Beginner's Rock Climbing in Squamish

I am so behind on telling you about some fun outdoor activities that I've been getting into lately! I wanted to share some pictures from a recent rock-climbing trip - the first time I've ever climbed an actual, legitimate rock wall. You know, one that exists in nature... outdoors in real life and not in a gym.

The weekend before last, David and I picked up our new friend Amin - who Dave met through the University of British Columbia's Varsity Outdoor Club (VOC) - and we headed north of Vancouver to Squamish for some relatively easy rock-climbing fun.

{Sidebar, the VOC is quite an amazing club. Here's a brief description of the club, pulled from the VOC website: "The VOC is a student run club of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Our members are avid outdoors enthusiasts and enjoy hiking, rock climbing, mountaineering, back-country skiing, paddling, and most anything else that’s fun outdoors. Membership is open to students at UBC, VOC alumni, and the general public."}

Squamish is an incredible destination for rock climbers. I can almost guarantee that anything you read about Squamish is going to mention the rock climbing. A couple of months ago we took my sister hiking there while she visited me in Vancouver. You can check out those hiking pictures here if you'd like. This time, we continued through Squamish past the Stawamas Chief till we got to Smoke Bluffs, a rock-climbing park that offers hundreds of different routes for climbers of many skill levels. This was perfect for me since I'm very much a beginner.

After parking the car, the three of us hiked for 5-10 minutes up the Loop Tail, passing tons of different walls and climbing routes along the way. We were looking for a particular wall called "Call It A Day". The fact that the walls and individual routes all have oddball names amused me. Other "rock wall name" gems at Smoke Bluffs include Mosquito, Nubile Woman, Octopus' Garden, Cheap Mango Wall, and Zombie Roof (just to name a few).

Call It A Day was a perfect place for my first real rock climbing experience. The wall had five different routes of varying difficulty, three of which we eventually climbed (2-3 times each) that afternoon.

.  call it a day  .

.  call it a day  . 

.  dave and amin getting our ropes set  .

I think Dave was a bit excited about my first rock climbing excursion, because he took lots of pics of me as I climbed:

.  oh heeeey  .

.  look at me go!  . 

.  amin heads up  .

.  dave's turn!  . 

This was the second route up Call It A Day:

.  me again  . 

.  buns  .

.  coming down!  .

.  amin  . 

.  almost there!  .

This was the third route we climbed that day:

.  amin is in a very tricky spot here!  .
.  this was a tough one  .

.  dave working on the third route  .

.  random picture of another wall we passed - looks tricky and beautiful!  .

After spending several hours climbing and re-climbing the different routes on Call It A Day, we... called it a day.

This was my first time wearing the second-hand rock climbing shoes that I bought a couple months ago from Sports Junkies in Vancouver, and they definitely held up well. My only minor complaint about them is that the leather material of the upper part of the shoe is a bit stiff - as if maybe the past owner got them soaked in water and let them dry like that. For that reason, I kept my ankle socks on while I was climbing, whereas I believe most climbers go sans-socks. I just didn't want the stiff leather giving me cuts or discomfort on my ankles. Perhaps after more use, the leather will soften up a bit? I hope!

For my next trick outdoor adventure blog, I'll tell you about an awesome hiking/camping/scrambling trip that I took last weekend to the Tolkien Group - a group of mountains in Pemberton, BC that are named after characters from the Lord of the Rings books!

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