Ice Climbing Conditions Reports for the 2017/2018 season – focused on British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. Email me reports at westcoasticereports@gmail.com and I’ll get them posted. Send pics too!

We have a Facebook Group, if you want to stay as current as possible. Go to the West Coast Ice Group on Facebook and request membership there.

NEW ROUTES
West Coast Ice New Climbs Guide – For a list of all the new climbs since the 2005 edition of Don Serl’s West Coast Ice, please check out the latest (2017) edition of New Ice Climbs in BC

Google Earth file that includes locations of most climbs from both Don Serl’s West Coast Ice guidebook and the New Climbs Update. Here it is embedded in Google Maps. Please let us know if you notice and major errors or omissions.

Hedley/Keremeos Mini Guide from Drew Brayshaw – scroll down on the Dec 30, 2016 Report
Trout Creek Ice Climbs – A mini guide for ice climbs in Trout Creek (South Okanagan) from Stan Sabourin.
Malakwa Ice Routes – Here’s a Guide for the Malakwa Ice Routes from Allen James Rollin.
Revelstoke Ice Climbs – Here’s a Guide from Allen James Rollin for Revelstoke Ice Climbs.
Greeley Ice Climbs – Here’s another Guide from Allen James Rollin, for Greeley Ice Climbs, just East of Revelstoke.

After a week of warm temperatures, the cold has returned, promising an extension of the ice season to the end of February. Let’s hope this latest Arctic front has staying power.

Please be careful out there and consider Avalanche Risk in the selection of climbs and approach. The intermittent snow last week and today has pushed much of the South Coast and Interior to Considerable and High Risk. Check the latest conditions on Avalanche Canada.

Highway 40 – Bridge River Canyon

(Goodarz Nategh) Climbed Honeyman Falls on February 12; temps -8ºC to -3ºC during the day. Ice was solid at climber’s right and wet in left sections as well as near the top of first tier. There is some sectional thick curtain walls separated from the rock!
There is also some spicy moves in the middle section if your looking for some overhang play! Solid ice in overhangs yet!
Waterfall dumps ice cubes time to time with intimidating noises, but safe enough to climb on the righthand section.
Near the top tier a pumping station is been created by waterfall spraying cold water on your shell.
(Drew Brayshaw) Approach Notes: Park on Hunt Road, next to a metal gate posted No Trespassing. Don’t block the gate or neighbouring driveways. Walk north up the gated road for 10 minutes to its end at a water intake. Hike up the creek bed in drainage behind the intake to the climb. Don’t pee, or do anything else gross, anywhere upstream of the water intake, including at the base of the climb if you want climbers to still be able to climb here. We had confirmation from Lillooet councillor Kevin Aitken that it’s OK for climbers to walk in access the route subject to the “don’t pee etc” conditions.
(Drew Brayshaw) Collapse Risk: For what it’s worth, the amount of open water visible in Goodarz’ pictures would have had me turn around. This climb can be very hazardous and is not often recognized as such because of its easy grade and short approach. I have seen it calve refrigerator sized chunks under similar conditions and had friends get injured and have their gear damaged by icefall. Hugging the right-hand edge as per the photos was definitely the safest climbing strategy, but a safer strategy would be to wait for colder conditions with less running water.

Leading Honeyman Falls (Goodarz Nategh)

Rapping Honeyman Falls (Goodarz Nategh)

(Pierre Etienne Banville) Climbed Jade Falls last Friday (Feb 9). First pitch in good shape, but wet. Second pitch non existent. The dagger to the right of Jade Falls is touching down (see photo below).
(Drew Brayshaw comment RE: dagger) Never seen that before. Normally just a hanging drip. It’s unclimbed as far as I know. Somebody should deal with that.

Jade Falls on Friday February 9 (Behrouz Borji)

(Peter Watson) The Gift that keeps on giving (climbed Feb 15). What a route. It’s an awesome outing. Start early, it is fast to get off of.
1st pitch – Technical Crux with 10m delaminated / thin ice and sustained cruxes for the following 30m. Find stance on left in snow and good ice.
2nd pitch – Physical crux 12m vertical ice with no good feet for left foot. Pumpy.
3rd pitch – Last 10m running wet.
The rest is straight forward.
River crossing sounds like you can go up stream until you see flagging to cross this will keep it knee deep.
After climbing this route yesterday, the key to future development of this route is mixed climbing. First pitch has a corner to the right that could go on Trad gear and to the left would be amazing sport mixed. Second tier has easy looking flake system to the left of pitch that would go on gear as well. Just some thoughts for the future. As well a mixed crag could be developed to the left of the first pitch on immaculate looking granodiorite (edited).
(Steve Janes) Not trying to shit on anyone’s plans here, but I’ve noticed a lot of people trying for The Gift, and running out of time only to rap before finishing. This is a long route guys. With the river crossing and the approach. Trying to day trip this route from Squamish or Vancouver, or anywhere outside Lillooet/Pemberton, is a huge undertaking. Anyone that desires to climb The Gift would be seriously well served to spend the night in Lillooet. Even going from Lillooet, start early so you can cross the river and do the approach in the early dawn light, especially if you’re a party of 3. Just suggestions. Power to anyone that day trips it from outta town, yer harder than I!

Wearing chest waders to ford the Bridge River. Microspike also recommended (Peter Watson)

Overview of The Gift from the base (Peter Watson)

Looking up pitch 1 (Peter Watson)

The climbing from the second tier on The Gift (Peter Watson)

High, dripping wet pitches of The Gift (Peter Watson)

View of Highway 40 from high on The Gift (Peter Watson)

(Marc-André LeClerc) Climbed The Theft Monday (Feb 12) with Brette Harrington and Steve Janes while Danny O’Farrell took some great photos. Amazing that this hadn’t seen a repeat in 22 years. It must be the best waterfall climb in Southwest BC without question. We climbed the first pitch directly (as opposed to out right in the thin corner) and Jia and Geislers bolts from their attempt facilitated reaching the incomplete P4.
Pitch by pitch:
1 – From the top of the pedestal climb easy rock with good protection to reach the serious hanging dagger which is climbed to the top. M5 WI6X 40m
Note from Adrian Burke – originally climbed on far right on mixed rock and ice, then left to the top of the curtain, on first ascent.
2-3 – climb an easy, but spectacular ice chimney to reach the base of the upper column. (60m – inc 20m of WI4).
Note from Steve Janes – Chockstone aided around on first ascent was covered in ice. Didn’t even see it until on rap.
4 – Look for a bolt line to the right, and put the belay in a safe place. Dry tool past bolts to make a wide stem to the ice. Crank through ice roofs with knee bars to gain the front of the column and an eventual cave belay. 40m M7 WI6+
5 – step back out of the cave and climb a spectacular 55 meters of ice roofs and cobra hoods to reach the top of the climb. 55m WI6
Note from Adrian Burke – originally climbed in 2 pitches on first ascent.
Rappel from V-threads. Bring a selection of cams to 0.75 and a knifeblades and bird beak for direct first pitch.

An account of the first ascent of The Theft in 1996 can be found on Tuan’s page.

Marc-André leading the first pitch, having climbed directly up the dagger (Brette Harrington)

The first pitch when it was climbed in the 1996 first ascent. Tuan climbed the thin ice on the right, then across onto the top of the main curtain (Quang-Tuan Luong)

Marc-André on the first pitch (Danny O’Farrell)

Starting up the second pitch (Brette Harrington)

Marc-André (yellow jacket) starting up the final pitch. Pitches 4 and 5/6 visible in this photo (Danny O’Farrell)

Highway 99 South – Duffey Lake Road

Comments on the Phair Creek climbs and approach – (Kevin Aitken) You would be walking from 5km mark on enterprise FSR. Road has been deactivated at that point. (Drew Brayshaw) Hopefully with enough snow you can ski along the deactivated old road alignment rather than walk. It’s probably a pretty grim walk. Other issues would be that the bridges were pulled when they deactivated the road so come prepared for creek crossings. Let us know what you find if you go!
(Pierre Etienne Banville) Climbed Synchronicity on Saturday (Feb 10). First pitch was melting away really quickly. It involved an unprotected sketchy section of rock climbing towards the end. The rest of the climb was still in great shape and still lots of fun!
(Shannon Healy) Rick and Kyle also climbed Synchronicity or February 10. First pitch was mixed/rock climbing at top half, with no protection (lots melted away by the time they rapped down). Second pitch on left side was good with a little digging for good pro. Last pitch was good until the top where the ice was hollow sounding leading to thin then very little ice at the tree. Pictures below.

Middle pitches of Synchronicity on Saturday February 10 (Shannon Healy)

Final pitch of Synchronicity (Shannon Healy)

(Wes Dyck) Dan C. and I climbed Carl’s Berg on February 9. It was -10ºC all day and we did 2 lines on it. Was in great condition and since then must be getting fatter.

