8/10  Quick stop in the local library to check the latest weather forecast.  Then on to Briscoe, BC to meet Joe, Kyle and Brian for a week in the Bugaboos.

I wait in the tiny town of Briscoe.  Someone sees my NY license plates and asks where I'm from.  Turns out her sister lives in Ithaca.  Random.

Joe arrives and we load all my stuff into his car to drive to the trailhead.  It is 48km down a dirt road.  We reach the trailhead and find Kyle and Brian there waiting.  There had been some confusion about the meeting time.  We agreed on 3pm, but didn't decide which timezone.  The boundary between Mountain and Pacific time runs literally right through the park.  Joe and I were coming from Pacific time, Brian and Kyle from Mountain time.  None of us considered the change.  In the end we agree to synchronize our watches on Mountain time.  This way we can wake at 3am for climbs, rather than 2am.  It makes sense.

At the trailhead we surround our cars with chicken wire.  This keeps porcupines from crawling under the car and eating the brake lines.  48km down a dirt road and chicken wire... the Bugaboos does not attract day hikers.

We groan under the load of our heavy packs.  Rock climbing gear, glacier travel gear, camping gear, and eight days of provisions.  Everyone has 70+ lb. packs.  Mine is probably lighter because I'm weak, but it is still heavy for me.  The hike in is pretty rough.  4.5km to the Kain hut, then another 1.0km to the Applebee campground.  The trail gains 3,182' over this distance.  Tough hike with heavy packs.

A huge thunderstorm rolls in just before we reach camp (sorry guys, I know I slowed us down).  Lightening is crashing all around us, the flash and the bang are virtually simultaneous.  Torrential rain starts to fall, mixed with sleet and hail.  Kyle deploys his tarp and we all huddle underneath waiting for a break in the storm.  The storm does not let up and the sun sets.  Joe and I toss his Bibler Eldorado tent on some rock and dive inside.  The tent sets up from within.  We are soaking wet and freezing cold.  It takes us quite a while to set the tent.  We then identify all our gear which can handle being wet and toss it out the door.  That still leaves us a huge amount of gear in the tent.  And all our food, which we never put in lockers.  We just hope that the Marmots are too lazy to come out in the raging storm.  We end up spending a very uncomfortable night on top of all our wet gear.  It rains all night. 

Did I mention that the tent was pitched on a huge slope?  I really didn't sleep a wink.

8/11  It rains and snows all day.  We take advantage of minor breaks in the storm to reposition our tent on moderately level ground and attach the vestibule.  Kyle sets up his tarp so we have a small kitchen area.  We put all our food in the metal lockers.  Applebee campground is a scoured dome of rock with a small glacial tarn on one side, and an outhouse on the other side.  There are lockers to protect food from critters, but no other amenities.  Camping costs $5CA/person/night and the hut custodian comes by every night to make sure you pay.

As the sky clears at the end of the day, we go for a short hike.  Bugaboo Provincial Park is a beautiful place.  Huge mountains and glaciers dominate the skyline.  Avalanches are heard a dozen times a day.  Usually not on the climbing routes.  Usually.  

8/12  Weather has cleared a bit.  We dry what gear we can.  Kyle and Brian head off to climb the West Ridge of Pigeon Spire.  Joe and I climb McTech Arete (5.10).  This is a spectacular climb.  The approach is relatively short and only traverses the low angle edge of a glacier.  The climb itself is about 600' tall -- tiny by Bugaboo standards.  I lead pitches 1,3, and 5.  Joe leads 2 and 4.  Pitches 2, 4, and 5 are all spectacular.  Pitch 2 is a strenuous finger crack.  Pitch 4 is possibly my all time favorite pitch -- a perfect hand crack in a left facing corner through moderate angle slabs, then through a roof.  Pitch 5 is dual hand cracks all the way up.

It is mostly sunny and not too cold the whole time we climb.  There is a freak blizzard after I have reached the final anchor.  It dumps snow on us for a few minutes, then disappears.  We rappel to the ground and hike back to camp.

I am now certain that I have been in massive amounts of snow at least once in every month of the year.  This trip I traversed huge snow fields in June (Petit Grepon), July (Mt. Shasta) and August (Bugaboos).

