French Files, Part 3, Verdon continued

Okay, I have been slow to blog, because now I am back home in Squamish, and have been loving climbing here, mountain biking with the hound, and catching up with good friends...but here goes with some more French climbing.

So the next route on tap for us was Pichenbule, a 10 pitch classic in the main part of the gorge. We rapped in under cloudy skies, but thought nothing of it. After battling with another round of bad French guide book beta, we finally found the start. A few pitches of 5.10-5.11- climbing took us back to a big ledge system where we had rapped down to for La Demande. However this time when we got there the rain was starting to fall. Not wanting to rap down to the gorge bottom in the rain and walk out and hitch hike back 15km to the top of the gorge, we tried to claw our way to the top via a very well bolted 6 pitch 5.6.

Halfway up, it stopped raining, so we decided to rap BACK down to the ledge and continue the route. Well, we got 1 pitch back up on Pichenbule, and then the dark clouds of doom started rolling in. Oops. We abandoned our way onto another route that was a 5.9 or so. Luckily for us it was a bolted hand crack, and as the skies opened up to rain and hail, I clawed us out for 3 pitches of sopping wet limestone. Lightening was cracking all over as well, keeping nerves on edge. We dragged ourselves over the rim safe and sound, albeit wet, but we didn't have to walk and hitch hike home!

The next day dawned clear and we rapped down to the halfway ledge to try and finish the route. We did 6 pitches of brilliant, hard as nails 11+ face climbing, but were starting to feel tired after 20 pitches over the last 2 days. We fired the rest of the route and retreated to the gite for a well deserved rest day and some quality french wine!

Here are some shots...I will do one more post about the rest of our Verdon time!

You think those clouds mean it will rain? The base of Pichenbule

Pitch 2 Pichenbule

Pitch 3 before the rain

Luckily for us the cracks are bolted and you can climb them in the rain

The weather the next day...lots of folks out enjoying the sun!

The French Files, Part 2...the Verdon!

We left the Gorges du Tarn and headed straight for the multi-pitch adventures of the Verdon Gorge. Single pitch sport cragging is great, but the memories really are made on the all day 10 pitch routes for me. Hanging on the walls, vultures circling below, azure blue river pounding away in the gorge 1,000 feet below you - this is what climbing is all about for me! Oh yeah, and did I mention it is a paradise in the south of France? Can you say amazing wine for 4€, great local produce and anamazing gite we were staying in that was only 23€ a night, totally solar powered and beautiful? Life is getting better every day.

I will break down the Verdon trip into a couple of posts, each focusing on the big routes we did. After countless hours of internet research, it seemed as thought there were 3 pretty classic long routes to tackle, at a good spread of grades as well.

Our first day we decided to try our hand at La Demande, 6a+, 400m. This was the original route that climbed the tallest section of cliff at the Verdon Gorge, as was kind of like first ascent of El Cap for the French in 1968. Being the major weakness of the biggest cliff, the climbing felt right at home being from North America and having done my time on the trad classics: chimney's and cracks, BUT with tons of bolts! I love France!

So in classic Verdon style, we drove up to the top of the cliff, walked 2 minutes to the rap station, and abseiled down 400m to the gorge bottom. We then walked 15 minutes to the base of our route and Voila, we were climbing. Being the first long route of the year for us, Jas and I were psyched to start off mellow for us for a route graded 5.10. Pitches went well, the climbing was fun and it was not nearly as polished as I feared it might be.

Good times for us, and we felt warmed up to tackle the next big route in the gorge: Pichenibule...but that is for next week!

For now here are some photos...and if you want any info on the Verdon, check out this GREAT article from UK Climbing: http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=2076

Jas starts the 'approach'

The first few pitches of leaning cracks.

Jas follows the crux pitch (5 I think?)

Jas in the exit chimneys. 5.8 chimneys forever with bolts!

Back at home in our lovely Gite!