Carl’s Berg (Wes Dyck)

Leading Carl’s Berg (Wes Dyck)

(Wes Dyck) Dan C. and I climbed Shreddie on February 11. Temps were -13ºC at the parking lot and about -8ºC on the climb. I underestimated this climb and we had high adventure content on both pitches. I led through a cascade of spray at top of first pitch with water logged slush roof (screws could be pushed half way in before needing cranking). There is a three bolt anchor in behind the column. Dan fired the last pitch on the outside of column. Thanks Dan! Hard, brittle , unconsolidated, balancey ice was found on this pitch. Both of us thought that this was harder than Carl’s Berg and becasue of the technical nature of the ice i thouht it was harder than Kitty Hawk. Temps being what they are……. it should be getting fatter. It’s a full 70m rap to the bolt station at base of Closet Secrets.

Dan playing peek-a-boo before the business starts (Wes Dyck)

Dan starting the pitch opting for the outside of the column (Wes Dyck)

Wes seconding the top pitch of Shreddie (Alexander Gorobets)

Rapelling Shreddie at the end of the day (Wes Dyck)

Highway 99 South – Pemberton, Whistler & Squamish

(Fern Webb) A few days ago Entropy was definitely showing signs of re-forming and Fig Plucker was also starting to ice up. It’s a battle between cold temps and longer sunshine hours this time of year though, so probably best to bring some binoculars and scope it from the road before committing. Check it’s thick and not delaminating at the top.

(Eric Carter) It’s in excellent shape. Climbed the West Face/North Ridge Monday (Feb 12). Descended the West Ridge. No need to go on the pink slab, just crampon around it on the left. North Face also looks excellent. East Face has a bit of a cornice. Specific descriptions included in the photos below.

Short mixed step connecting the hidden couloir below the West Face to the North Ridge. ~30m of unconsolidated snow on rock. Similar difficult to Pink Slab. (Eric Carter)

Just about at the summit looking back along the North Ridge crest. (Eric Carter)

Descending the West Ridge Route. In the summer, this is the bit of scree above the Pink Slab. (Eric Carter)

North Face looking like good neve about a week ago. (Eric Carter)

And finally, the bit of snow you climb on the left of the Pink Slab to avoid it. Not too steep but a bit exposed I suppose. (Eric Carter)

(Marc-André Leclerc) Climbed the North Face of Ledge Peak via the 1969 Walter-Zenger route on Saturday (Feb 10) with Brette Harrington. This is destined to become a classic winter test peice. The best I have climbed locally, just phenomenal. 10p M7+, 90 degrees. 23-hour push from Squamish.

The path of the route (Marc-André LeClerc)

Approaching Ledge Peak (Marc-André LeClerc)

Early snow pitches (Marc-André LeClerc)

Mixed middle pitch (Marc-André LeClerc)

Brette high on the route (Marc-André LeClerc)

Brette leading up towards the summit (Marc-André LeClerc)

Highway 1 – Hope

Mousetrap is doing it’s best to form, but temperatures have not been cold and consistent enough. Below are pictures from February 12 and February 17, showing some of the progression and the most recent lapse back to flowing and open.

Mousetrap back on February 12, when the latest cold snap started (Tim Nielsen)

Mousetrap today, February 17. Still needs more time to form (Bobby Wallace)

I’m re-posting Artem’s report of the theft of his climbing equipment, from way back from the Feb 3/4 weekend. Please let us know if you have any information on it. It’s been posted to the Facebook group, but perhaps some of you not on Facebook will have additional, new insights.

(Artem Bylinskii) Good folks of West Coast Ice! My car was broken into after a phenomenal weekend of climbing once back in Vancouver and my entire climbing pack stolen. If you spot anyone using any of this gear, or spot it on Craigslist, Gear Swap, or thrift shops, please notify me immediately at 604-928-1592. 

Here is a list of what’s been lost. Particularly keep an eye out for the first 3 items (pack, crampons, tools) as they are very distinct and not commonly used. Photos below (examples from commercial websites).

Hyperlite Mountain Gear Backpack (white)
E-climb Cryo II Ice Tools
Cassin Blade Runner Crampons
9 Ice screws (6 Petzl Laser Speed Light, 1 Petzl Laser, 2 BD Express)
Arc’teryx Alpha SV Jacket L (red)
Rab Xenon hoody XL (velvet)
Mammut Wall Rider helmet (black/orange)
Baker OR Modular Mitts
Petzl Sitta Harness (with assorted carabiners)
Gerber Multi-tool
Julbo Glacier Glasses
inReach Original
OR Project gloves (grey)
Ortovox 3+ Beacon
Zebralight H52 Headlamp

Any and all help leading to the recovery or replacement of this gear would be greatly appreciated so I can keep climbing before the season runs out!

Hyperlite Mountain Gear Backpack

E-climb Cryo II Ice Tools

Cassin Blade Runner Crampons

Arc’teryx Alpha SV Jacket L

Rab Xenon hoody XL

Mammut Wall Rider helmet

Baker OR Modular Mitts

Julbo Glacier Glasses

inReach Original

OR Project gloves

Set of 5 tricams (0.25, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2)

Suunto Core altimeter watch (red bezel)

Highway 40 – Bridge River Canyon

(Peter Watson) Played some roulette today (Jan 19) and won. Got Bitcoin Billionaire’s 3rd ascent. Thanks @brentnixon for the quality outing.. Temps around the Bridge dropped briefly below 0ºC today. If things don’t cool down lots of lines are going to disappear.
*all routes need to heal with cold
Capricorn in
Four Dressed Up as a Six / Millar’s Pillar area all looking in
Old Dogs, New Picks in. Upper pitches if healed are well formed
SteriStrip ???
New route to left ???
House of Cards not in
Silk Degrees not in
Silk Worm in
Salmon Stakes in
Bitcoin Billionaire in
New Leash On Life looks in
The Gift is huge and wet looking
The Theft is not touching down on either tier (both tiers have bolts, so mixed variation may go??)
Little Sumthin Sumthin looks good
Stoner Falls in
Shriek of Sheep in
Black Bird in
Night N’ Gale in
Lots of other ice could be good around Terzaghi Dam if it cools down

(Henrik Hinkkala) Climbed Capricorn today (Jan 20) with Graham Rowbotham and Hunter Lee, to the top. The very last pitch was a rambly WI2/2+ to a tree with red webbing that we left behind. Definitely getting warm, +5ºC at the truck when we returned. Hopefully it cools down. Most routes in the Bridge River Canyon lower down were struggling. Crux pitch on Capricorn was raining water on the right side, otherwise it was solid. Felt like spring ice climbing in the Rockies.

For the approach, we went straight to the Millar Pillar area (climbs were quite wet and chandeliered). We headed up and right into the very next gully/slope and went up until we were maybe 60m from being cliffed out, then we traversed leftward, following faint tracks from Doug and Wayne (thanks for your guys approach info!).

Notes on approach, I tried this last year when the ground was frozen with a few inches of low density snow. It was brutal, ankle twisting and we got lost up the left side. It was also much more hazardous since a fall would send you quite a long way down the frozen scree slopes. Today, we had about a foot of heavy snow which made the walk up an absolute breeze, night and day compared to my last attempt. In my opinion having decent snow cover is a significant factor in making the approach we did viable.

Some gps coordinates, take these with a grain of salt since they are from my phone app, and I haven’t double checked them…

Parking/start 50.845069,-122.214176
Start of the traverse (approaching from right side of Millar Pillar area) 50.846331,-122.213985
First pitch of Capricorn 50.846086,-122.218207

 

 

Millar’s pillar (left) and A 4 Dressed Up As A 6 (right), on the approach (Henrik Hinkkala)

Capricorn, nearing the base (Henrik Hinkkala)

Graham Rowbotham styling the crux pitch on Capricorn (Henrik Hinkkala)

Hunter Lee rapping Capricorn (Henrik Hinkkala)

Highway 99 North – Marble Canyon & Oregon Jack

(Henrik Hinkkala) Conditions on Oregon Jack today (Jan 19). It seemed like it would have been wet, but we found a dry line to the top, on the left. Really funky fun climbing. The top had some delicate moves to avoid busting into the hose, but it all turned out nice.

 

 

View of Oregon Jack as you walk to it. (Henrik Hinkkala)

Hunter Lee setting off on lead. (Henrik Hinkkala)

Hunter Lee at the top of Oregon Jack (Henrik Hinkkala)

Henrik topping out on the thin tube at the top of Oregon Jack (Hunter Lee)

Crowd Warning: (Nick Hindley) VOC group of ~15 will be up at Marble Canyon for February long weekend (Feb 10-12th). Happy to share ropes and space around the fire, but expect guppies learning to climb on the lower tier. Thanks for the tolerance!

(Jeremy Thom) Marble Canyon on Sunday (Jan 21) was fat and plastic. There were soaking wet dripping lines, and several mostly dry lines. It was about 3ºC at the car at 9:00am, warmed up from there, and then down to about 1ºC by 4:30pm. Assuming the temps do drop a bit as forecast, it’s going to remain in great shape. We stayed on the lower tier, but most of the mixed lines down there (especially No Deductible) had loads of thin ice and looked super fun. Icy BC had a host of awful, brittle, fragile-looking mushrooms in the top 1/3 that looked as if you’d be knocking big chunks off if you tried to climb them, so we stayed on the lower half. There’s a v-thread on the right in the mid-height alcove. After the top of the pitch solidifies again, if anyone rapping from the top would like to clean up my litter, I’d be grateful.

