NORTHEAST RIDGE BUGABOO SPIRE!

posted by CBangs

Perfect fingers, old piton

Yesterday was day two in this weeks three day challenge, and a very good day at that.  I got an early start for myself, about 8:20am and went for the Northeast Ridge Route on Bugaboo Spire.  This is one of the 50 Classic Climbs in North America, and it deserves every bit of that.  As I said earlier this week I am going to up the ante.  Yesterday I sure did.  This was the best day I've ever had climbing!  The best route that I've ever done; in the best style that I could possibly imaging doing such a great route in.  Valley bottom to the summit, back to the valley bottom!   And it was also the best day of gorgeous weather we've seen this year in the Bugaboos.    My plan was to not carry a rope with me even though I knew I would need to make several rappels on the summit traverse and on the descent.  This plan involved other people.  I would need other people on the route to team up with once I reached the North Summit.  This is one of the really nice and relaxing things about climbing by myself.  Speed.  When your not roped up you can move so much faster and freer over the rock.  The movement is unencumbered by the rope and all the gear.  Yes it can be much more dangerous.  That much is obvious.  What might not be obvious though is that it is equally that much more rewarding, and the fluid uninterrupted movement of climbing with no attachments is pure joy!
So my plan worked out perfectly.  My pace and my timing was also right on par.  I didn't catch up with any of the other teams on the route till we were all near the top of the North Summit.  The beginning of the route is long and continuous, so I didn't want to have to stop or try to pass another party on the lower sections of the route.  I started up the climb sometime after 12 noon.  With the blood still dried on my hands from the day before, I jammed my fingers and hands into the cracks and with calm and controlled steady breathing started up the crux first pitch.  Finger cracks are my favourite! and this route has so many perfect fingers on it that I felt like a teenager on ecstasy.
The summit traverse; now here's something not to be taken lightly.  The summit traverse on Bugaboo Spire involves 3 rappels and about 3 rope lengths (or pitches) of climbing.  The exposure at the top is as good as it gets.  As I already said, this was the best day every!  And summit traverse helped put that into perspective.  One place in particular had some really delicate climbing directly above the East Face.  Every step sideways bought my gaze downward towards my feet and the 2000ft of air hovering between me and the glacier below.  Just amazing.  It was so riveting that I had to stop, tighten my grip on the rock, and take a picture.  Wow!!
Wow is right.  I didn't make it back to my camp last night till about 12 midnight.  Now it's 9:30am, and I am getting ready for day three of this weeks three day challenge.  I'm feeling really good this morning and I have a couple of options of things I can climb today.  Later in the week I really want to tell you about all this amazing new stuff that I've been learning about with my diet.  It is really making all the difference for me and it is giving me so much more energy and clarity I have to share the secret with you.  Stay tuned.

Different day, same smelly t-shirt.

The Northeast Ridge is the line between the sun and the shade!

Special thanks go out to Maryeve, RJ, Joe, and Scott.  Thanks for teaming up with me and helping me get off the mountain.  Without all of you I would not have been able to climb this great route!  Your awesome, and I hope to meet up with you again some where.

Urban Mountain Legends and Modern Myths

by Dr. Muse

Double wrap your car my friend, this is serious stuff!!!

In the Bugaboo Mountains of British Columbia there’s an urban mountain legend that climbers here know all about.  It’s the legend of the car eating porcupines.  Porcupines so big and ferocious they’ll eat your car tires, brake lines, and the trim right off your windows.  These porcupines are huge, way bigger than your house cats (not yours Eric, Butters is still biggest pigeon toed walking tabby that I’ve ever seen.  Butters, you walk like a grizzly bear; be proud) and they love eating rubber.  At least that is the way the legend goes. 
So when you pull up to the Bugaboo’s parking lot and see every car in the lot double wrapped in chicken wire, think to your self, huge car eating porcupines.  They’re here man!!  No joke about it, this is serious stuff.  Just talk to anyone around here and they get all serious on ya real quick. “This is a big deal man.”  I was told.  Apparently they'll eat the tires right off your rims, peel the trim off your windows, and then they go for your brake lines.  These porcupines are like mechanics from the urban mountain hood and they can find brake lines on any make or model your driving.  That’s impressive.
Now parking in the mountains is a normal thing any where else, but not here my friend.  When you park your car here, fence that thing off, and line up as many rocks and logs as you need to hold that chicken wire in place.

