Lower Bear Canyon Limestone: Finally finished 'Out of State Plates 5.10'

This route was never finished because I thought it needed to be bolted on lead. But last time I was on top of the rock, I remember a couple of older trees off the backside a little ways. I built a crafty anchor MUU style off of two tress about 10 yards from the rock and threw the rope over the edge. I padded the edge with my backpack cause that rock is sharp and I was using my dynamic 70M since my static is cached in the mountains. Jugging a dynamic rope creates a sawing motion that will cut your rope faster than you can say, well, a lot of things if its running over a sharp edge. I rapped over to where I wanted to put anchors, drilled a pair of bolts, equalized them then put my weight on the bolts with a clove hitch effectively eliminating any sawing motion on the lip of the rock. I rapped down to my last point and added another bolt to create a 2 pitch option (there is a great belay ledge). I rehearsed the route and ended up adding 6 bolts. Now 'Out of State Plates 5.10' is either 4 bolts to anchors followed by 6 bolts to anchors or one long pitch of 11 bolts to anchors. It has to be one of the longest routes in upper or lower Bear Canyon. Im going to try and add one more route to this chunk of rock, someday.

The last 8 hangers of the 100 I bought from Prolite this spring. I hope they have more cause I ended using all of these!

EVERYONE needs to be disguising their bolts/hangers whenever possible. Flat grey works on most rock types.  They look shiny but thats because the paint is still wet. I paint the nuts and washers as well. 

I had already named the route "Out of State Plates' and upon walking by the TH I just had to chuckle; left to right we have Wyoming, California, Washington and Colorado! 

The upper pitch of the route. I use an ascender with a pulley on it and a grigri 2 on my harness to ascend. 

Revenue Village: HeavenView Rock unfinished project now ready

Feeling optimistic (the weather was shit in the valley) Manfred and I went out to the Village to finish bolting and cleaning a project that started last summer. I added 3 bolts to the 2 bolts and 1 piton already placed. This route is sustained and goes from a right facing dihedral to a face traverse and through 2 roofs. Put your big boy pants on for this 5.11(+?)! It was fun to hang from a rope while the sky was falling and booming(!) all around you except where you were; the eye of the storm you might say.

You can kind of make out the dihedral just left-of-center in the photo. The two roofs are obvious enough. Less is More and More or Less are climber's left of this unnamed route.  

My #1 climbing partner; he is always stoked to go! 

Manfred likes roofs too! But only because there is a dry spot to sleep underneath. 

3 more rocks developed in Revenue Village: Have it Your Way slabs and Tower Pitch

I left a bunch of my stuff in my cache out in the Village from Saturday's mission thinking I would be back out there Sunday. I got a little distracted by a Maddy float trip and never made it back out. So Tuesday, I got off work a little early, grabbed Manfred and cruised out there. I installed 3 sets of anchors on 3 different (but connected) rocks. Two anchors allow for some fun toproping on low angled slabs (5.4-5.5). The slabs would be great first trad leads too. Well, maybe not, the gear is a little tricky (offsets and brassys) but all there and very solid. I dont think you could climb the same route twice on the upper two slabs so I dubbed them the 'Have it your way' slabs; you can climb wherever you want to reach the anchors. The rock continues on downhill and where it terminates, I found another fun route. One #2-#3 BD cam gets you into 5 bolts to the anchors 'Tower Pitch 5.10'.

Tower Pitch; your first gear is a cam in that pocket. 

The 'Have it your way' slabs. The anchors are at the two high points on the skyline. I solo'd up em to get to the top and was glad to get to rappel off. 

The bottom or lower slab of the two.

The upper slab. You can see my two dust patches from adding bolts to the unprotectable sections. There is seriously 12 different ways to get to those anchors. Fun right!?

3 new routes on Canusa Rock in Revenue Village

Finally got to go back out to the Village. Manfred and I spent Saturday cooking in the heat, cleaning cracks and drillin' bolts. Canusa Rock has 3 great routes on it. One trad route through the ceilings you can see climber's right; Poutine Ceiling 5.9 all gear to bolted anchors. You can see my dust trail through the face; Skateboard Contessa 5.10, 7 bolts and one 0.4 BD cam to bolted anchors. The big crack on the left is Canusa Crack 5.6 all gear to bolted anchors. 