Ran into Gary Brace who had been working his latest M-hard on the second tier and he reported that tier to be in generally good shape. I believe he said Body Shop looked great, if memory serves. 2nd Pitch of Icy BC was thin but in. 3rd pitch had big holes visible from the road and was not in.

Just another friendly reminder, for people who haven’t been there, that the trees at the top of the first tier should all be considered suspect (see the burn/char all over lots of them). There is a reason there is a spiderweb of cord up there linking many of them together. Bring lots and lots of extra cord with you and don’t rely on just one, no matter how big it looks. Or better yet, lead and build an ice anchor, then clean it from above and walk off. And I’ve never actually played on the second tier and don’t know the anchor situation there, but if there are trees, I’m sure the same caution applies.

Thanks to all the other parties there throughout the day – there were enough of us there to turn it into a circus, but everyone there climbed harmoniously. And thanks for tolerating my continual stream of shouting at my students! Great climbing with all of you.

First pitch of Icy BC (Jeremy Thom)

Highway 99 South – Duffey Lake Road

(Matteo Agnoloni) A group of us climbed Synchronicity on Saturday (Jan 20). More or less fat and in decent condition. The flat sections of the lower tier have thin ice and small open holes. Mid and upper tier were thick, but with very sun affected ice. The top out of the upper tier was a tad spicy; less than inspiring ice transitioning to non-existent ice.

When rappelling the second tier from the lowest tree anchor, we just barely touched down with 60m ropes plus stretch. If the snow continues to melt, you may find yourself taking a 12 inch leap-of-faith off your ropes.

 

 

Approach scramble to Synchronicity (Matteo Agnoloni)

Leading early ice on Synchronicity (Matteo Agnoloni)

Reaching the middle tier (Matteo Agnoloni)

Leading Synchronicity (Matteo Agnoloni)

The top pitch (Matteo Agnoloni)

(Jeremy Thom) Carl’s Berg was very wet, but reasonable looking today (Jan 20). We just TR’d the low angle apron at the bottom, but a central line would go at tricky, delicate, mushroomy, unconsolidated, chandeliery WI5. It was +3ºC at 9:00am, +1ºC at 5:00pm. Was well warmer than that during the day. Little bits of icicles came down, but otherwise it seemed solid. There are big holes at the top though, and I doubt it’ll last long if it stays this warm. And much warmer than today and I’d stay away.

Carl’s Berg over the weekend (Jeremy Thom)

(Eric Bowes) We went to Rambles Center Saturday (Jan 20) and Rambles Right today (Jan 21). Ice on that side of the valley was better than the stuff on the Carl’s Berg side. No rockfall at all, despite the warmer temperatures. It was hovering around 0ºC, I think. It was snowing up there, but raining at the base of the first pitch. Rambles Center was in good shape, top of P1 was a bit hollow/thin, but the upper tier was great and mostly dry. Rambles Right was wet, but fat. Dihedral in corner was still in, and the pillar on the left looked rad and dry, but sadly I wasn’t up for leading it. Photos: Justin Krawetz
(Robert Rogoz) Eagles Ears and Public Service have more ice then usual (at Rambles Right). Both are vey good routes and someone should climb these rigs. Public Service has a couple of bolts on the bottom, but will require some cams. Eagles Ears has bolts all the way, but looks some of them might be covered with ice. Eagles Ears looks like an easy tick this year- basically an ice climb with bolts.

 

 

Bottom pitch of Rambles Centre (Justin Krawetz)

The variety of climbs available on Rambles Right (Justin Krawetz)

(Ryan Larkin) Made it to the top of Shreddie on a warm and very wet day (Jan 21). The route was spicy at times, but didn’t feel crazy hard, ended up doing a half corkscrew on the pillar by attacking it from the backside then through the nick named “birthing hole” and up to a reasonable tight belay halfway up the route. The ice was chandeliered and steep, but fun nonetheless. Climbers: Ryan Larkin & Chris Elliot. Photo: Alex Ratson – Instagram @aratson

(Eric Hughes) Went for a quick Duffey road tour (Jan 23) with ice connoisseur Jean-Marc Savoie. Did a lap on Shreddie and Closet Secrets. Both are in great shape.
Shreddie: The ice has consoldated into good plastic ice with the flow pushing left so the climb is dryer. Two bolts are not covered and the mushrooms kept the steepness in check. Its one amazing 40m pitch from the cave to the top. Go get it as this rarely forms this fat.
Closet Secrets: Is wet, but protectable with screws the whole way. (Take a red) Jean-Marc upgraded the anchor tat on both. Currently in WI4 condition.

 

 

Ryan Larking leading Shreddie on January 21. Photographed from the road by Alex Ratson.

Shreddie from the base on January 23 (Eric Hughes)

The top of Shreddie, looking across at Closet Secrets on the right (Eric Hughes)

Leading Closet Secrets (Eric Hughes)

The top-out on Closet Secrets second pitch (Eric Hughes)

Highway 5 – Coquihalla (and Canadian Rockies)

(Wes Dyck) Dan Canton and I climbed 4 days starting with only the first pitch of Grim Reaper in Box Canyon on January 13. Conditions were very wet with thigh-deep, wet powder snow on all low angle sections.The trail to Grim Reaper was punched in on Sat. January 13.
We climbed Moonlight in K-country on Monday, January 15. On Tuesday and Wednesday we climbed Nothing but the Breast and Kitty Hawk in David Thompson Highway. This is the dry zone and therefore very low avy conditions. Temperatures were a comfortable -3 to -5ºC all three days. Very dry compared to coast standards! The ice was fat especially for Kitty Hawk this year, according to our very helpful Banff N.P. safety specialist. Thanks Conrad! The Rockies continues to be a stable, dry, location that never dissapoints. Get out there if you can swing it! Pun intended.

 

 

Festering Toadstools in Box Canyon on January 13 (Wes Dyck)

Moonlight. Awesome bolt station in cave. First pitch 40m and last pitch 60m. Can also climb in 3 small pitches (Wes Dyck)

Nothing but the Breast 4+ last pitch. First mixed pitch is full of ice and only needs stubbies (Wes Dyck)

Dan Canton leading last pitch of Nothing but the Breast (Wes Dyck)

Top two pitches of Kitty Hawk. We climbed it in a 65m grade 4 and a 50 grade 5 (overhanging mushrooms) (Wes Dyck)

Dan Canton rapping overhanging last pitch of Kitty Hawk. Awesome pitch! (Wes Dyck)

The last few days have brought a lot of precipitation, both rain and snow, in BC. The Duffey was closed for a time yesterday (Jan 18) due to heavy snow and avalanche conditions. So please consider avalanche conditions & risk if you are going out there. Combined with warmer temperatures, most areas are showing Considerable risk at all levels of the alpine. Choose your lines carefully and check http://www.avalanche.ca/map

Highway 95 – Kootenay Highway

(Adrian Burke) Not technically West Coast, but still in BC, I climbed Gibraltar Wall with Connor Brown last Friday (Jan 12). Connor chose the hardest line on the wall, ending up at about WI4+/5- in difficulty (over 3 pitches). The first pitch was WI3, wet and plastic. The second and third pitches chandeliered and steep, making protection challenging and the climbing pumpy (WI4+/5-). Gibraltar Wall is 27 kilometres down the Kootenay Forest Government Road / Settler’s Road, East of Canal Flats, BC. You can find it in the Canadian Rockies guidebooks.

Connor leading a free-standing column of ice on the Gibraltar Wall (Adrian Burke)

Highway 40 – Bridge River Canyon

(Don Serl) It seems like this is turning into a fine ice season, with plenty of possibilities. As I’m no longer active and therefore have no need for ‘secrets’, I thought I’d toss this one into the mix. The Gift is one of the finest lines within the West Coast Ice area, but because the huge first pitch almost never forms ( or even touches down), I think it’s had only 2 ( or 3?) ascents in the two decades since Lyle and I snagged it. That’s a shame… but I suspect there’s a ‘work-around’. There is a huge ledge system that leads in from the left, thereby avoiding the first pitch. This ledge carries a few trees, which I reckon could be used for belays and/or pro, and while it’s hard to tell from a distance, I sorta thought that one could scrabble across it up near the wall above, probably even getting bits of pro there too. Four or five great pitches await above… Just a thought…

The area, circled, of the ledges alternative to climbing pitch 1 of The Gift (Don Serl)

(Carolyn Graham with Jennifer E. Carter) Conditions update from Sunday 01/14/2017 (Bridge River area): Good (but wet) climbing conditions on the central line on Cedarvale Falls (WI2). There is still open water on the right and left sides. Just down the road, we tried to find the climb located at the Falls Creek bridge. We hunted around on both sides and under the bridge, but did not see any terrain that looked like WI. Has anyone ever located or climbed Falls Creek (WI2)? A bit further down the road we located the route Bighorn Creek (WI2) – this route is mostly formed, but not quite in.

