The Goat

-

    April, 2022

    I took the day off school to do some work for Ken, a longtime friend. Most of the guys at the jobsite thought it was pretty funny I took the day off school to work. We were chatting about climbing and Ken suggested Hamish and I go checkout a sweet route up in marble canyon called 'The Goat'. When I got home I suggested to Hamish that we rip out and give this route a go next weekend. He said no way. For context, neither of us had climbed a proper multipitch before, and The Goat is a nineteen pitch long route.

The next day I invited Ken over for some pizza, and we chatted about the route. One thing lead to another, and Hamish agreed that we would give it a go. The plan was to learn on a small easy multi at Mt. Wells. If you can climb three pitches, then you can climb nineteen! Right?!?!?


   

    We found plenty of helpful tutorials on how to multipitch on youtube! Hurray for the internet! Once we did our practice run, learned our anchor systems, and had a laugh about how widly unprepared we were, it was time to head out to Cache Creek.

    Due to work contraints, the trip itenerary was as follows:

Saturday: work --> catch 9pm ferry to Tsawwassen --> drive to marble canyon

Sunday: finish driving to marble canyon --> 6am starting climbing --> catch 9pm ferry back to Victoria

Monday: back at work

Not too much room for error here.


    After a big hold up due to construction in Vancouver, we finally arrived in Marble Canyon. As we drove into the canyon, the faint early morning light was just enough to make out the wall looming above.

We took an hour to have a sleep in the truck before we were off.


Low Pitches


Ascending

    The climbing was almost entirely slab climbing, so the toes were geting really sore. Lower down we climbed the 5.11a variation. High up on the route there was a 5.10c pitch as well. This one was very slabby with no holds at all. It was quite long and runout. I didn't bring enough draws, so I ended up running it out big time at the top. My sore toes and overall fatigue added to the fear factor of a terrible slab fall.


Topping out this chossy pile of Limestone was unnerving. The topout of th eroute had only one anchor, and no bolts, and so we used a tree and a couple bushes as pro.





    My only warning to anyone who wants to climb the route is regarding heinous the scramble down. It follows a treacherously sleep canyon where the possibility of rockfall is all too real. While Hamish and I were about halfway down the canyon, a whole bunch of head sized rocks came hurtling through. Luckily we heard it coming a long way off and ran up to the canyon wall to avoid them. They flew by cracking and echoing like gunshots. Gnarly. We were glad to have safely made it off the mountain.

We ran down the road back to the truck and started the mad dash back to the ferry! We arrived at the ferry terminal at 8:40pm and managed to get on the 9pm ferry... the very last one.


Tired and Happy.

It was a memorable day and we look forward to heading back up to marble canyon next summer for the brand new 33 pitch route 'Guaranteed Rugged'!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Packing and Prehauling

-
Image
A gallon a day each for water plus breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, respectively. Sleeping bags, sleeping pads,, and the big cams for the wide cracks. A lighter, a knife, kitchen supplies, and so much more. The plan is to be up on the wall for 6 days. Obviously trying the Freerider.  With the bags packed on Monday, this morning started at 4am hiking to the base of El Capitan, with bags so heavy my legs wobbled beneath them. I had the 70L haul bag on my back, and then the poop tube across the top, with the 40L haul bag hooked to that. The approach is only 30-40mins luckily, so we made it in good time without exhausting ourselves completely. The rest of the morning was spent hauling the bags up the fixed ropes to heart ledges, about a third of the way up the route. The plan for Thursday is to climb the freeblast slabs up to the bags, as well as “the move” pitch and the hollow flake. This would be a huge first day but give us lots of breathing room for the rest of the route. We were ...
Read more

Update.

-
Image
Posting this because I said I would keep updates on here. Had a good time climbing the freeblast. Unfortunately didn’t manage to onsight it, slipping once on the 11c slab and once on the slab above. Pretty happy with onsighting the rest of the route though. I particularly enjoyed the half-dollar, which has a weird flare which eventually becomes a chimney.  At Heart ledge Tristan and I had a chat and decided to head down the following morning. I wanted to keep heading up the route but it was not possible given the circumstance. I’ve been thinking about climbing the Freerider all year, so it’s hard to be writing this as we drive home. I’m thinking about what a long winter it will be and how long I’ll need to wait until I can go back to Yosemite. I’m not accustomed to having to give up on things. Giving up on this one has left me with a strange feeling. I like to be able to say I tried my best and gave it my all, which usually leaves me with a sense of satisfaction. Now I just feel a ...
Read more