SkiSickness

I had elaborate plans to climb from Thu to Sun with different people every day. Most people backed off when I said I wanted to climb Borderline. Hm. Climbing with Maddy on Thu was the only solid plan that followed through (thanks Maddy). Anyhow, Borderline was on my top wish list to climb. I get fixated on some ideas occasionally and this time it was Borderline with the Angel's Crest link up, and if I got to climb the 11c that would just be too good to be true.

Fri night I drove to Squamish for the weekend and stayed with Julie and Jorge. I was just going to hang out and see what happens with partners and climbs. Jorge was ready to climb again after a month break. He has 1 1/2 hands to climb with so I just casually mention my climbing fantasies to him. Sat after he finished work he said: "lets climb what you said, Borderline"
me: "ok, and I can lead the 11c variation, haha"
jorge: "why not? and since we're already there we should just climb angel's crest, no?"
I like his thinking, woooooooooooot!

Climbing that afternoon blew me away. On Borderline there was everything-climbing from crack to roof to face to chimney and most of it again. All pitches were stellar. I struggled leading through the 2nd pitch roof but was chuffed I got through it. Jorge made that 11c look easy following despite handy cap. The chimney was a battle for both of us since we didn't realise we could lay back it.

I climb a super fun corner crack that leads to the roof above.


Jorge follows the underclings and side pull.


Jorge on the 3rd pitch. An amazing face climb to an amazing finger crack.


Finger jam time.


Jorge gets up into the chimney in pitch 4. It was HARD.


We climbed Borderline in 5 pitches. We had been climbing for 4 hours and it was already 7pm. Jorge is a super efficient fast alpinist and I had climbed Angel's Crest before, so we decide to run up the remaining 11 pitches to the top. Jorge lead all the way, we partly simul climbed and reached the top in 2 hours. Say whaaaat?

This is the last shot I took before following up. It was strangely exhilarating climbing so fast. You go so fast that you don't think about cruxes as cruxes.


We arrive at the top and my brain can't contain all this excitement. It's too much. Julie picked us up at the bottom and had dinner for us when we got back. Yessssss.


The next day I hike back to Borderline in hope to find some nuts or a cam that I dropped. This was in vain. I got lost and the eco system was too dense. I joined Jorge and Nathan cragging at Nightmare Rock, Murrin, and enjoyed pushing myself climbing with the advices of much more knowledgables.

Thanks for all the amazing climbing guys. I'm blown away.

Ps: Lovely bumping into Ziff, Jake and Paul on Thu too.

Bravo!

Borderline was impressive enough, but the crest in 2 hrs is stellar!

I might run into you next weekend as well

Check out the gear placements:

Naomi:


Me: No wonder Naomi crushes....

Way to go Naomi! Yessss!!!!

WANT
That looks nice, perhaps even nicer than all of the expert hiking I did yesterday. DOMS, here it comes
Was anything shying you away from High Plains Drifter? That above there right? Is it really hard?

I guess you missed the part where they started Borderline at 3 pm and climbed the rest of Angel's Crest in two hours to beat darkness. I'm sure Jorge is EL HOMBRE but something tells me that High Plains Drifter is not simulclimbing terrain.

We also didn't decide to go climbing till 1:30 pm and didn't have our gear sorted so it was too late to even consider HPD that day, but I'm PRETTY SURE Jorge would've been up for it too otherwise.

I'd be up for BD (roof variation)+AC+HPD. Any takers? .......................... please?

No way I didn't miss that, that's awesome, Angel's Crest took us a lot longer than that! Like three or four times longer?
I don't actually know that much, if anything about Borderline or High Plains Drifter. Someone just told me that was a good linkup. So honest questions believe it or not! Which one is harder? I read that HPD is a jam crack to a boulder problem or something like that?

I haven't climbed HPD yet but I can say with certainty that it'll be more difficult than BL. BL has a short 11c roof section. HPD has a sustained 11a hand pitch followed by a tricky 11c pitch that goes around an arete.