Cedarvale Falls (Carolyn Graham)

Bighorn Creek Falls, not quite ready to climb (Carolyn Graham)

Highway 99 North – Marble Canyon & Oregon Jack

CROWD WARNING: Jeremy noted that they are “gonna pack our umbrellas and take another BCMC course up this weekend. Oregon Jack Saturday (Jan 20). 2 top ropes all day, but we can make way for people to play through. Sunday TBD. Wish us luck.

 

Highway 1 – Spences Bridge

(Carolyn Graham with Jennifer E. Carter) Conditions update Tuesday 01/16/20018: Climbed Private Idaho near Spences Bridge. Car thermometer said 37ºF (3ºC) where we parked at the pullout for the trestle crossing. Departed the old railroad bed between 2 streams (as shown on Gaia) and before a cattle gate (and associated barbed wire). Followed tracks in the snow toward a narrow rocky outcrop above and to climbers right. Scrambled the first 15′ ice step. Keychain thermometer said it was ~32ºF  (0ºC) in this shady slot between the rock. Route is in decent condition (and was dry), WI3, with a full value top-off to a tree anchor. Uppermost step sounded hollow and had water flowing behind, requiring delicate climbing. Heavy rain started 20 min after we were back at the car and headed down the road. Rain continued all the way to Hope.

Trestle crossing on approach. Slots are just wide enough to keep your attention. (Carolyn Graham)

15′ scramble to the base of the climb. (Carolyn Graham)

Private Idaho, WI3 conditions, a bit trickier than Rambles Centre. (Carolyn Graham)

Looking down from the top of Private Idaho. (Carolyn Graham)

Highway 40 – Bridge River Canyon & Lillooet

(Shannon Healy) Last Sunday (Jan 7), we tried Hell’s Creek first, but it was not in. Decided to go for Honeyman after and we only climbed the lower half due to time. It was wet, but the ice was still good. The first bit you can feel the spray from the left side, but after a few moves your out of that and the rest of the water was coming off the ice. It is thick, so it’s not going away anytime soon, especially with -12ºC temps. You, your gloves and ropes will get wet, but it is worth it.
(Bobby Wallace) We came, we climbed (Jan 14). Honeyman Falls.

Early morning jaunt up Honeyman Falls (Bobby Wallace)

(Danny O’Farrell) Climbed a another fun new route “Stoner Falls” with Steve Janes to the left of Shriek of the Sheep we think?. Its slog of an approach, but the top two pitches are worth every penny!
(Steve Janes) Conditions-wise, the ice was WI5/5+ condition; very steep, very brittle, and chandeliered. Substantially more physical than the first pitch of The Gift for example. The final ice was a sneaky bastard, with brittle unconsolidated ice interspersed with eggshell 1-2” thick, somewhat difficult pro, and deceivingly steep sections, even overhanging for the first two body lengths, no real rests either…

NEW ROUTE
Stoner Falls WI5/5+ 350m 3+ pitches FA Danny O’Farrell & Steve Janes January 13, 2018
Take the same drainage as Shriek of Sheep, but take the left drainage when you come to the “Y” in the drainages. Continue up the drainage to a 15-20m pitch of WI3+ or 4 depending on the line you choose, there was an old sling that someone used for a rap station a few years ago (potentially trying to find Shriek? ).
Continue up the drainage on easy WI2-3 rambles and snow for another 250m until you come to the main fall. The first upper pitch is in WI5 condition for 55m. Belay off screws or tree on climber’s right. Continue up on another 20-25m of WI4 ice to a tree belay on climber’s right.

Top pitches of Stoner Falls (Danny O’Farrell)

Stoner Falls on the far left. Shriek of Sheep on the right (Danny O’Farrell)

Lower bottom grade 3-4 pitch! (Danny O’Farrell)

Stoner Falls, both upper pitches! (Danny O’Farrell)

Steep ice on the final pitches of Stoner Falls (Steve Janes)

Final pitches of Stoner Falls (Steve Janes)

(Steve Janes) Danny O’Farrell and I climbed a super rad ice/mixed route about 600-800 meters above Terzaghi Dam today (Jan14). Danny said he’s not sure its been climbed or even formed like this before, but being roadside I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been climbed numerous times. Either way, its in right now, felt about WI5, 22m and was awesome! Half ropes really helped limit rope drag on the traverse… Pretty fuckin cool road side mixed climbing for those into that sort of thing!

NEW ROUTE
Stoner Sends WI5 22m FA Steve Janes & Danny O’Farrell January 14, 2018
Roadside mixed route 600-800 meters above Terzaghi Dam (see above).

Steve Janes starting the mixed traverse (Danny O’Farrell)

Steve Janes leading the top blob of ice (Danny O’Farrell)

Roadside mixed climbing above Terzaghi Dam. Steve Janes finishing off the lead (Danny O’Farrell)

On another note, we watched a team make the second ascent of Bitcoin Billionaire this afternoon! Could turn into a real classic!

(Wayne Wallace) Climbed Capricorn on Saturday (Jan 13) and made the second ascent of Bitcoin Billionaire on Sunday (Jan 14). Pictures below.

Easier ice approaching Capricorn (Wayne Wallace)

Approaching the WI5 2 pitch portion of Capricorn (Wayne Wallace)

Leading Capricorn (Wayne Wallace)

Approaching the base of Bitcoin Billionaire (Wayne Wallace)

Base of the first pitch, Bitcoin Billionaire (Wayne Wallace)

Leading pitch 1 of Bitcoin Billionaire (Wayne Wallace)

Second pitch of Bitcoin Billionaire (Wayne Wallace)

Final mixed section of Bitcoin Billionaire (Wayne Wallace)

Starting the last pitch of Bitcoin Billionaire (Wayne Wallace)

(Wayne Wallace)

Highway 99 North – Marble Canyon & Oregon Jack

(Bobby Wallace) We were the only group at Marble Canyon on Sunday (Jan 14). +1ºC most of the day.
Most of Deeping Wall was wet, with a dry patch up the middle.
Icy BC was good though.

Marble Canyon on Sunday. Deeping Wall on the left; Icy BC on the right (Bobby Wallace)

Highway 99 South – Duffey Lake Road

(Antony Wood) Super fun. Fucked up mixed route outside of Lillooet today. Primo. With Nathan Spowage.
Just as you come past the dam into Lillooet. Cross the river on the left and down the tracks a way. Starts with 2 blobs of ice. Wi3 thin. To M5 plus runout. Above Small Creep.
(Drew Brayshaw commented…) If it’s in the bowl above Small Creep, then it has been climbed before, but I’m not sure of the exact details. Used to be a couple fixed ropes up there, somebody’s spent time working on that.

Mixed climbing above Lillooet Dam (Antony Wood)

(Henrik Hinkkala) Good day (Jan 13) on Three Ring Circus with Graham Rowbotham and Perry. Road doesn’t need chains, follow yellow flagging. We finished at the last section on ice, 2 raps down on threads.

Approaching Three Ring Circus (Henrik Hinkkala)

Graham Rowbotham leading Three Ring Circus (Henrik Hinkkala)

(Tim Nielsen) Climbed Carl’s Berg with Mike Hong on Saturday (Jan 13). Chandelier-y, mushroom-y, and fun. Lots of nice caves. Looked a bit early seasonish.
Tip: don’t use guidebook approach beta. Traverse climbers left along river ‘trail’ and then follow the leftmost gully up to the climb. Its not as steep, and less grown over. Happy climbing!

Mike Hong’s legendary selfie from Carl’s Berg Saturday.

(Mike Vanwerkhoven) Climbed The Tube with Clayton Matthews on Saturday (Jan 13). Was bone dry! Thin upper portion, so we led up the main event, set anchor up and did some laps.
(Henrik Hinkkala) We climbed The Tube today (Jan 14) to the top, muddy finish. The bolted anchor at the top was covered in snow-ice, when I topped out. The other guys uncovered it while coming up. I totally would have thought the anchor would have been at the ledge above; I looked everywhere. But it is placed lower down, where it shouldn’t completely freeze over.

The Tube from the start of the approach (Mike Vanwerkhoven)

Clayton climbing up to the base of The Tube (Mike Vanwerkhoven)

The Tube on Saturday (Mike Vanwerkhoven)

(Mohammad Pahrbod) Rambles Centre upper tier in a fat condition; wet though.
(Jennifer E. Carter) Carolyn Graham and I wanted to report on Rambles Center today (Jan 15). Just a warning about the top tier anything left to center: watch for a big slabby surprise hole on the top out. You can’t see it from the base. Right now you can turf tool around it in the frozen dirt, but be careful if it warms up out there. Top tier, right hand side in excellent condition. 1st tier is in great condition; just a bit wet.
(Eric Bites) Climbed Rambles Centre with Marcus and Adam on Saturday (Jan 13). First flow is nice, Top Tier seems to have healed up a bit since the last report. Decently wet on a few lines, but plenty of dry options.
Snapped a photo of Shreddie from the car, looks huge.

