Snakes and Spring Sunshine in Skaha

I took a break from the depressing (un)employment situation in Calgary to get some fresh air. A group of people from the Calgary Mountain Club were heading to Skaha in the Okanagan, and they kindly invited me to join them. I camped at the Sun and Sand RV Park, which is hosted excellently by Pat and Bob. It was quiet and clean - ideal for a tired climber. This is the weather that I was leaving behind as I crossed the Rogers Pass:

  Beyond the pass, things improved massively. By the next day, I was melting in temperatures around 30C. But first, we had some drinking to do. It's always best to have a hangover before approaching the crag. That way, you don't have to feel too bad about failure - it's just an unintended consequence of events. That's how I've always seen it, anyway.

We soon got John familiar with the local Tramp Stamp.

Climb, drink, sleep, repeat...

Here is a view of Skaha Lake the next morning. Better, right?

The heat lasted for three days, and drove us into shady corners by 11 AM or earlier. Here are two pictures from Fern Gully, where we climbed a range of stuff. The classic easy route here is Lichen In My Bellybutton (5.7) which has a possible continuation pitch above. At 5.9 there's an awesome three-star 5.9: Mea Culpa (below left). There are several other good climbs, and a bunch of sometimes dirty cracks, of widely ranging difficulty. Here we met an Australian who took pains to assure us that he was a "tenacious motherfucker". Turned out he wasn't a bad climber, too - that's him on some fairly desperate route that he did as a warm-up for an even harder overhanging 5.12b crack (Apricot Jam) straight afterwards. Tenacious indeed...but even he had more sense than to tackle the charmingly titled Slippery Slit or Basement Abortion. We were on holiday though, so had no need to exert ourselves unreasonably, and settled for Mea Culpa and Bellybutton plus a handful of straightforward clip-ups before moving on.

"Dave" leading Mea Culpa with great style.

Evan learning how a barbequed chicken must feel, at Daycare.

The days became a bit of a blur. Or maybe that was the nights, and the two just melted together in the sun; I'm not sure. We wandered all over the Bluffs, leaving sticky prints on perfect incuts, ticking off routes while avoiding ticks. Katie was not so lucky there: she ended up in hospital getting one particularly well-embedded little bugger pulled from her scalp. I had grand plans to lead 10b, but they went the way of the Tramp Stamp, and my quickly aborted attempt at trad 5.10a (Ready to Strike) on Day One set the scene for a battle to regain confidence. So we slunk off to Daycare the next morning, where people said that we would be cooked alive. And we were! But not before I'd led a 5.9 gritstone-style jamming crack through a roof that restored a smidgeon of pride and faith.

Mike cleaned up my mess on Ready to Strike. I found it hard on the soft end of the rope, too.

Nash cruising in the mid 5.12 range.

Below: I enjoyed the 5.9 so much that I did it again on a rope. Classic Peak HVS 5a.

The weather turned eventually, and gave me a chance to try a bike ride that I'd heard a lot about: Test of Humanity in Summerland. Constructed by a tiny team of volunteers, these 10 km of swooping descents and switchback climbs are a real joy to ride.


The next day was damp too. I was still sore from the unaccustomed muscle demands of climbing, so Fiona and I decided to do a multi-activity "bikes and booze" outing. The activities were cycling off-road, then cycling on-road, then wine tasting, then more cycling, then more wine tasting, and then cycling down a bloody big hill while carrying a substantial investment in wine, followed by a round of tastings in various wineries. A nicely balanced day...

We did not have great expectations of the ride, which circles around a hill near White Lake (adjacent to the radio observatory), but it blew us away. If anything, it was better than Test of Humanity. The road riding was lovely too. We visited Nighthawk and See Ya Later Ranch wineries, then bombed down the switchbacks into OK Falls. The last time I made that trip, we saw a huge bear with a grey face near the roadside, but thankfully he was nowhere to be seen this time.


When we got back, I took the chance to introduce Evan and Fiona to my favourite winery: Vin Perdu. It's a tiny, family-owned plot just south of Oliver. We like the wines, of course, but a large part of why it's my favourite is seeing the pride and care that goes into the process. Their tasting rooms are lovely, too - you sit out on the back deck, and Catherine gives you a tour simply by pointing out features - you can see it all easily from your chair.

On the last day of my holiday I got rather badly sandbagged by two of the CMC old-timers: Mr. Jones and Mr. Pickle. Actually I have no idea how you spell the latter's surname, but he left me in a pickle, so that'll do! Both of them assured me that Assholes of August (5.10a, 30 m) was really just a 5.7 or something similarly easy, after just one tricky move through a roof at the start. Partway up the climb, panting, and hanging from my gear for the umpteenth time, I remembered a passage from Classic Rock that described Ken Wilson; something like: "all day, the waves of bullshit had cascaded from his mouth like the foaming sea beneath the cliff". By then, Pickle was long departed, with a parting shout of, "Hey! Joe! you're an asshole!".

I placed 22 runners in 30 m, and found that there were at least two crux moves that were harder than the initial roof, higher up. There was a wasps' nest on the second one, too. Well, of course.

The route ended eventually. I led it in poor style, but given that I have barely climbed for the last ten years, launching onto a sustained E1 crack climb was not such a bad effort. While I was sitting on the ledge watching Katie cruise the second, a rattlesnake glided down the rocks next to me, within touching distance. Then half an hour later a second snake was waiting for us on the path to the parking lot. Quintessential Skaha!


Above: rattlesnake sliding away from the path - note blurry, shaking rattle. Below: Katie on an interesting 5.10 at Go Anywhere wall.