The French Files, Part 1

Winter finally came to end for me kicking and screaming…it held on for dear life as long as I could let it (or as long as my cool work opportunities could let it!). The season came to a close with helping to administer the AMGA Ski Mountaineering Guides Exam. We ran this program in a new venue: Hatcher Pass and Girdwood Alaska. I would show you all the cool places we went, and fun videos of the candidates working hard and skiing really cool things, but 10 days of long hours and hard work led me to be the biggest bumbly ever on the plane flight home. I didn’t realize my pack was open under my seat on my first flight back from AK, but my camera, ipod and altimeter watch all fell out. Ouch, that is a huge loss, can you say take a match to $1000 dollars? Well, you can’t dwell on that stuff to long, its only money and material goods. Lucky for me, I have great jobs and am not in dire straights financially while I live my dreams. Really, LUCKY ME!

So I got ‘home’ to Squamish for about a day, and then had to go to some meetings for the Backcountry Lodge owners of British Columbia in Penticton, so I got to actually rock climb for a day in Skaha! So psyched to be on the rock again, even got to almost onsight an 11d on the first day, except the baby butt smooth and WET rock at the chains sent me for my first big whipper of the season! Good times.

We returned home to Squamish and basically packed for the next adventure. 5 weeks in France! Clipping bolts, drinking red wine, eating soft cheeses. Holiday!

We started our journey in the Gorges Du Tarn, an area in the Midi-Pyrennes in southern France. It seems that the Tarn is not quite on the radar for global/European tourists, but very much so for the French. No one really spoke a lick of English around there, and Jasmin was forced to open up the corners of her mind of grade school French, and did pretty well. We found a ‘gite’ or room for rent adjacent to someone’s house – very common here, and very practical. We had a small two story place, with a kitchenette, couch, bedroom, washroom, walking distance to everything in the small town of La Malene, all for 32€/night! We stayed in the gorges for 10 days getting hopelessly pumped as we opened up our climbing season.

The gorge is filled with small, old style towns, including monestaries and castles up to 1500 years old. Quite scenic with all the old places and architecture and very green. Trails everywhere for walking, and over 2000 climbing routes in the 3 small river valley’s of the region. What more could a climber want? It was also quite wet; we had rain every single day, but luck for us the rock dries fast and most cliffs are steep enough that they stay dry in all but the heaviest downpours. That is what else a climber could want!

The limestone of the gorges is all a bit overhanging and extremely pocketed. It tends to be sharp, so our skin, baby soft from ski gloves, took a beating. But the 25-30m overhanging routes whipped us into shape pretty quick, and by the end of our stay I had already sent a slew of 5.12s, so the head was back in it. Good thing, because the next leg of our journey has taken us to the classic Verdon Gorge, for some committing 1000’ foot long multi pitch old school style routes…but more about that next time. Enjoy some photos from the first part of our trip.

The town of La Malene

Jasmin climbs 'C-100 Francs'

Guide's Course Video Wrap-up

Okay, all I have time for is to post the link for this video I just made of the AMGA course I taught last week. Enjoy!



Now I gotta get set for a few more days of ski touring in the Chugach, based out of Valdez.

The Final Stretch

The 10 day ski mountaineering guide course actually culminates with a 3 day mini-exam, so that candidates are then tested and certified to an assistant guide level. Over these 3 days, we take a close look at how they perform in 9 different areas:

1. Risk Management
2. Client care
3. Technical Systems
4. Application
5. Terrain Assessment
6. Movement Skills
7. Mountain Sense
8. Professionalism
9. Instructional Technique

As examiners, we give the candidates an objective, and then they make the appropriate plans to try and accomplish that objective. For these 3 days we based ourselves out of Keith's Hut in the Cerise Creek drainage off of the Duffy Lake Highway. If you haven't been to the Duffy, you are missing out. Basically, it is like the Rogers Pass of the Coast Range. Road side access to 5,000 vertical feet of relief, with chutes, glaciers, summits and pillow lines every where you look. Typically, it has a deep coastal snowpack as well. We never got any of our 3m + probes to hit the ground once at and above treeline. I was speculating that up high on the glaciers, the snowpack was at least 4 meters deep.

The first day's objective was to tour in to Keith's Hut, get settled and then take us on a quick powder skiing tour near the hut.

Day two was to try and summit Mt Matier and ski the Anniversary Glacier and some other smaller summits in the area.

Day three was to ski the Twin One glacier and ski out from the Hut.

Here are a few photos of the days to give you an idea of what we were up to. Right now I am trying to edit a video that will showcase what the candidates do during these exams.

