Gripped: The Climbing Magazine April/May 2023 Vol. 25 Issue 2

It was a crazy winter with epics, bold first ascents, too many deaths, avalanches, solos and more. There were new mixed climbs established in the Rockies, a sold-out ice festival in Lillooet, huge test-piece lines established in Quebec and a WI6+ solo first ascent. A class four avalanche was witnessed ripping down Urs Hole, a popular WI2+ in Banff, while Quebec’s Festiglace Ice Festival had many climbers taking big whippers. More climbers than ever visited Helmcken Falls, one of Canada’s highest waterfalls tucked into Wells Gray Park in B.C, to project spray ice/mixed lines. The warm temperatures made the six-pitch-tall wall dangerous, and Gord McArthur took a rock to the head. His helmet broke and he was rushed to the hospital with minor injuries. Ines Papert and Sarah Hueniken worked…

In 2022, Canadian Lucas Uchida had one of the best seasons in Squamish that anyone has ever had. Over the period of a few months, he climbed many of Squamish’s hardest boulder problems and made quick work of Chris Sharma’s Dreamcatcher 5.14d, one of the country’s most iconic lines. Kicking off the season with a flash of Room Service V12, he went on to send the notoriously difficult Singularity, starting from Nalle Hukkataival’s lower start. Although the problem was originally graded V14, a growing number of climbers are now calling the problem V15. “I mean if it is V14 it’s definitely the hardest of all the ones I tried—by far,” said Uchida. “People can interpret that however they want. There are still other ones [for me] to do [in Squamish],…

Eeyou Bouldering was opened on April 21, 2022 by Vince Rodrigue and Jeanne de Metz, and it’s become a community hub in Waskaganish in northern Quebec. We touched base with Rodrigue to hear how the busy gym got started and what the future holds. Where are you two based? In winter and Spring, we’re settled in Waskaganish, a small community in Eeyou Istchee (James Bay), around 1,000 kilometres north of Montreal. When summer comes, we move around—de Metz has a van that she uses to go bouldering. I usually hitchhike west for the alpine summer season. What’s the story with you two? Jeanne and I met at university, where we were taking elementary education. We became very close friends and graduated in 2018 before heading to Waskaganish to teach. We fell…

Known as having some of Canada’s most difficult sport climbs, Acephale, located on Heart Mountain in the Bow Valley, has been a must-visit crag for over 20 years. The crag has two distinct sections: the Upper and Lower walls. The Upper has harder lines that are shorter and more intense. It’s stacked with in-your-face boulder problems. The Lower has climbs that require incredible power endurance up longer routes. In July 2012, Josh Muller, now the owner of several climbing gyms in Alberta and B.C., made the first ascent of Prime Time. In the early 2000s, it was bolted by Derek Galloway, a climber who went on to author Bow Valley Sport. It remained an open project until Muller began to work on it. “It’s super cool,” says Muller, of what…

In 2019, Sean Jones and Christine Garrett completed a nine-pitch 5.11d called Otherworld, Yosemite’s longest sport climb. The slab-to-vertical adventure line has well-protected cruxes, gets all-day sun and can be climbed fast by teams familiar with the technical edging and smearing found in the park. Jones bolted the line for his friends and family to enjoy, providing them with a route that requires only 16 quickdraws to do. It can be rappelled with a single 60 m rope. Jones, who’s authored 100 first ascents in Yosemite, balances his work in construction with climbing with his kids, Willow, Lily, and M’so, as well as climbing with long-time friends. His first ascents span the South Face of Half Dome, the Ribbon Falls Amphitheater, Bridalveil Fall and Parkline Slab. He chooses esthetics over…

The Columbia Valley is one of Canada’s best places to explore steep skiing and rowdy mountain bike trails, but among the those steep hills are small outcrops where climbers have been exploring for decades. Of course, for of a lot of reasons, they’re not open to everyone. A few years ago, I wrote a story about climbing at some of B.C.’s most remote and secret crags. After years on the road, meeting and climbing with new partners, you’re eventually shown where everything is. I wrote about the importance of keeping those secret crags a secret. It still ruffled the feathers of some B.C. climbers who’d rather there be no mention of “their” on-public-land secret crags. I’ve been warned to never speak about secret crags by climbers and have even been…