Acephale Topos August 2016

Hard to believe a place like Acephale still requires monthly updates. Here's the latest. I've used what appears to be the consensus grades and these do not necessarily reflect my personal opinion.

Lower Wall Updates based on 2011 Edition of Bow Valley Sport:

The 8 routes on the far left wall had 2m eroded from the base from the 2013 floods.

Keys in the Car: Access via an easy scramble in from the left and climb as before.

Nickel Bag: 2 bolts have been added to protect a hard roof section at the bottom. The first few moves feel significantly harder and probably ups the grade to mid 5.11. Alternately, scramble up and traverse in from the left as per Keys in the Car to bypass the opening crux.

Girl Drink Drunk: Do the direct start of Nickel Bag - does not change the grade.

The Irradicator: The flood revealed some interesting features and adds a few more moves to this climb. Grade unchanged. Bring a stick clip.

Illy Down: The start looks possible but will probably be quite technical and hard. Unknown to me if this has been climbed post flood.

Ice Cream Head: Probably doable by traversing in from Illy Down or Subbacultcha. Unknown to me if this has been climbed post flood.

Ice Cream Head Direct: The flood left a boulder at the base to stand on so this hard climb is largely unaffected. Unknown to me if this has been climbed post flood.

Subbacultcha: A direct start looks doable but difficult. More feasible would be starting slightly to the right and traversing in - may need an extra bolt at the start to facilitate this. Unknown to me if this has been climbed post flood.

On the main wall, it looks like 2 link up bolts have been added between Neoconstructionist and Where's Mom. I'm not sure what this linkup is.

New route Nyctophobia, 13a, 9 bolts, 20m. Just to the right of Last Dance.

New route Last Stop 305 Bus, 10 bolts, 20m. Shares the first 2 bolts on Nyctophobia before heading right. 2 fixed chain draws. Should be good to go, better confirm with JD before getting on this.

New route Nitro, 12c, 15 bolts, 35m? Just right of Lose Yourself at the Junction. I did this with a 70m rope and had tons of rope left. I think a 60m is fine. To the right of Nitro is another project.

Alex Megos sending and clipping the chains on Full Nelson, the latest 5.14d in Canada

and solidifying Acephale as the hardest wall in Canada.

Apocalypse Cave Update

Update April 17, 2017: Added 2 new bolted projects between Drifter and Box of Souls to topos.

The Apocalypse Cave is a free climbing area. Do not climb these routes with ice tools! The wall is located in the Middle Grotto of Grotto Mountain, the same canyon as The Playground and Silent Auction multi-pitch. The tallest climbs are roughly 25m high and a 60m rope is required.

Approach information: Park at the Ratsnest cave parking. This is a large dirt unsigned turnoff of Hwy 1A. If approaching from Exshaw, once the speed limit hits 80km/h, the road goes uphill and over a bend. The parking is the third pullout on the right when driving downhill, about 2km past the turnoff for Gap Lake. If approaching from Canmore, it is about 5km from the ACC turnoff, just as the speed limit hits 80 km/h, first left after Graymont plant. The majority of the approach is the same as for The Playground.

Follow the Ratsnest cave trail for approximately 5 minutes up a steep hill. The climber's trail forks left partway up the steep hill (see photo). There are many forks and it can be hard to find the proper one, it usually has some flagging. If you are on the correct turnoff, you will reach a clearing and powerline within a few minutes. After about 40 minutes, just before the road goes downhill into the mine site, the trail leads up into the tress and into the Middle Grotto canyon. Follow the canyon and the trails along it's banks to a fork just before the Playground. The right fork leads to the Playground, take the left fork for Apocalypse Cave and Silent Auction. The trail re-enters the canyon to a fork in the drainage. Take the right drainage but do not follow it, instead look for an orange flagged trail that leads to the base of the wall. An alternative to the orange flagged trail is to scramble up the left drainage which will take you to the Afterthought Wall. Approach time is approximately 70 minutes.  The wall gets sun from late morning until early evening.

Topos and photos are shown from left to right. Enjoy!

Santa Linya!

Over the Christmas holidays, Sheena and I had the opportunity to climb in the massive and spectacular Cova Gran of Santa Linya.

Heading back to Santa Linya first day of the trip.

We had visited Santa Linya in 2013, but only for one day and I was psyched to spend an entire month there this time.  I hadn’t done much climbing preparation for the trip and I didn’t expect conditions to be great so I didn’t really know what to expect out of the trip.

When we arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see the entire cave was dry.  Not only was there dry rock, we enjoyed great weather with only a single day of rain out of 30.  We had our mix of cold foggy days, windy days, and scorching hot days, providing a good mix of vacation temps and sending temps.

So psyched for dry rock!!  Photo Sheena Stares.

I was also pleasantly surprised to climb really well right away.  Usually I have an adjustment period to get used to a new area, especially after flying overseas and coming straight out of the gym.  I was able to dispatch Rock Funk, 5.14a in the first week of the trip while checking out some of the harder lines.

The style of Santa Linya is steep steep STEEP!  A huge variety of holds are featured, from jugs to monos, slopers, crimps, and tufas which definitely keeps things interesting.  Overall, routes are more endurance oriented compared to Bow Valley routes which tend to have stopper cruxes.  

The steepness! I'm not even halfway to the top of the cave at this point.  Photo Sheena Stares.

I didn’t really have any particular goals entering this trip.  I spent most of 2015 climbing in the low 5.14s, many of which were new routes.  I really wanted to get back into the mode of projecting hard routes at the upper end of my limit.  Santa Linya certainly has no shortage of these, with the highest concentration of 9a and up routes in Catalunya.  Over the course of a month, I had the chance to try most of the routes in the Santa Linya cave; the line that ended up drawing my attention the most was Seleccio Natural, 5.14d.

Working the upper moves of Seleccio Natural, 9a. This is one of the best routes I have ever tried.

Alas, one month was not enough to put it down.  Photo Sheena Stares.

We ended up climbing for 30 days straight which was one day off my longest streak.  When climbing this many days in a row, I usually break it up with some easier days.  However, at Santa Linya, with the grades checking in at 12d (warm-up) and up, this wasn’t really an option.  I pretty much spent every day climbing 5.14 and was definitely exhausted by the end.

We stayed in Villanova de la Sal, a tiny village about 15 minutes drive from Santa Linya.  This combined with a 3 minute flat approach, we were able to get from our apartment to first burn warming up in under 25 minutes, definitely a pleasant change from climbing in the Bow Valley!  

We rented a 2 person apartment at Cal Ribero ( http://www.calribero.es ).  We had to deal with a few complications with the booking but that was cleared up, the hosts were great, and it was a great place to stay for the apartment itself, the village, and the proximity to Santa Linya.  We would definitely stay there again and would recommend it as a Santa Linya home base.

Our evening view from Villanova de la Sal.

We were also just over an hour away from Oliana where we spent 2 days climbing, 20 minutes from the nearest town and groceries in Balaguer, and half an hour from Terradets.  Climbing everyday doesn't leave a lot of time to see the sights, but I wouldn't have it any other way.  Overall, it was an amazing trip and I can not wait to go back!

Checking out La Lechion Ocho, 8c+ at Terradets on an "off" day.  Photo Joe Kinder.