First pitch of Rambles Centre (Eric Bites)

Leading Top Tier, centre line, on Rambles Centre (Jennifer E. Carter)

Top Tier on Rambles Centre (Jennifer E. Carter)

Rambles Centre (Mohammad Pahrbod)

Rambles Centre (Mohammad Pahrbod)

Shreddie on Saturday, January 13 (Eric Bites)

Highway 1, 3 & 5 – Hope, Fraser Canyon, Coquihalla & Manning Park

(Drew Brayshaw) It’s super warm here. The stuff that was in on Saturday in the Fraser Canyon, including Hells Lake Falls, was falling apart on Sunday afternoon! Your best bet to find local ice would be high elevation stuff like the Falls Lake climbs (if not buried under snow) or Nepopekum Falls in Manning (if ditto).
(Marc-André Leclerc) Ice may have survived up box canyon. Felt like +20c in the sun at 1500m today (Jan 15) though.

(Drew Brayshaw) Water Music is fat.
Riddler and Mr Freeze have huge mushrooms.
Kryptonite is not touching down.
Where is Ultrawoman is looking the best it has in years.
Sailor Bar Gully has holes with running water on pitch 2.
Under the Big Top is skinny.
Unclimbed stuff on the East side of the Fraser River looks good (packraft access maybe??)

Highway 1 – Spence’s Bridge

(Adam – aka Boomer R. Tadd) Climbed with Drew Brayshaw on Private Idaho today (Jan 14)… dry!
(Drew Brayshaw) Climbed Private Idaho with Adam off Highway 8. I think this was relatively fat conditions for this climb, which doesn’t form every year. Stan Sasbourin gave it WI 2+ on the FA, but it felt like a WI 3 to me!
Note:  Easy to link these up with the Goldpan gullies via a 15 minute drive, make a worthwhile day out of it.
Approach Note: KMZ pin is in the right spot (Google Earth file), but the climb can be hard to see from where you park by the bridge. The parking/approach picture below should help. Walk along old rail line past the ranch until you reach a spot with boulders and old wrecked trucks. Angle up and left from here to the climb (climber’s left of drainage), because the direct approach up the drainage is full of prickle bushes

View of the Private Idaho approach from the parking spot (Drew Brayshaw)

Private Idaho from the approach (Drew Brayshaw)

Drew approaching Private Idaho in Spence’s Bridge (Adam)

Drew leading Private Idaho (Adam)

Rapping down Private Idaho (Adam)

(Drew Brayshaw) Pictures below of Murray Creek Falls at Spences Bridge. The left hand column forms from the creek itself and rarely freezes solid. The right hand column forms out of a hole or tunnel in the rock that was drilled for an irrigation flume, and is usually more likely to be solid enough to climb. The flume is long gone. On the FA the descent was made by walking off along the flume* . Nowadays, I’m not sure what you would do as the ice is thinnest at the top. Build an anchor at the last thick ice? Rock gear? Crawl through the tunnel?
*See below for the actual story from Garry Brace.
(Garry Brace) On the 1st ascent (I think) we crawled through the tunnel.

Murray Creek Falls at Spence’s Bridge (Drew Brayshaw)

Highway 40 – Bridge River Canyon

(Danny O’Farrell) Today (Jan 6), Steve Janes, Hunter Lee and I climbed the first pitch of The Gift in WI5+ conditions, with a significant amount of water pouring down everywhere. Bailed due to large amounts of running water and time. If your heading up in the next few days bring an umbrella!!
I’d suggest full GTX, or better yet, a dry suit lol, I had water pooling in my sleeves, and pouring down my arm pits and torso and into my pants; full value pitch.
Upper pitches were pouring even more than the first…

Steve Janes leading The Gift (Danny O’Farrell)

(Sean Draper) Mike Hong, Shahbaz Tabyanian and myself did a 1 day mission to Salmon Stakes (Jan 7), departing Vancouver at 0330 and getting home around 2230. Good conditions in the Bridge River, although it was starting to get above 0ºC in the afternoon. We avoided the scree cone, and found a good approach up through the trees on the right. Good first pitch, with some smaller, but fun steps above. At the corner it turned into a snowslog as far as we could see, so we headed down. Lots of rockfall from the walls above as it warmed, funnelling directly down the scree approach. Good day out.

 

Salmon Stakes (Sean Draper)

Leading Salmon Stakes (Sean Draper)

(Danny O’Farrell) After working on the Bridge River for the last 3 years and spending over 100+ days working on fisheries conservation and monitoring with the Xwisten First Nations, I’ve spent a lot of time day dreaming of establishing new lines in the Bridge River Valley, as it’s a very special place for me. Over the last few months, I’ve been watching a few lines form high on the walls above the river. After showing Steve and Hunter these lines, we decided to give one of the lines a go!

On Sunday, January 7, 2018; Steve Janes, Hunter Lee and I, established a new and exciting mixed alpine style route up the Bridge River Valley called “Bitcoin Billionaire, M6, WI4, 325m”. The route was completed in 7 Pitches. The route is a approximately 550-600m elevation of gain, from the base of the river to the top of the climb, the route itself is approximately 325m. Steve Janes says one of the best lines he’s ever climbed.

NEW ROUTE
Bitcoin Billionaire M6 WI4 7 pitches 325m FA January 7, 2018 Danny O’Farrell, Hunter Lee & Steve Janes 
Approach: The climb is approximately 43.5 km from the highway from Lillooet or 6.5 km below Terzaghi Dam. The route lies between the already established routes Salmon Stakes and A New Leash on Life along the highway on the East side of the river. From the road you can only see the final pitch of beautiful fat blue grade 4 ice. Cross the river and gain approximately 250 of elevation to the base of the climb.
Pitch 1 55m WI 4: Climb a small hanging pillar to thin ice for approxmently 25m at WI4, the pitch than eases up to grade 2-3 and snow to a large ledge with tree belay.
Pitch 2: 55m M6: Climb WI2/3 and snow 25m to gain the ledge. Traverse into an awkward and fun squeeze chimney with questionable pro, requiring making multiple crux moves involving lots of stemming, groveling, facing both directions, and knifeblades (M6, 25m). Traverse right 5m to and belay off large tree on climber’s right.
Pitch 3: 65m WI 2/ M3 / Snow Ramp: Climb the long snow ramp 45m, then climb awkward WI2/3 M3 for 10m, climb the remaining snowslope 10m to large tree on climber’s left. Belay from tree. 70m ropes are required or belayer may have to simul-climb up 10m or climb to a small tree on climber’s left to establish another belay station.
Pitch 4: 35m WI 2/Snow Ramp: Round corner from belay station on easy WI2 and snow. Make one awkward move over rock and ice bulge to base of squeeze chimney. Belay is located on climber’s right in small crack, gear to 0.5 or pins.
Pitch 5: 55m M6: Enter the chimney and get busy! Stem up on thin ice and rock to overhanging chockstone roof at M6 (Solid cam under roof, right side #2 Yellow BD Camalot). Then find stick in low quality snow and ice at the lip and grunt through the roof. Once through the roof and chockstone ,enjoy fun stemming and better ice at M5 to upper cirque and final tiers. Belay off good ice screws below upper cirque.
Pitch 6: 20m WI 2: Easy climbing on good ice to base of final 40m tier. Belay off good ice screws on climber’s right in small alcove.
Pitch 7: 40m WI 4: Fun climbing on WI4 on fat blue ice to top of climb. Belay off good ice.
Descent: Rappel route, using trees, v-treads and slinging ice pillars.

 

Bitcoin Billionaire from the road. (Danny O’Farrell)

The majority of the climb in this picture, missing is the first pitch. (Hunter Lee)

Base of Bitcoin Billionaire (Hunter Lee)

Hunter leading the first pitch. (Steve Janes)

Hunter Lee crushing the first pitch. (Danny O’Farrell)

Hunter Lee at the second pitch belay. (Danny O’Farrell)

Steve Janes starting up the second pitch. (Danny O’Farrell)

Seconding the second pitch. (Hunter Lee)

Pitch 2 (Hunter Lee)

Pitch 2 (Hunter Lee)

Awkward for those seconding with a pack on pitch 2. (Hunter Lee)

Heading up. (Danny O’Farrell)

Steve Janes fighting through the 5th pitch crux. (Danny O’Farrell)

Getting busy! (Danny O’Farrell)

Hunter Lee taking on the final pitch in the fading light. (Danny O’Farrell)

Highway 99 North – Marble Canyon & Oregon Jack

(Jeremy Thom) Crowd warning: I’ll be taking a BCMC course out this weekend. We’ll have two ropes up and lots of top-roping. The plan is to hit Oregon Jack on Saturday (the 13th). We’ll play nice of course if anyone else shows, but you won’t have the climb to yourself. We’ll be there all day. Sunday is TBD depending on how everyone does and what’s in, but I’ll post something Saturday evening with the plan.

(Steve Roberts) Some shots of Marble Canyon from Sunday (Jan 7)

 

Icy BC (Steve Roberts)

Deeping Wall (Steve Roberts)

Highway 99 South – Duffey Lake Road

(Kevin Aitken) Seton ice, +7ºC at take out… Lots of ice falling and water flowing.

