Squamish Weekend Warriors
Star Chek Star Chek 321 Chief Skypilot Elfin Picnic spot
With Jas about to start the 10-month teaching program at UFV, we booked some time off as a last-hoorah before starting the grind. We had a couple different ideas, but settled on a double-dip trip to Squamish on two consecutive weekends, coming home in between to get some tasks done before school. Our first weekend had a solid line-up of activities. Friday climb Star Chek, Saturday scramble Sky Pilot, and Sunday hike 3,2,1 Chiefs summits. The weekend after, TBD!
Day 1 - Star Chek Multipitch - 5.9
With our patent late-start, we drove up the Sea-to-Sky highway, passing through Squamish on our way to the Chekamus Canyon where the ultra-classic climb is located. Star Chek is a 5.9 multi-pitch that starts adjacent to the Chekamus River and climbs 4 pitches up a granite arete back to the highway, making for an excellent little loop. It had long been on my list, and felt like a reasonable length and difficulty to do with Jas. I won't give a route-breakdown, you can find that on Mountain Project or in Kevin McLane's guide. Our overall impression of the route was that is was pretty run-out between the bolts, so I led all the pitches despite the lower ones being in the 5.7-5.8 grade range. The 5.9 crux was a very cool exposed move on the arete near the top on some-what polished granite. We had a great time, opting to climb in the afternoon sun, which made for zero line-ups and awesome lighting for photos!
Walk down to the river Start of the climb On the lower pitches Raging Chekamus river below Halfway up So amazing! Such a cool place to climb
I also made a short video of our climb, embedded below.
Day 2 - Skypilot Scramble
With our dirt-bag car set-up, we cooked some dinner in the park in Squamish before hunting for a good camping spot... suffice to say we did not find a good spot and had a terrible sleep. The next morning, we made breakfast at the park and headed over to the gondola for a boost up to Skypilot. When we looked up the price ($75/person) we almost decided to hike the extra 850m of gain... but hey, we were on vacation, live a little!
Jas and I enjoyed some good chats on the approach and finally reached the end of the FSR, climbing up through the trees and breaking into the alpine. The scramble was pretty fun, different than I had envisioned, with nothing too crazy hard but some decent exposure. With the high price of entry with either extra vert or gondola, this isn't one I would decide to do again soon, but I would like to return to ski the basin in winter. After a bath in the river, we settled in for another night. We texted a friend (shoutout Maddy), and found a much better camping spot and slept quite soundly compared to the first night.
We on vacaaaation Tourist move on the sus bridge Into the alpine Skypilot basin On the ridge Looking down at the basin from "pink slabs" summit! Habrich Fleur By Skypilot! Dinner at the park
Day 3 - 321 Chief
Breaking our routine, we made breakfast in the Chief parking lot before setting off down the FSR to make a 321 Chief Loop! Jas had never hiked the Chief, and I'd only hiked/climbed the First Chief, so this would be new terrain for both of us. Hiking past many stinky climbers, we started following the via-ferrata passage-ways up the Third Chief, encountering the first of many tourist hordes on the summit. It was a super fun time regardless of crowds, and we stopped to admire slackliners near the Second Chief. Finally, topping out the First Chief, we weaved through the congo line of hikers on the main trail down to the parking lot. After a dip in the creek and some lunch, we got a treat at Fox and Oak... gourmet donuts. What a great day! With that, we packed up and drove home.
Base-jumper First bit of ropes via ferrata! More iron steps Skypilot in the distance Beautiful day Slackliner So many lines! Pretty girly Howe Sound from Chief 2 Last bit of ladders River bath and luncheon Fox and Oak donnnuuuuttts MmmmHHMMMMM
Intermission
Between trips was spent by Jas doing some running around for last-minute checklist items before starting school, some home-renos, and some micro adventuring. Greg went on a solo-Nesakwatch Enchainment while Jas did some errands. We then had Ben and Abbi over for dinner and to help with the electrical aspect of replacing our water heater with a tankless unit. Unfortunately, we discovered that the floorboards were rotten under the tank, resulting in a bigger reno than we bargained for... thanks to our time-off and help from Jas' dad Rick, we were able to replace the flooring and get the tankless heater operational. Thanks Ben and Rick!! While we grabbed plywood and lumbar for renos, we picked up some extra wood to make ourselves a bed-frame to improve our car-camping experience - turns out a non-lumpy bed is better!
Ben and Abbi helping out Looking rough old boy(ler) Oofta... that's not good Ripping out the floorboards Patching the hole... New floor and installing tankless water heater Checking that it works! all back together car camping bedframe All packed up!
Round 2 - New and Improved
We started off our second weekend with an evening at Smoke Bluffs. Neither of us had been to this area to climb, so we found a good spot and did some climbing. Jas wasn't a fan of crack-climbing, I forgot how much I ignore the discomfort of foot-jams. The highlight was climbing a neat roof called Free and Easy 5.10b - so cool!
Smoke bluffs! Lacing up Jas climbing Topped it! Climbing in mountain clogs Free and Easy So cool!
Foiled by weather - Plan B
We had grandiose plans of scrambling the Armchair Traverse, but the weather forecast looked pretty dismal in Whislter, calling for potential thunder and rain. So, we opted to do a closer option, Elfin Lakes and Diamond Head. Since we didn't have to drive as far, we loitered around until the Squamish Farmer's Market opened, which Jas was pretty jazzed about. We bought some sourdough, blueberry bark, and some real-fruit gummies (raspberry ginger flavour was insane). Finally, we drove up to Elfin Lakes parking and set off. This turned out to be a pleasant, if mediocre, outing, mostly due to the dullness of the "trail"... more like 8-foot wide gravel FSR. Yes, there were lots of people, but it was mostly boring for the fact that we were on single track for maybe 5% of the day. The views were pretty nice, but it felt much more like a tourist destination than we typically go for. We started towards Diamond Head, but decided we were too tired and uninspired to add the extra 10km to the day. The highlight of the outing was spotting some blue-bearries!
Breakfast... apple twist Farmer's market Loot Poot Elfin Bark Lunch Snow Smile Lake Gregory Bear
We could have driven home, but stuck with our plan and stayed another night, waking up to watch the Squamish 50/50 finish line at our breakfast spot at the park. Of course... I had to get another donut... or two, for the road.
Dinner Sunset Chitten Eggs Squamish 50/50 Donut...
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