Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
International	(General)	(General)	(General)

Author

usa or canada climbing in august- places to go

james

17-Jun-2010
11:12:52 AM

On 16/06/2010 One Day Hero wrote:

>Lake Louise is fantastic quarzite climbing, mostly sport but also trad
>and mixed. Very similar to Frog in terms of ease of access, number and
>concentration of routes, and consistently superb quality of routes. The
>rock is A1, I rate this place very highly!

seconded. Doesn't look quite as inspiring as Araps but the routes are really good. Go early in summer (9am) otherwise the parking lot is full of RVs & annoying tourists. Most sport climbers in Canada are lazy & won't get to the crag until noon, so its quieter in the morning (80% of climbers at the Lake only clip bolts but you should take a small rack to make the most of it).

>I really like Horne Lake on Vancouver Island. Steep limestone cave overlooking
>THE model pine-tree beaver lake (you want "canada"? doesn't get much more
>"canada" than this) . Camping is probably a shitfight in school hols, was
>a ghost town after they end. As with the gramps caves, if you can't do
>22 warm up and 26 proj, you will get spanked.

is this near Victoria? I've also heard about good climbing in Strathcona Park (ie Mt Washington area), & a really good but limited steep crag (not many routes) near Kamloops.

in August you could go to Jasper also. Lots of good cragging, more quartzite than limestone. Lots of new stuff done in the past few years. No recent guidebook but you can get info from local stores. There are 1 or 2 spots worth stopping on the way up the Icefields Parkway, think 90m high quartzite 'blocks'. And if you feel like climbing real mountains there is alpine rock with more quartzite peaks closer to Jasper.

early spring or late fall - Utah desert is prime (ie Indian Creek, St George), Gunnison/Black Canyon maybe. Smith Rock or J-tree perhaps (think it gets hot there in summer). I've heard good things about the shorter granite trad crags in the Cottonwoods canyons (Salt Lake City), & there are some higher alpine granite crags in the Wasatch that look worthwhile (think shorter Bugaboos stuff eg: McTech). Some Bow Valley climbers go climbing near Eureka (near Whitefish, Montana) spring & fall to extend the usually short rock season. Lake Louise-type quartzite crags, less bolts, free camping & no crowds.


climbingfool

17-Jun-2010
2:40:03 PM

if you do get up to jasper, a good day trip is to climb the guides route (5.7 or 10a depending on what final pitch you do) on Morrow Peak, then hike over the top, get into the river and follow it down and descend morrow canyon via 6-7 wet and dry abseils. access via the overland mtn bike/hiking trail.

Mt Edith Cavell near jasper is a good, easy peak as well. The east ridge is very nice and generally clear of snow and ice by august and depending on your comfort level, roping up is not mandatory. maybe 15 m of easy 5.6 climbing. if there is some snow, you can usually walk around it.

cadot crack is also amazing, 5.8, 6 pitches, near jasper, above a lake i forgot the name of...maybe medicine lake.

there is a better guide out now for the jasper area.

One Day Hero

17-Jun-2010
6:03:20 PM

On 17/06/2010 james wrote:
>is this near Victoria?

About half an hour north of Nanaimo on the highway, turn left, 40ish kms of good dirt road. There's a gargantuan campground and a summer camp (should make it easy to google), I've heard stories of 500 people camped there mid holidays. However, in late september, we had it to ourselves (except for the resident beaver)

Routes are very long upsidedown jugthugging, think muline height and angle.......less width on the crag but probably the same number of routes. The rock quality was good, its too small and monostyled to justify a specific trip, but makes a fantastic 3 day break from the squampton zoo

Linze

17-Jun-2010
6:04:11 PM

On 16/06/2010 freesolo wrote:
>for linze:
>
>spring and fall near seattle is WET. few options other than driving a
>ways. are you visiting or roadtripping? cracks or bolts?

seems that everyone says its gonna be really wet/gonna do some sneaky climbing after getting my airfare paid for to attend a conference (hehehehe!) so prob a couple of weeks/most prob bolts

@ vonClimb.... after looking at the topo am 100% sold on smith rocks

One Day Hero

17-Jun-2010
6:12:23 PM

Yeah, Smith is rad! You'll be very close to Squami as well, some Seattle climbers do the drive for weekend trips.

I would say climbing coolness = Squami > Smith > Index > Skaha, but prob of dry rock = Skaha > Smith > Squami > Index

17-Jun-2010
7:50:10 PM

as previously mentioned in this thread but apparently overlooked - Smith can get stinking hot in summer. In late Jul / early Aug we canned it almost as soon as we showed up. (yes, bad planning I know) Think Araps mid summer - foul. Personally I wouldn't go in August unless I knew the forecast was ok.


regdog55

22-Jun-2010
1:43:21 PM

There's some nice climbing in the Sierras around Clark Canyon; quite a few craglets so you can dodge the sun, and pretty much all ringbolts. We were there in September last year and had spectacular weather. Plenty of camping options nearby. We also had fun at Alabama hills, near Lone Pine, and with good camping choices.

There are 27 messages in this topic.