8/13  I have had a cold for three days -- congestion and a nasty cough.  It has mostly cleared, but I'm still not 100%.  I take a rest day while Joe, Kyle and Brian climb Surf's Up (extremely cold climbing on the shaded west face of Snowpatch).  I patch my sleeping pad which had received a small puncture the night before.  A summer of rough use is starting to take a toll on my gear.  One of my helmet LEDs is dead, and my Black Diamond Ion headlamp has a bent battery contact, which I eventually will repair, but meanwhile it makes the light unreliable.  My Petzl Zoom headlamp is back at the trailhead.  So Mr. LED Headlamp Man is down to one LED, the glow from a cell phone and a half moon.  On top of that, my climbing shoes and approach shoes all have holes, one door of my tent is shredded, the trigger wires on my big cams are shot, and both of my water bladders leak (so I'm getting by with 1/2 gallon plastic jugs, which work fine).

I have a great time napping in the tent (which is very warm in the sunshine), taking pictures, and chatting with other climbers who are taking a rest day.  I even score some food from climbers who are departing the campground.  Nobody wants to carry extra weight all the way to the parking lot, so everyone gives away food when they depart.  Amazingly, I manage to obtain a bar of fine European chocolate.  Kyle had been asking for fine European chocolate the previous night and again this morning.  Of course, we had none, and our prospects of obtaining any seem incredibly slim.  His jaw drops when he returns and I show him the bar.

8/14  Joe and Kyle depart around 2:30am to climb the Beckey Chouinard route on South Howser.  Brian and I wake at 5am to climb the NE Ridge of Bugaboo Spire (5.8, IV).  The approach is mostly low angle glacier, then a 4th class scramble for about 200' up very loose blocks, then a long section of easy scrambling to the base of the climb.  It is cold in the morning, but we are warm from the hike.  The sun hits the base of the climb just before we get there, and we hang out waiting for the parties above us to climb.

We are about the sixth party in line.  The party ahead of us woke at 3am.  The party behind us woke at 4am, but got lost on the approach.  There is another party behind them.  The weather, which had been terrible for a week, is beautiful today.  This is a very popular route, and there is much pent up demand to climb it.  The party ahead of us struggles on the first pitch, and eventually has to bail (guys, I have your bail gear, email me if you want it back).  Too bad because they are nice guys and have been trying to get on the climb for three years.

After a total delay of about 90 minutes, we start climbing.  I lead the first pitch which is the crux of the whole route at 5.8.  We spend some extra time since I clean the previous party's bail gear.  Also, a cam I place walks back and Brian can't clean it.  With two parties behind us waiting to climb, we abandon the cam and continue.  I feel responsible since I placed the cam and offer to buy Brian a new one.  Luckily, the last party up the route cleans it easily and returns it to us the next day.

Delays are all behind us.  We start climbing fast.  Brian leads p2, and I lead p3.  By the top of p3, we have actually caught the party ahead of us.  Pretty impressive when you consider the delays and the fact that they were originally two parties ahead of us.  Brian leads pitch 4, then a nice crack variation of pitch 5.  I take over for the annoying chimney.  We simul pitches 6-9, the chimney pitches.  The chimney sucks.  Early on, my pack gets stuck.  Carrying all the gear for a day, including heavy hiking boots, crampons, and an ice axe makes for a big pack.  The sort of thing you don't want to carry on lead.  Especially when leading a chimney.  Eventually I get unstuck, though I put a hole in my pack which will not be repaired until I return to Ithaca.  The rest of the chimney is uneventful, but scary since the chimney is filled with loose rock and patches of snow and ice.  Nearing the top, Brian leads pitch 10 and I lead pitch 11.  We reach the summit at 2pm.  At 10,512' elevation we are 2,375' above where we started at Applebee.

