An Exercise In Futility

Went climbing at the steppes again this weekend. It was great! Tried leading a 5.11b (something on sherlock wall but not sure which one), it kicked my butt in the endurance department, i got totally pumped out by the 7th bolt and had to leave behind a couple of draws. Wanted to rappel off the top to retrieve the equipment but the bolts were wiggly in the rock and i didn’t think my life was worth $30. Maybe i can climb it again sometime soon to get them, that is if nobody has pinched them yet.

I have also updated the map for Steppes access. apparently the copley ridge road is a dead end and requires a bushwhack - so i’ve removed that until i (or someone else) can confirm/map-out a reliable route. Also added a second gate location to the map and confirmed the location of the cabin access trail.

Within a 16 hour timespan today, there have been 12 earthquakes between magnitude 4.0 and 5.2, all around the same spot about 200km WSW of Port Hardy, off the north end of Vancouver Island. This location is known as the explorer transform, a transform fault at the north end of the explorer ridge.

Update August 28 10:23am: The count for quakes in this region is now up to 32! Overnight there was a 6.1 reported (now downgraded to a 5.8). Not exciting for most people, however, because it was too far out in the ocean to be felt by anyone on land.

I went rock climbing at Metcalfe on Saturday. The bad news is that i had not climbed for almost two weeks and was tired from not having slept well for 4 days in a row, so my climbing performance was poor. However, i do think that the ratings here are somewhat.. harder than i am used to? One route had a 5.9 beginning section which i lead no problem, followed by a 5.10a section above which i just could not do at all. I struggled for a while then had to give up, could not even cheat by hanging on gear, it was just too difficult! After that we chose stuff based on appearance and possible fun-factor, and the group got me to try leading something else which while totally bolted was very tough and was a long distance in between bolts. The first bolt had been stolen/removed but i was able to place a cam nearby, which allowed me to reach the second bolt. I got above that but it was just too darn far to the next bolt and there was nowhere in between to place any protection at all, i had to bail. Then later we top-roped something which was supposedly 5.10b/c, a nice nice crack which was fun to work on but really impossible to climb. Interestingly it was not my arms that got pumped out, but my hands which were just unable to crimp. Despite the utter failures, i still had fun, and i got to see the backwoods of Grey County…

On the way to the crag, from Alliston, i really got a bit lost and ended up way out in the boonies at Dundalk before getting turned around back to Ravenna. On the way i got to see the wind turbine farm near Shelburne (no pictures of course, darnit!!), and the lush green Beaver Valley. Out that way it is farms, fields, or forest for miles and miles, a really nice area, and very few towns. I had forgotten how far you could drive in a perfectly straight line without hitting a stop sign or traffic light, or anything really!