friday's weather looks good!

_________________

I'd tried before, coming painfully close in February during a Winter Attempt with Ben .

We made the call to turn around 100m from the summit, based on technical snow and rock mixed-climbing with crampons and ice tools, which exceeded out skill level.

This time 'round, in mid-July, feeling strong, the rock dry, the days long, and the stoke high - perfect conditions of mind and matter for summit redemption.

Early in the morning, Brennan picked me up and we rumbled off in his Toyota 4Runner up Tamihi FSR. By 6am, we were trudging up the overgrown section of the road towards Spencer's peak.

Tomyhoi (seemingly the 'Merican linguistic variation of "Tamihi" where our creek gets it's name from) was set alight by the rising sun, with a crescent moon accenting high in the sky.

I'll spare you the boring approach photos. Not too bushy, but not entirely clear of alders either. Eventually, we took a turn away from the road to Spencer's "Peak". Not long after, the path runs out, and a short bushwhack is required to gain the ridge. I snapped one of my favourite photos this year, of Brennan trekking up a hill with Slesse looming in the background. Perfect lighting!! In quick order, we were at the base of CBP, just over 2 hours after leaving the car.

The Ascent

Brennan traversing a legde into the gully

We followed a series of ramps and gullies, over notches, up more gullies and loose rock on solid rock (death marbles). We kept looking for a flat spot to take a snack break, but we never settled on a good one so we just kept scrambling! Soon, we reached the base of the short climbing section and took a snack break. We proceeded to tie into the rope and pull out the climbing protection (cams and nuts) for the two pitches of 5.6 below the summit.

Looking up at Pitch 1, straight up from Brennan then trending right to the notch (wild angle photo)

I led pitch 1, set up an anchor around the first corner notch, and belayed Brennan up. The clouds had started to roll in, making for a moody landscape.

Brennan swung past me to lead pitch 2, set up an anchor, and belayed me up.

As he belayed me, we heard some crackling on our radios. "Ugh, not again, someone is using my channel." It is the one downside of radios: always changing frequencies to avoid overlap with other climbing parties.

But then, clear as day, I heard "on belay," and it all clicked - there's only one climber in Chilliwack who

uses the same radio channel as me... and I recognized Ben's voice through the muffled sounds.

"Ben, is that you? It's Greg"

"Greg! Where are you?"

"On CBP, where are you?"

"On Slesse!"

"No way!"

Later in the day, we had a clearer line of sight to Slesse and we had more clarity over the radios. Quite hilarious to be one valley over and catch one another over the radios waves!

In short order, we were standing on the summit with the surrounding peaks standing out amidst the clouds. The summit was quite chunky and loose, unsurprisingly, but it was a decent size to sit down and relax for a bit. Time for Summit Sandwiches! We summited in around 4 hours, quicker than anticipated. Perhaps we could pull off an 8 hour round trip? Sure would be nice to get home early and clean up all the gear...

Not so fast, there was still a lot of technical stuff to descend safely. Most accidents happen while descending; after the summit is conquered it's easy to let the guard down.

The Descent

Atop CBP, with American Border Peak behind

Carefully, we set up the first rappel, which was made of several slings around a rock horn. They looked relatively fresh, and after weighting them, we didn't feel the need to add more rap tat.

I descended first, careful not to loose any blocks onto the rope strands below me.

Nearing the corner notch, I noticed that the ends of the rope were getting close... (with knots in them of course).

Just as I spotted the next rap station, the ends of the rope were in my bottom hand. I literally had just enough rope to reach the rap station!! 35m on the dot.

I attached myself to the next rap station, warily trusting the two old, rusty pitons to hold. I yelled up to Brennan that I was "Off Rappel!" As he descended, I decided to hammer my piton in as a back-up for the next rappel. Peace of mind is worth more than a piton! This one was only about a 15-20m rappel to less steep terrain.

Brennan rappelling the slabby "death marbles" section

I started down-scrambling the choss below, while Brennan coiled the rope. That way we'd have some space between us to avoid knocking rocks on heads! We arrived at the slabby corner, which was a long section of solid rock covered in tiny pebbles. If you look back at the winter attempt, this is where Ben and I made our way up the "Stairway to Heaven" along a snow spine. Rather than risk slipping on some loose rocks, we rigged another 35m rappel to get lower down the slab.

We took our time, and soon, we were back at the first gully. In the picture, you will see our ascent route in red and our descent route in blue.

The way up was not too hard to downclimb but we wanted to check out if the other ledge-notch was a viable alternative. While it had a few moves of concentrated down-climbing, overall it was quite doable.

Once we were past the notch, it was smooth sailing. Descending the scree was basically an escalator down as the loose dirt and rocks started to slide down the slopes underfoot. Much quicker than going up!

We removed our harnesses & helmets, and filled up our bags with climbing gear once more to begin the backtrack along the ridge and down the road to the car.

We ended our day just under 8 hours car to car, and 10 hours door to door. 15km, 1,500m of gain and one more peak done in the Chilliwack River Valley! This felt like a redemptive day in many ways, and not just because I got up a peak after bailing 100m below the summit earlier this year. This time, it felt like my enjoyment of alpine climbing was reinvigorated. The day felt well within my comfort zone and skill level, there was no time pressure, the conditions were fantastic (if a little cold for July), and the pace was very enjoyable the whole day. Certainly a highlight day of the summer!