These porcupines are crazy, and they love rubber, cause car tires have salt on them, so do the brake lines, and the window trim. Right?  

Climbers themselves are a bit crazy too.  Sometimes all that crack they’ve been climbing gets mixed in with their tobacco, and then you never know what they’re going to do.

To the Native Americans, the Porcupine is the symbol for innocence.  To Bugaboo climbers this is a dangerous car eating monster that will destroy you car and leave you stranded in the mountains.

The scene at the parking lot might look strange the first time you see it.

The Story of Grrock and Karn

If you haven't heard of the story of Grrock and Karn, the mystical sisters that exist high in the mountains. Then listen closely my friends, because this is a tale you won't want to forget. Grrock and Karn are close friends with the mountain climbers and will often show themselves to help you find your way home.  Most mountain climbers have seen them quite a few times, but nobody really seems to know who they are, how they got there, and how they perform their magic.  Especially Grrock.  She is one of those forgotten forest guardians.  The memory of her has long sense been heard by the ears of humans.  But people are always saying that they’ve seen Karn.  There’s Karn here, and there she is again over there. Little do they realize how much work it is for her to be in so many places at once.  But now that modern science has proven the existence of multiple dimensions (I'm not joking about this, look it up), and that an object can exist in more than one place at the same time!!!!  Maybe it will become easier for us to realize what Karn is doing and how she is doing it.

There's Karn in two places at once. Photographic proof of a parallel universe.

It’s a special task to take care of lost climber.  We come in droves.  Our numbers increasing everyday, and we are not getting any better at finding our way home.  Even with things like GPS, and radios we still get lost.  That’s where Karn comes to the rescue.  She always seems to be in just the right place, unless your totally lost.  Then you might be better off to look for Grrock.  But who is she, and where will she lead you?  She’s a little smaller than Karn and a little harder to see, and it’s not exactly your home that she will lead you to.  It’s her home.  That labyrinth deep in the forrest.  Where ever thing is alive; the rocks, the wind, the glaciers, and the mountains.  Where the wood sprites are looking after the trees, the gnomes are hanging out with caterpillars smoking on top of the mushroom. It’s a magical place that most of us have not been in for a long time, but it’s out there.  And all you have to do is find Grrock and let her know that your lost and want to go home with her. She is easy to identify and looks a little different that her sister Karn.  Usually she's in a small room, framed in with what looks like bars on a window.  The reason that she is in there, and that there is a frame around her is because she letting you know that there is a barrier that you have to cross to enter her realm.  A barrier that exist, but only in you mind.

To enter the forrest simply walk in, to enter Grrock's realm simply open your mind.

   

The Unorthodox style of Chris Bangs

Justene nearing the top of the snow headwall at the Bugaboo Snowpatch Col

I was looking to write a blog about being low-tech vs. hji-tech.  About camping low on the mountain  and not carrying heavy loads into a high camp.  About riding nearly 700 miles on a bicycle in a pair of Crocs.  There are so many things that I do and practice that are not usually the way someone would do things.  About the fact that when I head out on a big alpine day, I sleep in and totally forget about the alpine start.  The way I figure it is if I'm going to get up at 3am and walk up the approach to my climb in the dark, what's the difference then between sleeping in, waking up a casually hour and walking the end of the day back down the trail in the dark?  Either way I'm walking around in a forest in the dark, and I've never had a big problem with that anyway.
Now I'm not saying that I've got all these thing figured out.  There are obvious flaws in my systems; like during a ten hour day on a bicycle in a pair of Crocs, yes my feet do ache a little more than when I'm wearing my expensive cycling shoes.  But then there is the flip side to that one also.  Expensive cycling shoes are expensive, they look stupid when your not on your bike, and they walk only a little more comfortably than those Dutch wooden clogs.  Crocs may not be the most fashionable foot wear out there but they are about the most comfortable and light weight piece of gear I'm carrying with me.  My Crocs are also 4 years old, so for the price you can't beat that.

