SwEnV 2

Q: What kind of cigarettes does a hippy smoke?

A: Yours

Day Two:

Murrin Park and rain

We went to Murrin Park, right down the road from Squamish proper and the chief, even thought the day before it had been hot and super crowded around the lake there. Assuming it would get hot equally fast and be crowded, we at least wanted a parking spot so we could jump in the lake later. 

By the end of the day, the sun had yet to burn out the clouds, we only saw two other climbers in some gross chimney, and the rock stayed cool. A side effect of the sun not coming out is that it started raining in the afternoon; a nice way to make us stop climbing for the day.

I have really enjoyed heading to new places without a guidebook, and with my old, outdated one for Squamish, it wasn't that different. On the approach to "up among the firs" we found a recently cleaned crag with some good looking cracks. The routes were nothing special by Squamish standards, and still dirty, but someone had obviously put a lot of work into cleaning them, and they were fun.

We continued up the very steep hill to our original goal, where we got on 2 awesome cracks and toproped a slab without shame, before the weather turned. These were some of the best climbs I've ever done, and when you topped out the sound opened up below you. So good. 

View from the top-out, south towards Vancouver.

Veronica with her first hand jam. 

Crappy belayer can't even stay awake. 

Erich being a champ and putting up a 10c crack so that I could TR it. 

After the hard rain, it was a slug party, but we went to a cool shelter in town to make dinner, and went back to hang out with our gracious host, Alon. He is a great person, with an awesome campsite he shares freely, and good stories. More about him some other time.