Outdoor Research Verticulture » Bryan Gilmore http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com Get Stoked! Outdoor Research Verticulture Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:31:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Canadian Climbing http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/07/canadian-climbing/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/07/canadian-climbing/#comments Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:15:07 +0000 Bryan Gilmore http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=6846 

After a winter spent nursing a nagging shoulder injury, watching my partners get strong and send projects, I half jokingly asked a good friend if he was interested in doing some alpine climbing in Canada in May. Now, May is not known for being the primo month for the big routes; flipping through the seminal tome “Selected Alpine Routes in the Canadian Rockies,” March and September stand out as the most reliable times to send. Add to that a biblical winter and a spring snow cycle that wouldn’t quit, and things were looking precarious at best!

I’m not much of a snow climber and all the routes we were psyched on looked like gothic churches in France. Not being known for our high IQ’s, we made a decision, packed our bags, and went to sleep with a plan to get up early and head up on Andromeda Strain, a route etched in the minds of all aspiring alpine climbers due to it’s intriguing cover photo on the book mentioned above.

Upon waking, Josh had a new plan! With a decent forecast, he thought we’d better go for the real prize and head into North Twin. As you will see in the following video, that didn’t work out so great. We spent all day post-holing on skis up and over Wooley Shoulder (1,500m up and then down), then spent the rest of the day and the whole next day watching snow fall. As I mentioned earlier, 2011 was a wild spring – the snow would not stop. And so the Twin disappeared in the clouds and the rumble of avalanche filled the air. With our main objective shrouded in snow, we packed up and reversed our epic approach, this time in only 6 hours.

After an evening refueling in Jasper, we dried our gear and repacked for the Andromeda Strain – a healthy little climb on the side of the Icefields Parkway. The following morning found us tiptoeing around and over snow mushrooms, scratching up some of the worst rock I’d ever seen, and then digging through the summit cornice. We had splitter weather for the A Strain, but that was the last of it. The next few days were basically spent looking for free wi-fi.

Before we knew it we were back in Colorado and since we only got up one route in while in Canada we decided to head up and see what Hallets Peak and the Diamond could dish up… lots more snow and plenty of fun. You can look back on any climbing trip and wish you got better weather and more sends, but in the world we live in today I feel lucky to have spent the time with a great friend exploring some crazy terrain. And I’m going back, but this time I’ll remember to check the first ascent dates!

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/07/canadian-climbing/feed/ 0 GOOD NATURED RIB’N http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/12/good-natured-ribn/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/12/good-natured-ribn/#comments Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:44:13 +0000 Bryan Gilmore http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=5441 I’m not a soloist. But today was different, my partners bailed and I was frustrated. The thermostat was reading close to 50º, and had the sun been shining I would have gone rock climbing. Alas, it was closing in on 1pm and I was three espresso’s into my motivational pack job.




I intended on wandering up to the Skylight area and hitchhiking my way up some mixed routes, but upon arriving at the parking lot, there were already ten cars. So, looking around I noticed that the Ribbon was free and clear and my decision was made. I saw some packs of people at the base of Birdbrain Boulevard (BBB) and located a party closing in on it’s last pitch. This worried me a bit, because it’s becoming commonplace to rappel from BBB, over copious amounts of loose rock, and onto the Ribbon and it’s beefy chain anchors and treeless line.

After shutting my car door and popping in my earbuds, I felt like hurrying… I looked at the time and starting moving. Less than 15 minutes later I was donning my harness and spikeys, marveling at my speed. Now, as I said in my first sentence, I’m not a soloist. Here is where my speed turned into a crawl. I methodically swung and kicked my way up the slushy, pale blue waterfall. It was nice just taking my time, making sure my tools were bomber and feet weren’t gonna skate. After about 400 feet, I clipped the chains and started threading my rope. On my first rappel, I lost even more time; my rope ends dangled about 15 feet above the in-situ V-thread. So, being extra careful, I zipped in a screw, rapped a bit more and clipped the V-thread. Now I had to climb back up to get my screw and down climb, all while being clipped in! Three more quick rappels and I was re-packing my bags. It took less than ten minutes to skitch down the approach slopes, cross the creek and get back to the car.

I know I didn’t set any speed record, but I did all this in 1h 50m. I don’t want to start any competitive soloing – that would be dangerous. But I also know that with a few adjustments I could shave a decent bit of time from my “record”…

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/12/good-natured-ribn/feed/ 0 Eight Hundred and Eighty Eight Hours http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/07/eight-hundred-and-eighty-eight-hours/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/07/eight-hundred-and-eighty-eight-hours/#comments Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:08:44 +0000 Bryan Gilmore http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=3877

Sublime mixed climbing

Hurry up and wait. I think we might have set a record in our travels to Patagonia. From Denver International Airport it was a short 25 hours before we sat down and enjoyed our first Hamberguesa of the trip at El Rancho Grande. Three and a half weeks later, our speed record was our only achievement, period. I guess it’s good to get a fast start! I only had 39 days – minus two for travel- so I had 37 days in El Chaltén. Plenty of time, I thought, to get up a few big routes. In the end I spent about 24 hours alpine climbing. So, I spent 888 hours doing nothing so I could spend 24 hours doing what I love most.