Our first climb together in the Bug; Eastpost Spire

Human-Powered Mountaineering (HPM) is the opposite of Mile per Hour (MPH).  This is another part of our so-called style.  HPM is the opposite of MPH; we're not in a hurry.  In fact we are the opposite of being in a hurry.  We are trying our hardest to slow things down for ourselves.  Non of this "car-to-car in ten hours" bullshit lingo here.  We take our time, because why did we come here anyway?  Just to be in hurry.  This place is super, natural British Columbia.  I'm not going to go around bragging about how I was in this super awesome beautiful place and I made it back to my car (or bike as the case may be) as fast as I could.  That's just stupid, and I'm just as guilty as anyone for having done it.  But I'm learning.  I'm learning that I really love being in the mountains.  Like last night walking back to camp by myself.  I was sore and tired and didn't have clue what time it was and everyone I met on the trail on their way in was looking at me like I was some sort of lost hiker, because who would be walking back at this time and with that small of a backpack there is no way I'm a "climber",  just look at those old inexpensive generic shoes he's wearing, definitely not a "climber",  just a lost day hiker posing for a rescue add.  "Climbers" have heavy duty shiny boots, huge packs, and often the judgement to match how much they spent on all that crap.  How do I know this?  Well again, I'm as guilty as an anyone for doing this.  When I first started climbing I was hooked.  I wanted to climb every mountain in the world.  But I was a young kid just starting my own business and I couldn't afford all that gear.  Even if I didn't know what all that gear was for, it didn't matter, I wanted it.  I wanted more than anything to be a "Climber".   It's funny how things work themselves out, because now days, it's what I do.  I'm a rock climber.  I'm making a documentary on rock climbing.  I'm living in a tent for months at a time.  Still can't afford all the fancy crap, and still don't know what some it is for, or if we really even need it for that matter.  But here I am, living in the Bugaboo Mountains for an entire summer.

My new friend Evan on top of Bugaboo Spire

That brings me to another of the things that I think that I have figured out for myself about style in the mountains.  Walking home slowly.  At the end of a big day I make sure to slow way down.  For me it's the difference between waking up totally cramped up the next morning because I ran down the trail to brag about how fast I went, or waking up the next day ready to do it again because I walked the last 6-10km at a snail's pace.  We all know or have heard that walking downhill is bad for your knees and your joints, but there is more to it than that.  Those last few kilometres of the day can be therapeutic if you walk slow or they can be damaging to your joints and muscles if your worried and hurried. By walking slowly at the end of the day I'm giving my body time to recover from what I have just done in a way that sitting and resting doesn't do.  In fact last night I was starting to get quite sore on the trail.  My feet hurt, my right leg felt a little crampy, my lower back was tight, but when I woke up this morning I felt great.  No lower back pain, no cramped muscles, no sore feet.  All because I made sure to walk back down the trail nice and slow.  The other thing that I think that helps quite a bit is the bicycle.  After my marathon day climbing Bugaboo Spire by myself, I got back to the trailhead to my bicycle and rode the 4km back to my camp on the river.  Cycling is great for the joints and muscles in the legs, but again only if your doing it right.  By right I mean spinning, and by spinning I'm referring to peddling fast.  It burns out all that lactic acid in your legs.  If you peddle slowly it builds up synovial fluid in your knees and makes them swell up as well as cause your legs to cramp up.  So I hike slow and peddle fast.  I don't have a shoe sponsor yet (hint hint Crocs) and I soloed Bugaboo Spire yesterday in a snow storm, kind of.  Actually it only snowed a little bit while I was on the crux pitch, the famous Gendarme Pitch, so I turned around at that point because I was not carrying a rope and I didn't not want to get stranded near the summit of the mountain.  Then I would have been the poster boy for the rescue add. Instead I started down until I met a party of 3 that was also debating whether or not they should retreat or if they would wait out the storm and keep going.  We decided to join forces and keep going.  In the end we all made it to the summit and it worked out well for all of us.  I trailed a rope up the crux pitch for  them and then was able join them on 3 rapples on the way off the summit. A great day in the mountains!!!  

