Genius Loci

So the weather has improved dramatically since the last post I made, and there has been a lot of action around town. People have been crushing, locals and visitors alike, and I could probably write quite a bit about it. But right now I'm only going to talk about one particular climb because its sunny and I should be out climbing...

The first day the sun arrived I headed back up the quick drying 'Genius Loci' after work with my friend Brad Gobright. I had written off climbing for the day, as I had felt pretty drained and tired at work that day. I had also decided that evening time was not a suitable time to try the route, as the lower two slab pitches would be baking in the full sun, but we headed up anyways and things went fairly smoothly. I almost fell a couple time on the first pitch, and had to change beta on the fly at the last crux, but I made it to the belay ledge without pitching off. The only fall of the day came on the second pitch surprisingly, but I pulled the rope and led it clean second go. We finished the route just as it got dark and made the quick rappels to the ground.

The whole route is amazing, it takes a wandering line linking improbable features and eventually ends on the Sword pitch of the Grand Wall route. I think the final pitch would be a spectacular way to link the 'Left Side' into the Grand Wall as well. It climbs an exposed line, linking the 'Grinning Weasel" into 'The Sword' an is one of the raddest pitches I've climbed in town. Also, if anyone doesn't know the story behind 'Genius Loci' a team of local legends, including Hamish Fraser, established the route in 1991 placing all the bolts on lead. The route has character, like the first ascent party, and as expected it was a great experience to climb it.

We didn't bring a camera, so there aren't any pics to post, but I'll see if I can find one off the web..

This believe this is a shot of Greg Foweraker (leading) and Hamish Fraser on pitch 4, which climbs a traversing dyke over to the Left Side of the split pillar.

Also, the Squamish Mountain Festival came to town, and put on the Flashed Dyno comp again. A fun little even held at the Squamish Adventure Center. The mens category was big this year, and there seemed to be a tonne of strong indoor/competitive climbers around. Somehow lankiness prevailed and I juuuuuust managed to scrape 1st place based on fall count, winning a nice new crash pad for the house.

But the real action was on the ladies side, Canadian national team member Elise Sethna broke a world record! Here's a vid of that... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxtotQfSNww&feature=youtu.be

Hoping to get on something cool this weekend, so maybe I'll have something to write about soon... peace.