Horne Lake

Road-trip! OK: mini road-trip. Last week a complex array of parent/ child/ holiday schedules aligned so that my friend Todd and I could escape for a couple of days. Both of us were keen to check out the limestone at Horne Lake on Vancouver Island. Our mutual friend Travis also joined, helpfully sharing the ferry costs.

The climbing at Horne Lake is all located on one large wall about 200m high and a kilometre wide, rising above the north-west corner of the lake. Most of the rock is relatively uninteresting vertical face, but the centrepiece is a sensationally steep open cave, the Amphitheatre, which was the catalyst for the area's initial development in the late 1990s. Tufa features are abundant in the cave, so the climbing style is very similar to some of the famous limestone areas in Europe and Asia, like Kalymnos or Railay/ Tonsai (though Horne doesn't free-hanging stalactites). A great resource to have within reach of Squamish, as otherwise the nearest good tufa climbing is in Mexico! The ambience is pretty nice also. The lake beckons for an after-climb swim and there are beautiful arbutus trees mixed in with the usual firs and cedars. Fixed draws on most of the routes is a plus for me too.

The main cliffline. The Amphitheatre is just visible above the trees

Inside the Amphitheatre. Spot the anchor chains at the lip

Looking down at the lake through an arbutus tangle

That, unfortunately, is the end of the good news about Horne Lake. Tragically, though adjacent to a provincial park, the cliff is on private land. And the landowners, a strata co-op encompassing many lakeside homes, also draw water from a spring under the Amphitheatre. Climbing is not allowed, as far as I can figure out because of the water issue, unfounded liability fears and - I guess - the inevitable inertia of a decision-making entity with many individual members. In practise, the climbing ban does not seem to be enforced or even advertised on signboards, but consensus amongst local climbers seems to be to keep the place below the radar to discourage excessive attention. There is no guidebook.

During our two days there, we did encounter other climbers; sufficient to make the narrow ledges under the Amphitheatre feel crowded at times. All Canadians, I think, but definitely not limited to "locals". For example, there was a couple from Saskatchewan. It is hard to keep cliffs secret. Horne is well documented on the US website rockclimbing.com and sporadically appears in sponsored climbers' videos, oddly including one from Vancouver-based posh anorak purveyors, Arc'teryz, who you would think would know better, though that one is now offline. So it is difficult to imagine that the current status quo is sustainable in the long term.

In the spirit of the dodgy access situation, I am therefore not going to spray exuberantly how Horne Lake is a fantastic must-visit world-class venue. However, I will, er, definitely be heading back. In the context of the Squamish climbing season, it looks like Horne may be a good option once the winter rains start, as the umbrella-like Amphitheatre should stay climbable until the tufas start to seep. (Similarly, the word seems to be that Skaha, in the Okanagan, is climbable in the spring long before Squamish.) One route at Horne in particular has gone straight into my long term wishlist: Jesus Save the Pushers, a monstrous upside-down thing across a 20m (?) roof, that I am told has no bad holds. JSTP is graded 5.13a, but I feel may be doable for me with work. I onsighted a .12b - Moonraker - and flashed .12a - Quarter Century Girl - on this visit without too much trouble (*), which bodes well. For me, the climbing style is very familar.

Todd and Travis, who haven't squandered as much of their lives in dusty limestone holes as me, did struggle with the tufas. However Travis redpointed Quarter Century Girl and Todd onsighted a sparsely-bolted .11c horror: the Waterspout. For the success of our short trip we owe thanks to Fiona, who greeted us from a yoga mat in the parking lot on day one. I have various not-wholly-positive preconceptions about people on yoga mats, but Fiona, a strong Aussie expat, proved extremely helpful: orientating us at the cliff (we had little information apart from a magazine article from 1999), directing us toward good routes and never saying "namaste" once. My preconceptions need a rethink.

Travis warming up in the Amphitheatre

Todd warming up in the Amphitheatre

Todd almost sending Quarter Century Girl

Fiona actually sending Quarter Century Girl

Todd leading the Waterspout

(* confession time: I grabbed the anchor chain on Moonraker to clip after my "onsight". I initially felt this disqualified the ascent but after doing the route again an hour later, without the chain grab, I decided it made no real difference to the route. Or put another way, I definitely onsighted a .12b but arguably not the full route ...)

the road to Butt Face

It would be an understatement to say that my older son, Leo, 13, does not climb often. In the last five years, up to the start of this summer vacation, he has done: a couple of weekends bouldering outside in the UAE in 2009, when I was putting photos together for my guidebook; one afternoon bouldering on Squamish rock last summer; one easy climb this spring on a school camping trip ... and that's it. No indoor climbing at all, unless you count using the wifi at the Hive gym  a couple of times whilst I trained! I don't mind - generally I don't think kids should be pressured into specific sports - but sometimes I get wistful when I read amazing stories like this (Jim Herson and his 14 year old daughter sending the Nose in a day).  