Another beautiful day in the mountains

The best parts were the internal visuals that I had of seeing myself in a bright green jacket, clinging to the side of a vertical cliff with no rope attached to myself, thousands of feet off the ground near the summit of one of the most iconic peaks in North America with the wind blowing light snow around, slowly making the next move upward, testing the hand hold, taping my foot on the foothold, feeling solid and connected to the mountain in both a physical and spiritual sense, those were the best moment for me that day.  And when the guy in camp the day before asked me why I would do such a thing, I got lost in thought and don't even remember if I answered him, because I was dreaming about the sensations of timeless weightlessness that the Mountain can give to me once I've arrived at that moment of perfect connection  and union with the Mountain.  This is the ultimate!!!  So a better question than,  'why would I do it" is, WHY WOULDN'T I????  I mean really.  In a world were you can fret about everything.  Why not train myself to perfect some thing as grand as this?

A baby Ermin came up to us to say "Hi"

Then a Spruce Grouse and five babies hung out with us on the trail for a few minutes.

And finally this toad was in the trail waiting for us to come by.  Quite the day!!

Our animal friends are one of the things that make these adventures special and remind us why we live this life the way that we choose, in harmony and in love and fearless....

Zip ties and Duct tape

posted by Chris

Mile 450
After an early morning thunder storm from an anonymous cloud we headed towards Eureka where we are planning on visiting Ten Lakes Farm today.
Then SNAP!!!
The bolt holding my bike seat together snaps as I'm riding and luckily the seat post dosn't get deposited in the wrong spot.  OK, bust out the zip ties and the duct tape.  And thankfully not for me arse!!!

The broken bolt

Schlep has seen better days.

The ride comfort improved for the first few miles. Then a slight rocking chair effect took place.  And finally a laid back low rider look had me clenching my cheeks together to keep the seat from slipping off.
We made it the 15 miles to Eureka on a Sunday.  The hardware store is closed, possibly till Tuesday, and now I am riding standing up and I'm on the look out for a new bolt.

Lunch at Walking Bear Farm with Lyn Hendrix homemade sprouts and homemade preserves.

No this is not Woodstock, it's the Eureka Farmer's Market

Stone Hill's heat stone

For all those non-believers who think you need to eat meat; eat your heart out!!

 Picked up Jack Skellington outside Bigfork where he was hitchhiking from.