Sir Paul McCartney

Now I know I was the only MUU crew there and I was far from climbing anything and a long ways from the mountains but its PAUL MCCARTNEY! He has been my favorite Beatle since I knew who the Beatles were. Because he is one of two mancrushes I have, Im going to post some photos. I got to meet my other one in Squamish, Alex Honnold, just a couple of weeks ago. Good summer huh?! Over 2,000 more people showed up for McCartney than the Rolling Stones; over 25,000 people! Largest event in MT history will be legend for years to come.

Took me a few tries to get this photo.

Montana loves Paul! 

Canadian Road Trip 5th stop: North Trapper Creek in the Bitteroot Mountains SW Montana

The only place in MT I had never been was NW MT. So Lucas and I took the scenic route down to Kalispell. We started by crossing the border into Eureka and found some breakfast. Then we went over to Lake Koocanusa and checked out Stone Hill. Next we drove down to Libby and then headed East towards Kalispell. Lake Koocanusa and the Kootenai river are gems of Montana that I cant believe it took me 27 years to see! We found a beer or two and kicked a skunk with some friends in Polson before cruising down to Darby. Coming off our success in Canada, Lucas and I wanted to try and repeat an Alex Lowe route on the North Face of Trapper Peak. With no beta beyond 'the North Face of Trapper Peak' we hit the trail early with every piece of climbing gear we had. We ended up at the North Trapper Creek TH. A little over an hour, maybe an hour and a half up the trail (eating Huckleberries the whole way) we spotted a beautiful tower. Not only did it look big and solid but it also had the appeal of potentially unclimbed. So we walked up the hill and sent it in 8 stellar pitches. I remember yelling down at Lucas "you shouldnt have given me this pitch... its incredible!" but then on the next one he would yell down the same thing. There is no doubt in my mind we climbed one of the best 5.10 granite jam cracks in MT (and I have been in the Humbugs)! Of the 8 pitches, one went at 5.11, 2 at 5.10 and the rest were 5.9 to 5.8. We got to the top without seeing any trace of previous ascents so we were stoked thinking we just got a MT classic first ascent. BUT, on our 3rd rappel, Lucas found some really old webbing with a really old Chouinard oval beaner on it. Damn. We knew that was too good to be true! Oh well. Its was still an amazing experience and a perfect ending to a once in a lifetime trip with my best friend. Onsighting towers in the backcountry is the type of climbing level I wanted to reach and we did it.

The tower we climbed is about mid-photo. 

There she be.

We climbed straight up the South Face, diretisima style. 

Looking South towards the Trapper Peak massif.

We found an ice climb in July! 

Pitch 1.

Trapper Peak in the background.

A couple of pitches up.

THE BEST pitch! The 5.10 jam crack.

This looks like me sending one of the last pitches.

I think this was the 2nd to last pitch or somewhere thereabouts. Or was it the last one?

When we topped out, look at the tower that greeted us! There's a must do someday!

Yup, Thats a real place.

We made a cairn on the summit.

Looking up at the tower after we climbed it.

Canadian Road Trip 4th stop(s): Lake Loise, Banff, Canmore

Since the weather was supposed to be crap the rest of the week in the Boos, we peeled off to Alberta for some more sight seeing. Our first stop was Lake Louise, one of 3 Blue Water lakes in the world. One of the other ones being Okoboji Lake in Iowa; my parents' stomping grounds. I had NO idea how touristy Lake Louise is. It was a turn-off. We got out as soon as we could after a few quick pics. Its such a pretty place and I dont blame a single tourist for being there but jeez! Next stop was Banff for a quick tour. I think this town is more fun in the winter? And finally we stopped in Canmore, home of the Alpine Club of Canada. We planned on staying there a while but after flipping through the guide book at a local store we were overwhelmed. Canmore is a trip in and of itself. We went to a couple of the local watering holes looking for other climbers but were unsuccessful. So back to the states we headed. We got a few miles from the border before we decided to cat nap. We had some objectives in the States that we wanted to see/climb so all was not lost.

I HAVE PHOTOS BUT CANT FIND THEM AT THE MOMENT. STAND BY.