After returning from the five-day Ice Leader Camp, I knew I needed more mileage this season to practice the skills I had learned. So when Rohan suggested a day trip to Rambles Centre for January 29, I was excited. Soon, Lily, Pawel and Jesse confirmed, and we now had a group of five.
I left home around 3:30 am on Saturday and picked up Lily, Pawel and Jesse from North Vancouver. By 5 am, we were in Squamish at Rohan’s place. I thought three in the back of my Forester would be too friendly, but it seemed to work well. Lily and Rohan got a bit car sick for a while, but that might be just my driving.
Territory Acknowledgement
I would like to acknowledge that we hiked and climbed on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territory of the St’át’imc (Stat-lee-um) Nation. I commit to learning about Indigenous peoples and issues and making reconciliation an ongoing effort.
Source: Native-Land Pronunciation Guide: First-Nations.info
Rambles Centre
We arrived at the Rambles parking lot just before 7:30 am. There is parking space for about five cars, and a group was already camping in a van and truck. Thankfully the group was planning to climb Rambles Right. We geared up, scribbled “Rambles Center 5” on my car and made our way up the trail.
The trail is across the road to the left. At the fork higher up on the trail, we went right, and it took about 20 minutes to get to the base of the first pitch of Rambles Centre.
First Pitch
For the most part, the first pitch (WI3) looked good, but the top section looked thin and wet. Lily took the lead and went up first. As she arrived at the top, she confirmed what we felt about the top section. She anchored herself to the tree and belayed Pawel from the top.
Jesse went up next and continued leading past Lily/Pawel. He had climbed in Scotland and was more comfortable leading the top section of the first pitch.
Rohan and I followed Jesse to the top of the first pitch. As I climbed up the top section, I had a better appreciation for the protection (trees) that Jesse had used and the time it took him to make it to the top.
We had a big mess with four ropes as we got ready to belay Lily and Pawel to the top. On our drive back, we had an interesting conversation about things we could have done to avoid this mess. But it took some time to clean up the ropes when we were climbing.
Second Pitch
A low-angle ramp leads to the second pitch (WI2+), and Rohan took the lead on this one. The top section didn’t have any ice, and Rohan traversed left to set up the anchor.
Jesse went up next, and I followed. Lily continued to lead and set up an anchor to the right. The second pitch relative to the first pitch was easy but was wet at some sections, and the climb over the bulge made it interesting.
Rambles Upper Tier
As we looked up from the top of the second pitch, we could partially see the Rambles Upper Tier flows. The top section looked thin, but we decided to scramble up and have a look.
It was a fun scramble up the creek with a mix of snow, ice and rocks with logs thrown in as a bonus. Once at the base, we had a good view of the climb, and it looked much better.
As Rohan led the climb to the right (WI3), he confirmed that the ice quality was much better than what he had climbed before. The top section was tricky, and Rohan did a great job finishing the climb in these conditions.
Lily and Pawel got up to the upper tier, and Lily decided to lead the route to the left (probably another WI3). There was a bit of uncertainty with the route and the anchors. But Lily climbed strong, traversed a bit and found an anchor point to the left.
By 2:20 pm, we started rappelling down from the top of Rambles Upper Tier. Then we scrambled back down to the top of the second pitch and did two rappels back to the bottom of the Rambles Centre.
We were down at the parking lot by 4 pm, about an hour before the sunset. The conditions were not the best, but it was a great experience and, as Rohan said, prepares you well for alpine climbs.
I got back home around 8 pm. Relative to climbing in Marble Canyon, it was a short day but still about seven hours / 520 km of driving to climb three pitches/100 m of ice. As my friend from Alberta put it, “that’s dedication.”
Resources:
Glossary of climbing terms and Alpinist page on climbing grades
Climbing tips and other resources – Alpine Savvy | Will Gadd Videos on Climbing.com
West Coast Ice Facebook Group is an excellent resource for route conditions
Watch this video of an ice climb and then read Will Gadd’s excellent analysis of everything that went wrong in this climb. You will likely enjoy his follow-up post as well
If you are in Metro Vancouver and looking for a group to climb with, check out British Columbia Mountaineering Club
Disclosure: The links I have shared in the blog post or in the resources section are not affiliate links.
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