6/30 - 7/2  Driving to Vancouver.  As we cross the border into North Dakota, I reach my goal of having been in all 50 states!  I'm actually excited about this.

7/3 We cross the border into Canada.  The crack Canadian border guard actually asks the following questions, which I am not making up:

"Did you drive from New York?"

        Yes, we did.

"Did you drive the whole way?"

Ahhh... you have uncovered my secret plan to ship my car to Minnesota, then drive the rest of the way to Vancouver.  Excellent work.

7/4  We tour Granville Island, accompanied by Joanna, Jasper and Joelle.  Then head home and play cards while the kids nap.  A perfect day!

7/5  Rain thwarts our climbing plans, so we stay in Vancouver and visit UBC's Anthropology Museum then launch directionally challenged rockets in semi-random directions across a field.

7/6  Off to start the climbing portion of our climbing trip.  We drive to Squamish and head straight to Smoke Bluffs for a day of single pitch trad climbing.  Guy starts us off by leading Burgers and Fries (5.7) and we use the anchor to attempt Pink Panther (5.11c) on toprope.  Then I lead Move It On Over (5.9).  Next Guy leads Cat Crack (5.7) a perfect splitter crack.  I finish the day leading Pixie Corner (5.8) which is stiff for the grade.

We head back to the campground which now charges $10CA per night (up from $9CA two years ago).  And the water is still not potable.  A sign promises that I'll be notified when the water is safe to drink.  Great.  At least there are now some permanent posts to support slacklines.  I practice for an hour and am able to take three consecutive steps.

7/7  The last time I was in Squamish -- Sophomore year -- I climbed Diedre.  Today we plan to climb Snake (5.9, 5 pitches) the other classic climb on the Apron.  We start up the climb swinging leads.  In the middle of pitch 3, Guy takes a 25' cheese grater fall.  He has a few good cuts and a badly bruised foot, but is otherwise uninjured.  After taking some time to assess his condition and our options, we decide to finish the climb.  I'm leading for the rest of the week so Guy doesn't risk taking another shot to his injured foot.

Snake is a fun climb with pitches 3 and 4 combining into a 300' right facing corner.  I enjoy this because it means left foot jams and right arm liebacks.  And both my left foot and right shoulder are uninjured!  What luck!  The crux of the climb comes in the middle of pitch 4 along with some seeping water to increase the excitement.  But we get through the climb without further incident and walk (hobble) off down the trail to the right.

Heading back to camp, I hop on the slackline and manage five consecutive steps.  I'm going to have webbing shaped calluses on my feet by the end of this week.

7/8  We drive north to Cheakamus for some sport climbing.  Walking to Conroy's Castle I start us on Charlotte's Web (5.9, 2 pitches); then lead Small is Beautiful (5.8); and Emil and the Detectives (5.8) at which point some light rain finishes our day.  Heading back to camp for my after dinner slackline session, I manage seven consecutive steps.

7/9  Today we drive south to Murrin, a nice park with a good lake for swimming and some small cliffs.  We start right off the parking lot at Bog Wall with some trad climbing.  I embarrass myself by groveling my way to the top of Up From The Bog (5.8) in very poor form.  Then we toprope Fathers and Sons (5.11a) which has a cool mono half way up.  Next we toprope Beyond the Bog (5.11a) which completely shuts me down.

We walk around the lake to Zoe Wall where I lead Zoe (5.10a) a sport climb which has many delicate balance moves.  From there we toprope Jeff and the Giant Reach (5.11c).  I am drawn to the climb because of the name, but it turns out to be one of the best climbs I've done in Squamish.  Sustained and pumpy, it has great moves the whole length of the climb.  I'm certain I could wire the climb and redpoint it... and get super fit in the process.  We finish the day on Oscar's Slab (5.8) a short sport climb right of Zoe.

Heading back to camp, I hop on the slackline and walk the entire thing!  Ten consecutive steps!  One try out of a hundred, but still...

7/10  No driving today, we plan to climb at The Bulletheads right behind the campground's kitchen pavilion.  We want to climb Slot Machine and rather than hike to the base, we decide to climb Sunshine Chimney Centre (5.8, 2 pitches) as the approach.  This turns out to be a miserable idea.  Sunshine Chimney Centre (that's how they misspell 'Center' in Canada) is a very tight squeeze chimney.  I thrash for what seems like hours... and Guy can attest that it actually was hours... before finally reaching the first belay.  From there I decide to bail.  I HATE squeeze chimneys.  Even bailing is hard and requires lots of work to retrieve all my gear.  Finally back on the ground, we choose to hike up to the start of Slot Machine.  At this point we miss the turn off the trail and hike nearly to the top of the Chief.  The day is going from bad to worse.

We return to camp, each lunch, and review the guidebook.  With a bit more care, we easily find the correct trail and are quickly racking up for Slot Machine (5.8, 2 pitches).  I link both pitches in one long, runout pitch.  It is a sweet climb and redeems our day.

The one route I had wanted to climb in Squamish, Europa, was closed for raptor nesting. Oh well. At least one local said it wasn't anything special.  So we decide that we are done with Squamish.  I get Guy to take some picturesque shots of me slacklining and I make him to shoot some video too.  Then we pack our gear, eat a half gallon of ice cream, and drive back to Vancouver.  We arrive just before Jasper's bedtime so we can wish him a happy birthday.

7/11  Another happy birthday.  We stay to celebrate Joanna's birthday.  All of us drive to Stanley Park for a very unique modern dance show.  Everyone has a good time until we arrive home and there is an unfortunate altercation between Jasper's hand and the car door.  As you might guess, the car door wins.

7/12  We depart early so that we can enjoy a two hour wait at the border.  Then we drive to eastern Oregon where we find a nice quiet place to spend the night.

I first learned about The Quota reading Kolin Powick's article in the April 2008 issue of Climbing Magazine.  To make quota on a climbing trip, you must climb at least one pitch for every hour of driving.  We are driving 6500 miles across two countries and back.  Quota might be hard to achieve.  I'll keep track:

Pitches climbed so far: 23
Hours driven so far: 40