However, this summer Leo had the choice of being in Canada with me or in Japan with his mum. He chose Canada. Or more precisely - his parents suspected - he chose his PS3 in Canada. To offset that, it was agreed that the "price" of his choice should be significant time outside in some wholesome activity. I offered climbing or hiking: climbing got the nod. To put some structure on that, I suggested he trained toward a specific objective and recommended that be a full-length route up the Squamish Chief. After some more discussion we agreed an exact route: Rambles/ Banana Peel with 2nd pitch variant/ Boomstick Crack/ Squamish Buttress with the "Buttface" variation/ Talking Crack. This combination lets you rope you up a few metres from the 99 highway and coil the rope again on the summit, with 22 pitches in between. It's almost the easiest way between those points but not totally beginner-friendly. There is one 5.9 pitch near the top, three 5.8 pitches and more than half of the remainder is 5.7. And the vertical height gain is about 600m. The photo below (click for a larger version) gives some idea. Yes, there's a mini forest hike in the middle.

We had five weeks in which to prepare for the route and get it done. Because of some other calls on Leo's time and the importance of avoiding weekend crowds on the Chief, the actual ascent had to be on a Monday (but not on 5th August, BC Day) or a Wednesday. And obviously during a decent weather window. In practise everything got shoehorned into three weeks.

At risk of shedding most readers who have made it this far, I thought I would spell out the preparation we did, in case anyone finds themselves working through something similar.

10th July. We drove to Pemberton to play on the friendly Green Bastion boulders. I wanted to remind Leo how basic rock movement felt, without the distraction of a rope and equipment. He did about five V0 problems. His footwork was pretty awful. I realised he needed new shoes; a few days later we found a pair of Sportiva Mythos in a Squamish shop which fitted OK.

15th July. We did one short roped climb at Murrin Park, the steep and un-fun Beginners Luck, undergraded at 5.5 and inappropriately - I think -  included in the guidebook's Top 100 list. Reasonably enough, Leo struggled slightly but climbed it clean. He also lowered me successfully from the anchors using an ATC device - from my perspective an important test! Then we practised rappelling at the nearby Bog Wall. I was keen that he should experience doing this without a safety rope at an early stage, in case we needed to retreat from a multi-pitch climb. Some people might blanche at this for a beginner but in reality using a ATC XP on a doubled 10mm rope on slabby rock is close to risk-free. The friction is so high that it is almost impossible to develop any acceleration even with hands off.

17th July. Multi-pitch time. We visited the AMO Wall near Shannon Falls, which has some very easy-angled 3 or 4 pitch climbs. We chose Relish Route into the excellent Beaten Zone 5.7. There was a tiny frisson of excitement when it rained as we started the second pitch. It looked like a passing shower so we waited it out. This proved correct. Almost all the climbing was holdless friction, which Leo seemed to find trivial, scampering up the rock faster than I could take in. We rappelled back down.

Second pitch on Relish Route

Third pitch on Relish Route

The Beaten Zone

Rapping back down

20th July. I wanted to test Leo on some slightly steeper rock, as the crux pitch of Butt Face is vertical face climbing so we headed to the bolted routes at Chek. These did slow him down. His best effort was climbing Kingfishers Catch Fire on Conroy Castle, with one or two rests on the rope. I thought it was more 5.9 than the guidebook's 5.8. It's also rather reachy. A great route though, with big views to the Tantalus mountains from the top.

22nd July. We spent a few hours in the Smoke Bluffs learning some basics of crack climbing. At the end of the session Leo managed a clean top rope of Bilbo Baggins, a slabby 5.9 route with mandatory hand jamming.

24th July. To get a sense of the time needed for the full ascent of the Chief, we tried the start pitches on the Apron. I had hoped we might manage the initial route, Rambles, and Banana Peel above, but Leo developed a weird ankle pain on Rambles. Anyway, we got that done reasonably quickly - about 1.5 hours for 4 pitches - and it was obvious how we could do it faster on the day.

Second pitch of Rambles

Higher on the second pitch of Rambles (note the road behind)

28th July. We had our first attempt on the main objective scheduled for the next day but I was still worried Leo hadn't had spent enough time on steep face climbing. But I made the mistake of visiting a cliff I hadn't looked at before, The Lounge up Squamish Valley. The routes there were uninspiring, mossy and undergraded. Leo got shut down by a 5.8. Not auspicious!