 

Seton Lake ice (Kevin Aitken)

Seton Lake ice (Kevin Aitken)

Seton Lake ice (Kevin Aitken)

Seton Lake ice (Kevin Aitken)

(Mikes Shives) Climbed Synchronicity on Saturday (Jan 6). Very wet, but still loads of good fat ice. There was a small point release that came down from the lower part of the Synchrotron gulley. Enough snow to cover some of our tracks. Felt a bit uneasy with the warm temps.
Rambles Center still fat on Sunday (Jan 7).

(Eric Hughes) Rambles right conditions (Jan 8). Raining across duffey. Its all sounding hollow and very wet.
Public Service (mixed start to curtain) was not in.

Rambles Right (Eric Hughes)

 

Highway 99 South – Pemberton, Whistler & Squamish

(Adrian Burke – WCI webmaster) Ryan Larkin and I climbed The Plum in Birken on Sunday (Jan 7), to the top. All pitches are in good shape with some open holes that were easily avoided. The first pitch was a bit of a shower so Goretex is suggested. The last pitch was spectacular with thought provoking ramps and mushrooms requiring some acrobatics. It made it worth all the effort. Fantastic pitch.

The snow slogs between the pitches were epic. Wet, deep West Coast snow, sometimes up to our thighs. But lucky you… we (mostly Ryan) have punched a trail all the way up that should make it significantly easier. Get on it!

 

Adrian climbing the first pitch. WI3/3+ (Ryan Larkin)

Ryan Larkin leading the entertaining second pitch. Many many options at WI4. (Adrian Burke)

The snow slog induced some sweating and some swearing. (Adrian Burke)

The final pitch, which we broke into two, belaying in the mid height cave on the left. (Adrian Burke)

Ryan Larkin leading the super fun final pitch. (Adrian Burke)

Highway 5 – Coquihalla

(Russ Shepherd) Couple of photos from Box Canyon.
We climbed Yellow Flow today (Jan 7). It was thin in spots, hollow in spots, crumbly in spots… overall it was a great day out!

 

Grim Reaper (Russ Shepherd)

Fear O Fungi (Russ Shepherd)

Box Canyon ice (Russ Shepherd)

Box Canyon ice (Russ Shepherd)

 

Highway 40 – Bridge River Canyon & Lillooet

(Francis St-Pierre) Climbed at Honeyman Falls with Werner on Wednesday (Jan 3). Ice was good with a mixture of wet and some dry lines going at WI 3-4. Centre is fat with mostly good ice and pro. Left didn’t look attractive and far right basically hasn’t formed. I was surprised by the amount of avalanche debris at the base of Honeyman… it’s clearly a place to watch out for after a dump, which is fairly rare there so easy to forget or disregard.
Cherry Ice looked ok from the path, but still has a hole on the lefthand side.

Approach and overview of Honeyman Falls (Francis St-Pierre)

Honeyman Falls (Francis St-Pierre)

Cherry Ice (Francis St-Pierre)

Highway 99 North – Marble Canyon & Oregon Jack

(Wes Dyck) Jan.1 – led Oregon Jack in one 50m pitch. -17ºC the whole day. Slinging strange mushrooms and one old screw hole under roof was a bonus. Thanks to Allan T. for long belay.
Jan.2 – crawled out of the tent at -20ºC. Top-roped Deeping Wall on 2 lines to get in shape for the year. -15ºC during the climb. Thanks to Allan T. for cold weather camping.
(Tim Nielsen added…) No Deductible (The Showdown??) has bolts frozen over near the top, and is therfore in X condition to lead, unless you get your metal detector out.
That beta is second-hand, and also as of 6 days ago, at which point upper ice was still to thin to take even stubbies, as it usually is.

Oregon Jack (Wes Dyck)

Deeping Wall (Wes Dyck)

No Deductible, The Showdown and Icy BC (Wes Dyck)

Highway 99 South – Duffey Lake Road

(Peter Watson) Really stoked to have finally ticked Three Ring Circus. Route is in good shape with the first pitch being much fatter than past ascents but it still feature the same sort of shit cauliflowers. At the top of pitch 2 we rambled up one more grade 2 step before rapping. Slung a tree up and left of top of pitch two and set a thread just below bottom of pitch 2. Go get it, easy approach with Enterprise Creek being plowed; 4wd necessary but no chains required today.
(Fern Webb commented after climbing it the next day with Kris Wild) Someone from the logging company left a note on our windshield today indicating they didn’t like us parking there. Climbers could bring shovels to dig in further off the road. I don’t know what company, the note was not signed.

Three Ring Circus overview (Peter Watson)

Fern slaying pitch 2 of Three Ring Circus (Kris Wild)

Three Ring Circus pitch 1 (Kris Wild)

Upper WI2 pitches at the top of Three Ring Circus (Peter Watson)

(Wes Dyck) Jan.3 – Attempted Mr. Freeze WI6, but looked easier and less sustained than Riddler WI5. Dan C. graciously led, but backed off due to his first day off the couch! Good ambition, Dan! -7ºC whole day. Cirque of the Superheroes was the best ice I saw all 3 days. Kryptonite looks great if you are up for leading it.

Kryptonite on left then Riddler and Mr. Freeze at right (Wes Dyck)

Kryptonite (Wes Dyck)

Riddler and Mr. Freeze. V thread 40′ up (Wes Dyck)

Where is Ultrawomen (Wes Dyck)

(Peter Watson) After needing to chip ice out of my rims this morning to get rid of a bad wobble, G AND I meet at highnoon for an afternoon (Jan 3) play on Carl’s Berg. No longer brittle, the ice, at -7ºC temps, was running with lots of water. Full Goretex was worn and utilized.

Carl’s Berg approach (Peter Watson)

Carl’s Berg (Peter Watson)

Leading Carl’s Berg (Peter Watson)

(Peter Watson) After getting beaten to Synchronicity this AM (Jan 5), we punched trail up Loose Lady all the way to the top. Classic conditions on the route, approach gulley is really crap condition with so much snow that the ice is rotten with lots of water running under it. First WI3 pitch was fine, with lots of snow clearing and rotten ice. Upper tier has a huge amount of ice. I snuck up the left side to the bolt belay behind the pillar at WI4+. Then punched through a hole from behind the pillar to take on the front side at WI4+ as well. Light drizzle rain on and off all day. Make sure to consider avalanche hazard & conditions given this warming trend. There is considerable terrain above.

Loose Lady upper pitches 65-70 meters, which we climbed in two pitches (Peter Watson)

Behind the upper curtain of Loose Lady (Peter Watson)

Grade 3 route to the left of upper tier is in and looking fun (Peter Watson)

(Eric Hughes) Tried Shreddies today (Jan 6). First pitch is in good condition. Second is a chandeliered water fall. I got up three mushrooms around the back before trying to exit onto the front face. It was too warm today +3ºC. The main column on the right will be good to go once the flow drops and the ice consolidates. Gulley slid while descending so expect a slippery approach.
Closet Secrets is leadable, but not protectable . First pitch is 1 inch thick in places.

Leading up Shreddie (Eric Hughes)

Approaching Shreddie (Eric Hughes)

In the Shreddie (right) gully. Closet Secrets on the left (Eric Hughes)

Closet Secrets (Eric Hughes)

Highway 99 South – Pemberton, Whistler & Squamish

(Alex Ratson) A little late to report although Tuesday morning Ryan Larkin and myself got on Nintendo 64 in Squamish. Great climbing although probably isn’t lasting with the incoming heat.

Leading Nintendo 64 (Alex Ratson)

(Jason Ammerlaan) Sky Pilot North face is still sporting some really good ice. It stayed cold yesterday (Jan 3) and the ice was hard. The thin ice on the rock bands in the centre of the face will make for a much more sustained outing once they form up.

North face of Sky Pilot (Jason Ammerlaan)

Approaching the North face (Jason Ammerlaan)

Leading the North face of Sky Pilot (Jason Ammerlaan)

Highways 1 & 5 – Hope

NEW ROUTE
Navigator Wall M7+ R 9 pitches 700 meters FA January 3, 2018 Marc-André Leclerc & Tom Livingstone
(Marc-André Leclerc) Tom and I climbed a winter version of Navigator Wall (first winter ascent) on the South summit of Slesse two days ago (Jan 3). A superb mixed route and a great day out. The rock is perfect for mixed climbing. 700 meters, M7+R. Can’t wait for more. 
(Tom Livingstone) We made slight variations to the summer rock line, and Marc described the climbing as ‘rowdy!’ I agreed: after about three Scottish tech 8 or 9 pitches things were certainly getting a little crazy… Hopefully we’ll get some more good weather and conditions soon!

