This is a part of my two-week climbing trip. You can find multiple blog posts from this trip.
Please search for “2020rocktrip” in my blog search.
July 2nd, We left Squamish for 2 week-long climbing trip. Skaha Bluffs was our first stop. At 7:00am, we started driving from Squamish toward east via Vancouver. We booked our stay near Skaha bluffs on the way, because we had to change the plan according to weather.
We booked a lake side campsite at Banbury Green RV Park for two nights. The fee was $55+tax per night. I am sure it was not the cheapest, but lake view and warm shower worth for $55. It is only 15mins drive to Skaha bluffs.
We stopped at Banbury Green RV Park to leave our camp gears and bring a tent up, then drove to Skaha bluffs to climb a bit. At 16:00, we arrived at the parking of Skaha Bluffs and headed to Diamond Back area. It is one of the closest crags from the parking.
“Ready to Strike”, that is the name of wall we went. It has three TOP100 climbs. The wall was crowded, and none of TOP100 climbs was available when we got there. We climbed Bite Me Not 5.10b and Merlin Flying By 5.10c. While we were climbing Merlin Flying By, it started raining. It seemed to go away soon, but we packed our gears and went back to our camp.
I liked Bite Me Not. It is next to a TOP100 climb, so the style of the climb is similar. It is rated two stars out of five stars. I guess it is because that the route is next to TOP100.
You might want to bring a clip stick! The first bolt in this area is quit high.
We woke up at 5:30 and the sun light was beautiful! Banbury Green is on the west side of Skaha lake, so it gets a ton on morning light! We were not rushing to climb, but wanted to have a good slow morning. That was why we woke up early.
Homemade bread and granola slowly woke our body up, of course fresh pour over coffee as well!!
We got to Skaha bluffs parking by 8:00am and headed to The Fortress for warm up. We climbed two 5.10a routes. One of them is TOP100, and the both routes are high quality. I recommend them. The routes are Stouthearted 5.10a and Plum Line 5.10a. They are both 34m long. Many climbers arrived soon after us. It is a popular area, so I recommend to come early.
We headed to next spot after we had a good warm up session at the Fortress. The next was Grin & Bear It at Doctor’s Wall. The approach is about 1km walk from The Fortress on a main trail from the parking lot. There is an outhouse along this trail, and it is better to use this before getting to Doctor’s Wall.
At Grin & Bear It, We climbed Three routes. Malpractice 5.10b, Grin & Bear It 5.11c, and The Future Is Now 5.11d, they are all high quality routes. Malpractice is a 20m trad route and TOP100. The Future Is Now is a 26m sport route and also TOP100. Grin & Bear It is the same route as The Future Is Now, but ends at an anchor after 5 bolts.
I climbed Grin & Bear It first and came down. After my friends climbed it, I tried The Future Is Now that is really pumpy routes. I climbed the lower section well. As soon as I passed the Anchor for Grin & Bear It, however, my arms got pumped and I fell. The moves are not hard, but I just could not hold onto anything… If you want to onsight or flash it, you should just try The Future Is Now. Save your arms for an upper crux!
Then we finished climbing for the day.
On our way back to our camp, we stopped at Gilligan’s Ice Cream. It is on Skaha Lake RD and Lee Ave. They have many flavours!
- I recommend to get a copy of Skaha Climbing topo book from Quickdraw Publications. I like their topos. They are easy to use and well described. You can get it as a paper book or a PDF e-Book.
Sea to sky 