Touring for Powder below Joffree Peak

Can you find the skiers? White out turns on the Anniversary Glacier

Danny shows us his Alpine Guide rope coiling prowess

White out peak scrambling. Rime doesn't ski so well, let's leave the skis behind for the summit of Hartzell.

Touring below the west buttress of Mt. Matier

Matt thinks another day might be appropriate for the NW face of Matier.

The first group makes its way to the Anniversary Glacier

Danny trying not to lose it with another night of tour plans.

Burning the Candle from Both Ends

Sometimes that is what the guide certification process is about. The alarm goes off at 5:45 am, coffee maker is turned on, weather is checked, bag is packed, lunch made, thermos filled. Skins? Check. Ski boots? Check. Gloves, hat, goggles, sunglasses, warm hat, gore-tex....check check check. And then the candidates show up at my house at 6:55am for the morning guide's meeting and briefing. We discuss the overnight changes in the weather and snowpack, the anticipated hazards associated with our day, and then review our plans. We pile out of the house and head up to the hills for more ski touring fun.

That is how every day has started for me lately, and they haven't been finishing until around 7pm at night, when the tours are done, the candidates debriefed, weather and snowpack discussed and plans finalized for tomorrow. Then its dry out my gear, unpack, eat dinner and go to sleep. Repeat the whole process the next day.

But we have fun out there everyday, because after all it is ski touring/mountaineering, and we are climbing peaks and skiing mostly powder. This week has been a blitzkreig of spring storms, that are seeming more like December than April. Low freezing levels on the coast of BC, has resulted in over 120cms of cold smoke at Whistler this week. It just doesn't stop...which isn't necessarily that great if you want to do some ski mountaineering! The last few days have been spent going over short roping and glacier travel, and attempted ski of Cayoosh on the Duffey Lake Road, tree skiing on Chief Pascale on the Duffy, and some more touring in the Blackcomb Backcountry.

Here are some shots to give you some visuals of what we have been doing this week.

Snowpack evaluation on Chief Pascale

Short Roping up Disease Ridge at Blackcomb

Disease Ridge

More Disease Ridge

Coming around to Blackcomb Peak

The Ringer

Well, it's not quite like going through the ringer, but some folks might say that going through your training and examinations to becoming a certified guide is a tough (both physically and mentally) endeavor. Right now I am in the middle of teaching the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA) Ski Mountaineering Guides Course based near Whistler, British Columbia. This program entails candidates learning and showing proficiency in various ski guiding techniques, including, but not limited to, snowpack assessment, crevasse rescue, skinning, short roping, downhill guiding...you get the point, a wide variety of backcountry skiing skills. It takes years of personal experience and prerequisite course work such as avalanche training and wilderness first aid, to even get accepted to the program.

I have gone through the ringer. I have done all of my trainings and became certified in Alpine, Rock and Ski guiding, and it took me quite a few years to do so. On average, it takes most candidates tens of thousands of dollars to put them selves through the program and about 3 to 5 years to complete the entire certification process. In the end, it kind of adds up to a PhD in mountain travel. So if you ever wonder why you should hire a certified guide, it is because someone has put them through the ringer and checked to see if they have what it takes to travel with people safely in the mountains.

We have just finished the first few days of the program, and it was greeted by about 80cm of fresh snow in the Whistler region. Wet and wild to say the least. The first two days were in heavy snow and concentrated on technical skills, and not so much skiing and touring.

Day 1's first objective was avalanche beacon tests to see if candidates could find and extract 3 avalanche beacons buried about a meter deep in under 7 minutes. The second test was the construction of rescue sleds and subsequent lowering of a victim down a few sections of steep slopes.

Day 2 focused on crevasse rescue techniques.

Day 3 (today) was about getting out and touring and some rope work on steep technical ascents as well as guiding a few technical descents.

Here are some shots...I have to go to sleep to wake up and do it all again tomorrow! Everyday we meet at 7 am and our end of the day meetings have been finishing at 7pm...and then the students have to go do their homework assignments!

Find that beacon! Probing for a buried target.


Pete Keane bringing us up through rock steps on Blackcomb Peak


Rob Hess tells us how to guide between bites of PB & J on the summit of Blackcomb


Candidates lead us up through some glaciated alpine terrain on Decker Mt.


Ski descent of the 9th Hole on Decker. Can you say 40 degree blower pow?