A photo which doesn’t do the climbing justice. This was a 40 metre pitch to the snow ledge, and the ropes give an idea of steepness. (Tom Livingstone)

Early morning rock climbing in the sun! (Marc-André Leclerc)

Snice slabs. (Marc-André Leclerc)

Navigator Wall in the winter sun. (Tom Livingstone)

Mount Slesse. Navigator Wall on the upper left. (Tom Livingstone)

(Boomer R. Tadd) Conditions Report for Othello Tunnels:
Tunnel Time; Tunnel 1 – Not quite touching down, but some short screws and some bold moves should get you up and on the roof. Goes at a Railway Grade of 2-3, maybe 3,4,5 moving down tunnel, train driving side.
Pillar Time; Tunnel 3 – It’s fat and touching. Strange vegetable-looking formations and thin close to roof, tools blunted from concrete disguised as ice, but still a sick and burly climb. Solo up to roof, no big deal.
Thomas the Tank Engine; Tunnel 4 – It’s not in, not even close, looks like some tourists collected the main ice and used it as swords. But still a fun approach with crampons on in the dark.

Climbing in the Othello Tunnels (Boomer R. Tadd)

Othello Tunnels (Boomer R. Tadd)

South Okanagan

(Dave Mai) Some photos of Naramata Creek ice. More interior than West coast, but I figure this group would get a kick out of this photoshoot we did at Naramata Creek park a couple night ago. Ascending crystal pillars in the middle of the night. Achieved this look using a couple LED lamps and headlights. Wasn’t sure how well this shoot would go at first, but I figured if the photos didn’t turn out, at least we got to go ice climbing!
Thanks to Stan Sabourin and Colleen Aven for playing along.

Naramata Creek ice at night (Dave Mai)

Naramata Creek ice at night (Dave Mai)

Naramata Creek ice at night (Dave Mai)

Highway 99 North – Marble Canyon

(Mohammad Pahrbod) I climbed in Marble Canyon with Goodarz Nategh & Parisa Faghih on January 1. Deeping Wall Direct, Icy BC and Body Shop were all in, with good quality ice. It was freaking cold -16ºC.

Leading the first pitch of Icy BC (Mohammad Pahrbod)

The second pitch of Icy BC (Mohammad Pahrbod)

The Deeping Wall (Mohammad Pahrbod)

Climbing Deeping Wall Direct (Mohammad Pahrbod)

Highway 99 South – Duffey Lake Road

(Drew Brayshaw) A couple rare formers on the Duffy are coming in (pics from the 29th Dec): Cutthroat and Gung Hai Fat Choi

Cutthroat on Dec 31 (Drew Brayshaw)

Gung Hai Fat Choi on Dec 31 (Drew Brayshaw)

(Mohammad Pahrbod) I climbed Carl’s Berg WI5 with Goodarz Nategh & Parisa Faghih on December 31. It was freezing cold -17ºC with brittle ice. We rapped down in the dark.

Carl’s Berg on Dec 31 (Mohammad Pahrbod)

Goodarz Nategh leading Carl’s Berg (Mohammad Pahrbod)

(Francis St-Pierre) Went to Rambles Centre with Werner for a first day (Jan 2) on ice doing laps on the first 2 steps. Ice is fat and in great condition. Mostly dry lines. Note: there is a fair bit of powder snow on approach, but the ice is clear of snow.
Looking at Shreddie from the road, it looks almost formed.
Rambles Right looked fat, as seen from road (sorry no pic)
(Mohammad Pahrbod) Synchronicity looked great on the way back from Lillooet. Noticed two climbers on the lower tier (pic below)

Rambles Centre on Tuesday January 2 (Francis St-Pierre)

Shreddie (Francis St-Pierre)

The main and upper tiers of Synchronicity, as seen from the road (Mohammad Pahrbod)

Highway 99 South – Pemberton, Whistler & Squamish

(Eric Carter) We went looking to climb Place Creek Falls today (Jan 2). Hiked in, but it was pouring with water on the left side, so we bailed. Instead we swam up Class in Session and then bumped over to Roadside Attraction.
Class in Session was pretty runny and easy to find. We parked at the sign for Cool Creek Canyon.
Roadside Attraction was great.
(Drew Brayshaw added these comments about Eric’s Place Creek Falls photo) That looks about the same as when we climbed it, except less open water and way more snowy! We climbed up (totally snow in Eric’s pic) and set the first belay in the cave on the right, then climbed just left of the cave where the snow blobs are visible to reach the upper low-angle stuff.

Nick avoiding holes on Class in Session. Just out of view below Nick is a giant open hole. The chance of going swimming was what kept it entertaining… (Eric Carter)

Place Creek Falls. The bit on the left that looks blurry isn’t. It’s actually just running water. (Eric Carter)

(Mike Vanwerkhoven) Clayton Matthews and I ended up randomly at Drive-by Shooting looking for Roadside Attraction. Climbed it and on our way down found Roadside Attraction and climbed it as well. Drive-by was thin. Roadside has a lot of ice! Pillar looks amazing. Any of the non-vertical ice had a layer of rotten ice to clear, but underneath it was solid. Cold day with the wind chill, screaming barfies full on on the first climb in the morning! (Cord and rap ring on tree above right side of Drive-by added)

Drive-by Shooting through the trees (Mike Vanwerkhoven)

Clayton in the rock cave hand-warming station (Mike Vanwerkhoven)

Roadside Attraction (Mike Vanwerkhoven)

Leading up Roadside Attraction (Mike Vanwerkhoven)

(Jeff Van Driel) Climbed at Mystery Roach Hotel and Fat Giblets today (Jan 2) with Teresa and Tim Ross.
Mystery Roach Hotel is lean. We dry tooled through the bolts at the bottom to avoid breaking any of the fragile features. It was a bit thin for screws in general. As far as access, CME is the company developing the area and their site office is now right at the base of the climb. We chatted with them and they let us park right there. How long this will last, I don’t know. They definitely didn’t want us to head up the road any further as they are blasting up there.
Fat Giblets is in good shape, although the lower angle ice near the top was a bit rotten on the surface. Lacy Giblets looked like the lower smear was detached from the rock somewhat (sorry, no pic). We took a long circuitous route (deep, slow trailbreaking even with snowshoes) to get there and a more direct route down. Half way between Wedgemount turnoff and Wedge Woods (park either/or) head more or less straight up, then trend a bit left to the climb.
Here are the coordinate corrections for the kmz file:
Mystery Roach Hotel 50.17471, -122.87532
Giblets 50.17593, -122.88618

Mystery Roach Hotel (Jeff Van Driel)

Fat Giblets (Jeff Van Driel)

(Joseph Wong) Tried to climb A Scottish Tale today (Dec 31). Approached from Chief parking lot. It’s knee to chest deep snow on the approach. Took me 3 hours to the base. I couldn’t start climbing, as I kept sinking in the snow. Jean-Marc Savoie told me he rapped in and climbed it yesterday. I think that’s the way to go for now.
(Alex Watson added…) We rapped in and climbed A Scottish Tale from where the rock is ahead of you. The snow was really hard deal with, even when rapping in!
A couple of us put in a shiny new rap station where the old shitty pin station was halfway down the main flow of A Scottish Tale. Should make it much easier and safer for those approaching via the Gondola.
An observation; the tree at the top of the climb is getting shit kicked from people rapping. It might be worth looking at making a more sustainable anchors here with the added traffic on this route.

The snowy direct approach to A Scottish Tale (Joseph Wong)

Drilling on A Scottish Tale (Alex Watson)

Fresh bolts on A Scottish Tale (Alex Watson)

Highway 1 – Hope

(Drew Brayshaw) We climbed Mousetrap on December 31. There was lots of crud to clear to get to the ice. Lots of ice under the crud, but you need to be prepared to dig for pro. Need to climb the first 5 meters on steeper ice, but the sticks were good and the landing was a big fluffy pillow. Screws would have been short on that though. Better pro higher up. The climb itself is a trail, beaten in to top of second pitch. We did not go past there.
Spitting Cobra looks in from the road.
Tradewinds and Tailwind too.

Mousetrap on the left, and A Better Mousetrap on the right. Snowy approach on Dec 30 (Sean Draper)

Leading Mousetrap (Drew Brayshaw)

Spitting Cobra (mid-left) from the road (Drew Brayshaw)

Thanks to Drew for updating the latest New Climbs Update.

Drew also created a beta version of a Google Earth file that includes locations of most climbs from both Don Serl’s West Coast Ice guidebook and the New Climbs Update.
Here it is embedded in Google Maps. Please let us know if you notice and major errors or omissions.

There’s been quite a bit of snow in the last few days. Avalanche conditions, particularly in Eastern BC, are as high as Considerable. Keep safe – check the latest local conditions at Avalanche Canada.

Overall, you should expect snowy and early-season, thin conditions on most routes. The upcoming sunny days and cold nights should start to fatten up the ice nicely, over the next few weeks.

Highway 40 – Bridge River Canyon & Lillooet

(DrewBrayshaw) Graham Rowbotham and I climbed at Hell Creek today (Dec 27). Main falls have a couple WI 2 to 3 lines to do. Oh Hell/What the Hell are also in with some wetness; Oh Hell finish is pretty much just icicles so move left from top of that pillar to What The Hell anchor tree. Hell Freezes Over is not in yet but has some icicles. Looked at hiking up the canyon to Lost in Hell/Bloody Hell, but there are lots of fresh downed logs from the fire in there. Looks like there might be more ice too, if anyone feels like prospecting for new climbs.