29th July. The big day. Amazingly I got Leo awake and out of the house by about 6:20am. (I had woken him up an hour or so earlier each morning for several preceding days!)

At the car park - about 6:45am

Optimistically we parked near of the base of the Chief descent then hiked down to the start of Rambles, which was empty, as I had hoped. I started leading the first pitch at 6:52am. Minutes later another team turned up at the base! We dispatched Rambles in three pitches but then ran into several teams already queued up on the ledges under the main Apron (the Rambles route can be bypassed by hiking). Thankfully they were all waiting for Diedre not Banana Peel. However one team were uncertain where to start and looked likely to cross ropes with us, so I had to be slightly assertive and point them to their right line. Despite this we were both at the top of the first pitch of Banana Peel at 8:00am. That route - 8 pitches - took us another couple of hours. Leo had no problems except at one short steep section on pitch 4, where I knew after leading it myself that he would struggle to reach key holds. Unfortunately the route was still in deep shade with an intermittent strong wind and we both got cold (we had one windproof between us, otherwise just t-shirts). Leo also suffered some recurrence of the ankle pain he had developed on the 24th (we realised later he was only developing this problem on low-angled rock). On the Broadway ledge, above Banana Peel, morale was definitely low and he was hinting that we should give up. I ignored this, found some shelter from the wind and suggested we ate our sandwiches; this proved just sufficient to get him interested in going "a little higher". The next section, Boomstick Crack, was no problem technically, but awkward with an intermediate semi-hanging belay (that I had been recommended to use). Leo again got cold and I think was slightly intimidated by the exposed position. At that point there's a big view down to the road 300m below.

The exposed position on Boomstick - at about 11:15am 

Thankfully, once above Boomstick, momentum improved. After stumbling upwards through the forest for a few minutes we hit sunshine on a nice bare granite area overlooking South Gully. From there the Second Summit is in view, the rock scenery is more striking and the end is in sight, if distant. Whilst resting there we were overtaken by a bubbly team of two sisters who were clearly enjoying their day. At the base of the next climbing section - Squamish Buttress original route - they waved us through, with the result that Leo shared belay ledges with them for several pitches. He had no problem with this section including the thin 5.8 moves at the start.

Around 2:00pm we were at the point where Squamish Buttress and the Butt Face variant diverge. I was apprehensive about the next section as it is graded 5.9 and Leo had only succeeded on one pitch at that grade before - and then only after multiple tries. The position is also exposed with big air down into South Gully once you step off the initial ledge. I belayed just after the crux of this pitch to be as close to him as possible. In fact my worries were overdone. He concentrated hard, hung on through the steep layback start and made it right through the crux traverse first try.

Following the 5.9 pitch on Butt Face - around 2:15pm

Higher on the 5.9 pitch

The remainder of the Butt Face did go quite slowly, though seemingly not as slow as for the team behind, so we were not responsible for any delays for others on the route overall (another worry of mine). The other crux of Butt Face is a 5.8 chimney with some non-intuitive moves. Leo did struggle there until he found the right way to face.

The cool ledge above Squamish Buttress / Butt Face - around 4:10pm

From there, the route was clearly in the bag. The last pitch, Talking Crack, is a few minutes hike southwards, directly under the First Summit. Leo's psyche was so high that he suggested he led that pitch - which would have been his first ever lead! I almost accepted but sense prevailed. After dispatching it I decided the decision was definitely correct, as the pitch has an awkward exit and gear is rattly at that point. Anyway, I was able to send Leo on to "lead" the scramble to the summit, to the surprise of a few tourists.

Last moves of the day: topping out Talking Crack

Leo on the summit - 5:15pm

Together on the summit

The descent was mellow, though as by then we had drunk all our water we didn't hang around, apart from cooling feet in Olesen Creek for a few minutes. We got back to the car at 6:40pm; just under 12 hours for the round trip.

POSTSCRIPT: I was asked what Leo thought of all this. Straight after the climb we headed home, via the McD's drive-thru, where I drank all the cold beer in the the fridge and Leo put in a couple of solid hours on Minecraft on his Mac (it turns out PS3 is so last month) ... before we both collapsed until about noon the next day. There was no post-match analysis during that period. However two weeks later one of Leo's soccer team mates came to stay with us in Squamish. Whilst we were driving past the Chief toward our house, Leo made some effort to point out the line we had ascended. Then he added that he was "quite proud" of climbing it. That will do for me.