Along with two other parties (and two different guidebooks) it takes us two hours to traverse to the south summit (stay roped and watch for patches of black ice!) and find the descent.  Once we finally get on the descent route it is six rappels down the Kain route, then hiking and scrambling to the bottom.  Routefinding is tricky but we do manage to reach the top of the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col by 7pm.  From here it takes two double rope rappels to cross the bergschrund.  We are delayed a bit by crowds and rope snarls.  There is lots of loose rock, and other parties on the col make it a shooting gallery.  We just try to get through it as quickly as possible.  Below the bergschrund, I use crampons to walk down the steeper section until I'm below the obvious crevasses.  From here I take off my crampons and boot glissade down the slope.  I wipe out once and actually have to use my axe to self arrest.  My first ever self arrest under duress.  It worked just like in practice.

We get back to camp around 9pm, just as the sun sets.  Joe and Kyle return triumphant from their climb before 11pm.

I can't say NE Ridge of Bugaboo is a great climb.  Pitch 1 is fun and Brian's variation on pitch 5 was fun.  The rest of the climb was dull or dangerous or both.  The approach sucked big time because of the lose scramble.  And the descent was hours of route finding, followed by dodging falling rocks down the col.  The climb is straightforward and fairly easy for a party capable of climbing alpine trad 5.8, moving quickly, and climbing all day.  But we had perfect weather.  In poor weather it would be very difficult to retreat and very easy to epic.  I suppose I'm happy to have completed the climb, but I'd never do it again.

8/15  Brian and Kyle never tire and are off to climb McTech Arete since we gave it such high marks.  Joe and I sensibly take a rest day.  We filter lots of water from the tarn and cook a gourmet lunch.  We nap and take pictures.  The weather is beautiful.  When Kyle and Brian return, we all celebrate surviving until my birthday by sharing the bar of fine European chocolate.

8/16  Joe has caught my cold and is feeling quite under the weather.  We sleep until 9am, then decide to climb a bit.  Our goal is to climb Super Direct (5.10) on Snowpatch.  We first have to ascend the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col.  The hike up to the bergschrund is reasonable.  After that is the tricky part.  We have to climb 300' of hard, rotten, 45 degree ice.  We are unroped, and climbing very carefully.  Self arrest is very unlikely here, so a slip will send you careening into the bergschrund.  Kick, kick, swing, kick, kick, swing... for 300'.  I'm glad to finish the ascent.  From the top of the col we have a short hike on the snowfield to the start of Super Direct.  We can wave to Kyle and Brian who, having started early, are high above us on a nearby climb.

The hardest part of the climb is getting started.  A steep snowfield leads up to the start of the climb.  Joe ascends the snow and uses his axe to create a very small patch of flat snow.  I build an anchor in the rock and we hang our gear on the anchor.  We actually hang off the anchor to change into our climbing shoes.  This way we avoid getting snow all over the soles.  Finally I'm ready to lead the first pitch which is a solid 5.9 finger crack.  Joe comes up and starts on the second pitch.  The gear on the second pitch is very thin.  And the fixed pitons mentioned in the guidebook are missing.  And Joe is still sick.  We hammer two nuts into place and bail off the climb.

We rappel down the col, passing a very slow party of five all rappelling on one rope.  I think some of them had never rappelled before.  In the Bugaboos!?  Is this like people climbing Everest who learn how to put on their crampons at base camp?  Once past the slow party and the bergschrund, we trot on back to camp.

8/17  We are all heading out of the park today.  Kyle and Brian are apparently nuclear powered robots with extra uranium reserves, and they decide to run up the 20 pitch Snowpatch Route (5.6) before hiking out.  20 pitches!  Joe and I have a much better plan in mind.  We leisurely pack camp and hike out at a reasonable pace, stopping to eat many, many wild raspberries along the way.  We drive out of the park, spotting a black bear cub on the road.  Back in Briscoe the temperature is around 90F -- a far cry from the near freezing daytime temperatures we have been enduring for the past week just 50km away. In Briscoe we pick up my car and drive south to White Swan Hot Springs.  Yeah, I told you we have a better plan in mind.

The hot springs are a very short walk from the parking lot.  We luxuriate in hot water.  The hottest pool is beyond what I can tolerate, but the second and third hottest pools are perfect.  The springs have a very strong sulfur smell.  We finish by rinsing the sulfur in the frigid water of the river.