🧗 A big shout out to Ahren Rankin, Garner Bergeron and James Rode for the work they have done over the last three years in establishing a new alpine 22 pitch climbing route (1000m+) on Rugged Mountain which they just finished this August 2019 over the long weekend. 🧗
🏔Read below for more details from Ahren on how the route was established and for beta on the route. 😊
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My friends Garner Bergeron, James Rode and myself climbed this route over three weekends spread over two years, starting in Aug 2017. We established the climb ground up, drilling any protection bolts and the anchors as we lead the pitches. The first weekend we climbed eight pitches to the base of a steep headwall at that point on the wall. The following weekend it rained a lot so we spent our time re-opening the trail which goes up to Nathan Col
and the trail in to the base of the wall. The third weekend we re-climbed to our high point and continued further up the wall, establishing five more pitches to a point where we found a large bivy ledge where we spent the night. The next day we climbed two more pitches to the base of the steep
buttress where the harder climbing began. Tired from our efforts we rappelled back to the base of the route and headed home.
We were unable to return in 2018 so it wasn't until Aug long weekend 2019 that we returned to finish the climb. We re-climbed to our bivy at the top of the 13th pitch the first day. The following day we climbed back to our high point and then started into new terrain on the steep buttress. We
climbed seven more pitches to the top of the wall, topping out in the dark and settling in to another bivy on a much smaller ledge a couple hundred feet below the summit. The next morning we summited quickly and then rushed
back down to find some much needed water.
The climb is 22 mostly quite long pitches of mostly moderate climbing with the crux of the route being 5.10, the route is 1000meters or 3200ft + in length. All the anchors are bolted and have Rappel Rings (a few just have
biners instead of rings), so the whole route can be rappelled although the upper pitches could be troublesome as they are very steep. I will clarify that there are very few protection bolts on the route, some pitches have one
or two but most have none and the climbing is definitely alpine in nature and sometimes protection can be a bit sparse, this is not a sport climb!
I have been climbing for 22 years, starting when my sister Alanna took me and a friend from high school out to Crest Creek when I was 16. I have spent those years being very involved in the development of Crest Creek becoming
the 3rd most prolific new-router at Crest in that time. I have climbed extensively in the alpine on Vancouver Island as well as on some on the mainland in the Coast Range and in Squamish. I also Co-Authored the Crest Creek Rock Climbs guidebook with my friend Chris Barner.
As far as my motivation for climbing this route in the way we did, I was quite drawn to the line as it was a very natural and appealing looking route and the bolted anchors in particular were to facilitate safety and the ability to retreat from the climb. As for the protection bolts, some of the
pitches would have otherwise been extremely bold or maybe dangerous to climb without them.
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📸Ahren Rankin
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