Overview of the falls. Main falls routes left and center. What the Hell and Oh Hell at right. Hell Freezes Over out of sight further up gully to right (Drew Brayshaw)

Below Oh Hell (Drew Brayshaw)

Hell Freezes Over… or not (Drew Brayshaw)

Graham leading What the Hell (Drew Brayshaw)

Top roping between Oh Hell and What the Hell (Drew Brayshaw)

(Drew Brayshaw) Graham (Rowbotham) and I made a couple of false starts this morning and ended up salvaging the day (Dec 28) with a run up Honeyman Falls. The first pitch is in great shape. There is a huge geyser on the second pitch and, this is important, it moves around! It moved over to spray our belay 70 m up a couple minutes after we got there. We got doused pretty good while building a v-thread and retreating and ended up with a few mm of rime all over our clothes and gear. Recommend building an anchor lower down (40 m or so off the ground) if you climb this in the next few days.

Honeyman Falls last Thursday (Drew Brayshaw)

Graham leading Honeyman Falls (Drew Brayshaw)

Iced up Graham (Drew Brayshaw)

Rime ice gear (Drew Brayshaw)

Highway 99 North – Marble Canyon & Oregon Jack

(Peter Watson) We climbed Icy BC today (Dec 29) at Marble Canyon. Drove up the Bridge River to have a go with The Gift, but lots of new snow and strong winds had us run away. Marble was a nice consolation to the day. The storm made for a memorable ride home.

Rapping Pitch 1 of Icy BC (Peter Watson)

Pitch 2 of Icy BC (Peter Watson)

Climbing Pitch 3 of Icy BC (Peter Watson)

Highway 99 South – Duffey Lake Road

(Peter Watson) Meet at 11am at Cinnamon Creek today (Dec 27). Mindset on climbing Last Call. It did not disappoint. First (mixed) pitch has some ice, but we used a 4th class ramp about 200 feet up from start of real first pitch and rappeled off a large tree 30m into gully  — to arrive below start of second pitch (first real ice pitch). Steep and chandeliers describes first 20m or so. Wi4+. All rappel stations replaced with new cord and rap rings. One v-thread for second rappel. 70m ropes used.

Last Call from the road (Peter Watson)

Second pitch ice on Last Call (Peter Watson)

(Kris Wild) Driving back to the coast from Kamloops on Dec 30, and can give visual report on a few spots.

Marble Canyon routes look great, especially Icy BC.
Three Ring Circus was fat (not sure about access these days).
Synchronicity looked awesome (powdery snow on talus approach would be gruelling).

Highway 99 South – Pemberton, Whistler & Squamish

(Brian Martin) Climbed Cal-Chek today (Dec 28), it’s in, I led with 15cm screws on the bottom 1/3 and 13’s on the top 2/3 with my last screw being a 10cm. I suggest going around the rock on the right if you are at all nervous about rock climbing with ice gear as straight up on the big bulge doesn’t top out on ice. I am a conservative climber, but if you are comfortable with a little risk straight up works. As a note it was just Justin Bennett and myself there and the snow was pounding down. Enjoy it, the conditions were perfect today.

Some pictures of Cal-Chek from Jean-Marc Savoie:

Cal Chek (Jean-Marc Savoie)

Cal Chek (Jean-Marc Savoie)

Cal Chek (Jean-Marc Savoie)

Cal Chek (Jean-Marc Savoie)

(Alex Ratson) Got on A Scottish Tale today (Dec 28) via the Sea-to-Sky Gondola. Seemed like a slight inversion with much wetter snow falling up top then at the car. Regardless, the route was fun to climb. Lots of large sluffs on the peripheral of the gully… might be front country but definitely still presents some avy hazards with this large dump of snow.

Highway 1 – Hope

(Don Serl) I went to Kamloops and back for Christmas visiting, and from a quick but decent look while passing by west of Hope (Dec 27), I’d say Medusa is in. Not much snow, so the walk up will be a bit of a trial.

(Fern Webb) I got a glimpse of Nepopekum Falls from the blue chair today (Dec 27). Looks blue and solid, but not as big as I have seen in other years. Lots of fresh snow so the approach will be a chore. Was snowing too much to take a picture.

The BC ice season is finally forming up nicely. The high temperatures in Lillooet are forecast to be in the -10ºC range to the end of the coming weekend and well below freezing through the first half of January. Good stuff for the ice!

Highway 40 – Bride River Canyon

The Gift looks in according to this nice drone video.
The Theft is still forming. Pitch 4 icicles have not touched down – see drone video.

Highway 99 North – Marble Canyon & Oregon Jack

(Boomer R. Tadd – WCI Facebook group) Oregon Jack. December 22. Most of the Lower Pillars are free of snow, since I cleared it all off for everyone. Hooky lower pillar and can do a couple variations, thanks to some smears on rock lower down, so can mix it up for laps on rock if you want to play. A foot of snow on the way in didn’t stop the Jeep, but road is pure ice under snow so take caution driving up to big tree for parking… Crux is hopping over barbwire, goes at grade 3 or higher, just saying!😜 Upper middle bulge is horrible and running. I wouldn’t screw it, but I know some people have screwed worse. Solo action up to top pillar over hollow bulge is better if your not wearing Goretex. It’s actually not bad for early season, many different formations, so I like it.

Oregon Jack on Dec 22 (Boomer R. Tadd)

(Clark Bostrom) Braved the cold in Marble Canyon today (Dec 24). There’s a foot of light fluffy snow, so dig out the gators. Deeping Wall was well formed and dry. The line to the right was in good nick but wet. First pitch of Icy BC is good to go, but wet and snowy. No other humans around.

Deeping Wall (Clark Bostrom)

Photo of Deeping Wall (left) and Icy BC (right) from Emily Doyle:

Photo of Deeping Wall (left) and Icy BC (right) from Emily Doyle

Highway 99 South – Duffey Lake Road

(Jean-Marc Savoie – WCI Facebook group) Rambles Left is still in (thin) condition, on Dec 23. Bring at least 3 red screws. We ventured all the way to the high tier, which I had never explored. We found a sweet steep flow. Go check it out.
Shreddie already has more ice than last year.
Closet Secrets is starting its forming with a curtain at the top.
Entropy looks in and ready to hike to.

Zoomed in photo of Shreddie.

Shreddie (Jean-Marc Savoie)

Highway 99 South – Squamish, Whistler & Pemberton

(Jean-Marc Savoie – WCI Facebook group) In case anyone was wondering, as of December 24, Line Drive, Nintendo 64, and Alice on Ice are all at roughly 25% formed. Need a few more nights or colder temps. Try later in the week or next week.

(Mohammad Pahrbod – WCI Facebook group) Checked Cal Chek today (Dec 23) – virgin ice with running water in spots. Much better than last Thursday when checked by Jean-Marc. Believe might be climbable by Wed (Dec 27) if temps stay around -5ºC for few more days.

(Drew Brayshaw – WCI Facebook group) Graham Rowbotham and I (Drew Brayshaw) stopped in Birken Valley on the way to Lillooet and climbed Place Creek Falls. Pretty good shape right now. Maybe a bit easier than Update describes it with about 10 m of WI4 and lots of easier rambling. One big hole at the bottom, but climbs dry. We climbed 4 pitches: 30 m WI 2+, 30 m WI4, 60 m mostly easy with a 15 m WI3 step, and 60 m partly easy with 25 m of WI3.

Approach Notes: Turn right off Pemberton Portage Road on to Anson Road. Drive to the end and park. Walk down to the train tracks and North 100 m to a crossing. Follow quad trail past private property signs and under the power line [You will see a bunch of no trespassing signs, but this is the Place Glacier Trail. I (Drew) think they may be there for liability reasons. You definitely do not pass any houses or through any cultivated fields or range-land with stock animals.). Take a right fork. When you reach the second power line, walk left (North) 100 m and look for pink flagging on old road. Follow this old road until it becomes the Place Glacier Trail. Hike up this trail 20 minutes to the ice. Descend frozen moss gully or rap in down canyon wall to the base of the climb.

Descent Notes: Near the top. Walk off to climbers left from top to regain trail. 15 minutes walk with crampons back to the packs!

Place Creek Falls from the approach trail. (Drew Brayshaw)

Graham starting up the crux. (Drew Brayshaw)

Near the top. (Drew Brayshaw)

Other Birken stuff:
Roadside Attraction is in.
Candlewax is not quite in.
The Plum and nearby climbs are in.
Whisper Falls is in.
White Blotter pitch 1 is about 10 m away from touching down.

Highway 1 – Hope & Fraser Valley

(Josh Zahl – Facebook WCI group) Mousetrap is thin and cauliflowered, but climbable. (Drew) added that it has filled in a lot since Saturday.

Mousetrap (Josh Zahl)

South Okanagan

(Stan Sabourin – WCI Facebook group) South Okanagan Ice Update:
Blue Train – not in and scritchy
Naramata Creek – likely needs another good week…brittle, chandeliery ice, thinly veneered over running water
Okanagsn Spring – appears to be in, but may be thin (and it might even have a second pitch?)
Gong Show – appears to be in.