Honestly, it doesn’t make sense, I spent thousands of dollars to basically get weak and drink Argentine wine. I’m sure I could have pulled that off at home… probably not – I would have climbed a lot more. Plus, I could have spent the evenings at home with my wife and daughter, instead of endlessly spraying about the weather with a bunch of smelly gringos. As I harshly learned, this is alpine climbing reality. You sit, and sit, and sit. Then you run, run, run. Only to get fooled and have to descend and wait again. Finally, if you are lucky, everything aligns and the sun emerges, dries the cracks, clears the faces and you pray you’ve put everything in place and you SEND!

The Meteogram, aka the weather, is the hottest topic of conversation in Chaltén. If you don’t spend at least 3 hours each day looking at and discussing the current version then you aren’t really a climber. And each day the Meteogram looked the same, crappy for the next three days with high winds and precipitation, and on day 4 and 5, things looks way better, low wind values and no precip what so ever. But it never moves any closer, every day you’d look and every day you’d see crappy for the next three days with high winds and precipitation, and on day 4 and 5, things looks way better, low wind values and no precip whatsoever. It was like “Groundhog Day”. It’s called the window (la ventana in español), and over coffee you’d hear it, then at the evenings asado or at the cervesaria late night. “Did you see the window?” “In four days, it’s looking good”. It was a joke, the weather was never going to get good, or at least it seemed that way.

Climbing Aguja Mermoz with Fitz Roy looming. Photo: Zack Smith

Being raised in New Hampshire, I have good Puritan values. Basically, that means I learned early to never let anybody know what you’re thinking. I was depressed, thinking I had spent all of this money, and coordinated this chunk of time away from my wife and four year old daughter for nothing. Just an expensive camping trip, oh, and I injured myself bouldering. Great, just GREAT!

Just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I was right. With just seven days left in our trip the weather felt like giving us a chance. We were ready and so was everyone else in the region, climbers poured into the streets like Bud Light at a frat party… Everyone was running for the hills. Unfortunately, the big rock routes were out of the question still, as the cracks and ledges were choked with snow and ice. Because of this we headed to the west side of Fitz Roy for a route that usually melts out in mid December, just as it did this year. But, with all the snow that had been piling up over the last two months we knew the Supercanaleta would be in good nick. And we were right.

I am not exaggerating when I say our climb “started” with 3,000′ of ice climbing. If all goes according to plan you do the “start” in the dark. Otherwise it’d be too scary to solo, not because of the difficulty, but the sheer size. Who ever said “size doesn’t matter” never climbed a big mountain. Being a couple thousand feet from terra firma is scary, no matter who you are. So, it makes sense to do this in the dark, just you and your bubble of light, making way up a nice grade 3 ice tongue. As expected, we reached the rope-up point right at first light. And over the next few hours we simul-climbed endless alpine perfection. Splitter granite cracks and aesthetic ice smears led up to the ridge that would lead us on a circuitous path to my first, and the tallest, Patagonian summit. But, ridges tend to be less than straight forward climbing and we found ourselves climbing up, down and across beautiful rime covered rock. Finally arriving at the apex of the technical climbing, we did a short rappel and slogged up the final slopes to the summit of Fitz Roy.




That’s it, 888 hours is all it takes to get your 24 hour route in… was it worth it? In the end, yes. Definitely. I spent the day and night with a good friend, and I mean “spent the night”. Zack and I curled up in his two man bivy sac (read: piece of nylon) and spooned the night away. We shivered, went numb, turned over and did it again… until daylight. But we woke up underneath Fitz Roy and had a great view of the Torres. In a hotel they’d charge you extra for that!

I remember being pretty negative and thinking that alpine trips were stupid, but those thoughts have happily been replaced with spooning and shivering, pre-dawn starts, star-lit glacier walks, and most of all, windless moments on top. For all of those hours spent being buffeted by the wind gave way to windless summits. Will I do it again? Definitely. Those hours spent on the mountain were irreplaceable, with beautiful ice runnels, perfect Patagonia rime-covered faces, and exquisite cracks. I’ll remember the smiles on our faces as we stood on top and the exhausted look of satisfaction after a pitch-black descent off of less than AMGA approved anchors. And last but not least, the endless march back to town. Utterly silent, beautiful, haunting. Not passing another person for over five hours, in pitch black and arriving back at our cabana in town at 4:30am with a bus to catch in less than three hours! I couldn’t have asked for a better trip.

Aguja Poincenot, Fitz Roy and Aguja Mermoz from El Pilar

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