British Columbia

Whistler & Squamish

I was stoked to meet up with my buddy, Graham who was also on a road trip around the country. We planned to do al ot of rock climbing over the next month and half. After arriving in Whistler, we went out with some Australian guys Graham had met at the hostel that week and had a crazy time. The next day we went down to Squamish so Graham could give me a rundown on all the climbing techniques we would be using. The day after that I did my first real rock climb. This was an 8 pitch TRAD climb up the Apron on The Chief (an iconic climb in Squamish, B.C.). The route went about 800’ up the mountain. The climb was pretty terrifying since I didn’t trust the equipment or any of my skills yet. I think Graham’s idea of just throwing down the gauntlet like that helped to get over the initial fear of climbing. With that being my first climb, not many climbs were scarier than that!

Throughout the next week, we bounced back and forth between Whistler and Squamish doing various climbs. That we week we did some fun single pitch rock climbing, and met some cool climber chicks that we climbed with for the day. We also did a fun hike down to a train wreck. There are some pretty gnarly mountain bike jumps and trails back there as well.

We did a really fun climb called Star Chek. It was a 3 pitch sport route so we figured that we would cruise through it. We climbed it with our new climbing friends and we started around early evening. We got up the first pitch no problem, but it got completely dark on us at the top of the second pitch. So we did the final pitch in complete darkness which got a little sketchy! We only had one headlamp between four people. With that being said, we had to get creative in order to get up the last bit safely. It was a totally sketchy situation. We made it up safely, and learned a valuable lesson: Don’t forget your headlamp!

Later that week we also rode the downhill mountain bike course in Whistler. Even though I was taking it easy since this was only the second time back on a bike since my crash in Lake Tahoe, we had a blast riding the park that day, and came out with no injuries! After a great week of climbing and biking, Graham and I started our caravan journey out to Jasper. We camped for one night in Kamloops to break up the drive. We were absolutely amazed by the beauty of the mountains and the turquoise blue-ish green lakes in BC; it’s such an incredible place.

**Not all of the photos that I will be posting are my own. Graham contributed to these photos.**