- Location
- Vancouver British Columbia
The forest service road behind the Stawamus Chief is normally closed (community watershed) but now that they're building a gondola above Shannon Falls, they leave the gate open for construction traffic. This is the access route for an alpine mountaineering objective Rachel and I are pursuing, so we took the opportunity to drive what we'll probably end up hiking and biking. Fun day. Stopped at the Squamish visitor's center and watched a great hour long movie about Jim Baldwin and Ed Cooper, the first people to climb the Grand Wall of the Stawamus Chief in the early 1960's.
The construction equipment had really made a mess of this road. Didn't need the winch though! Didn't even air down...
You can see our objective mountains Sky Pilot and the CoPilot in the distance...
Some really beautiful granite - this is why we climb here, we're so fortunate for the access! But this road will be closed before we climb the route next summer, meaning we'll have to slog up the 10k of logging road, which is super inconvenient. The primary use for our XJ is dependable solo wilderness access for mountaineering - escape the crowds by starting farther up and in the mountains than the rest of the outdoorsy types.
We never make time to stop at the visitors center, so was fun to learn about some of the first ascents on this classic granite monolith, the Stawamus Chief.
The construction equipment had really made a mess of this road. Didn't need the winch though! Didn't even air down...
You can see our objective mountains Sky Pilot and the CoPilot in the distance...
Some really beautiful granite - this is why we climb here, we're so fortunate for the access! But this road will be closed before we climb the route next summer, meaning we'll have to slog up the 10k of logging road, which is super inconvenient. The primary use for our XJ is dependable solo wilderness access for mountaineering - escape the crowds by starting farther up and in the mountains than the rest of the outdoorsy types.
We never make time to stop at the visitors center, so was fun to learn about some of the first ascents on this classic granite monolith, the Stawamus Chief.