go go granny gear

Kale trees at Peaceful Gardens

It's the morning of day four on the road.  We've covered over a 161 miles in the last three days.  Through Helena, out to Chase Family Farm, up and over McDonald Pass, and to a great camp spot on the Little Blackfoot River in the town of Avon.  Just a few miles out of town, my front shifter breaks.  The bike drops into the granny gear in the front chain ring and I can not seem to fix it.
Now I'm assuming that everyone knows what the granny gear on a bicycle is.  That little tiny chain ring in the front for climbing hills.  The one that if you shift into it at the wrong time your legs start spinning a million miles per hour.  Yep, that one, and now I'm stuck there.  In granny gear.
Justene and I have 75 miles to ride today to get Seeley Lake.  We are also hoping to meet up with my dad who's riding in from Missoula to join us for 3 day.
After playing around with the cable and the front de-railer for a while to see what my options are.  We keep going.  I could rig the cable so that I'm stuck in the middle chain ring, but then I wouldn't have a hill climbing gear.  So I settle for the granny gear as it seems to be the best option.  I'll be able to climb any of the small hills that we have ahead of us and I will be able to peddle up to about 13mph before spinning my legs out of control.
The day before this in Helena we were riding down a back street and saw three really cool metal sculptures of snails.  These snails are like us I thought.  They're slow moving creatures that are pulling around a giant shell that they call home.  Just like us.  Just like me.  Stuck in granny gear, pulling around a giant trailer that has everything in it that I will call home for the next 3 months.  We have found our power animal.  The Snail!!!
They're so cute too, and perfectly fitting for our adventure as we are in no hurry.  Often we will ride until dark to get to the next camp site.  Wherever that may be.  On the night of day two Justene and I are in Helena thinking about getting out to Chase Family Farm.  We've cycled over 50 miles that day already.  Pushing through 20 miles of headwinds and battling with sunburns, we decide that 10 more miles at this point is to much.  It's dark out and we are tired.  So we pull into an empty field right in the middle of town and pitch our tent.  This is one of the perks of bicycle camping that I really enjoy.  With the bicycle, it's like an a free pass to camp almost wherever you want.  When the neighbours finally see us in the morning they just sit there in the kitchen and watch.  No phone calls to the police, no harassment or harsh looks.  Just wonder and stares.  Like who the hell are these people on bikes???
We make it to Bigfork on day 5 and set up at the Marina Cay for our first rest day.  Bigfork is a great little place to take a day off and walk around.  It's Saturday and we hit up the Farmer's Market and right away we meet Paul.  Paul is larger than life at six foot four and he's the only one there selling fresh produce.  It's been a slow year growing food for most people, but not for Paul.  He runs Peaceful Garden  here in Bigfork and has a 51 foot geodesic dome that he grows all year round in.  Only in his 3rd year gardening, Paul already has a lot going on.  He's retired and has made a huge life style shift, and now he is a raw vegan specialist.  His stories are amazing as he begins to tell us about his life.  I haven't even mentioned to him what Justene and I doing and that we are making a documentary on the availability of local organic food.  This is just the person that we want to meet.  Finally I ask him if he will repeat some of what he has just said for the camera.  The whole time I have been just standing there listening and have forgotten to press the record button.

Peaceful Gardens .net

In Bigfork I am also able to get "Schlep" (my bicycle) fixed.  Cameron at the bike rental shop has a spare shifter that he sells me for $20 and teaches me a little about bike maintenance.  We get a lot of laughs from the guys at the bike shop when they hear that I have just ridden 150 miles in my granny gear.

Check this guy out.  Paul Renner is our hero!!!

Paul Renner with the ladies; Justene, Mela, and Jeannette (girlfriend, sister, and mom)

Now we are onto Whitefish today to visit Walking Bear Farm.  Then another farm stop in Eureka on Tuesday at Ten Lakes Farm.  We will also plan to spend at least one day rock climbing at Stone Hill before crossing the boarder in to Canada.  It's getting more exciting everyday.  The scenery is better and better and we are falling into a good daily rhythm on the road.
We've seen lots of wildlife.  Sandpipers flying over head chirping at us, two baby elk with their mothers, turtles, crawdads, hawks, pelicans, tiny lime green beetles, and ourselves, our alter egos,  Whippoorwill and Ruff Hewn alive and well.
The Road its self has also proven once again to grant us the things we need.  Justene (or Whippoorwill) has found not only her trail name for this adventure, she has also found a beacon.  A large glass prism that mounts perfectly on her handle bars.  A traveler's symbol for lighting the way.

When the traveler is ready, the light will appear.

300 Miles down

Long distance cycling feels like we got novocaine shots in each butt cheek.  It's kinda numb, it kinda hurts.

Welcome to our gear room.

The packing begins.

Have lunch will travel

Bob Trailers are like loyal dogs.  They'll follow you anywhere.

Thanks Jo, Brad, Stacy, Mackenzie, Zack, and Kyle for the fashion show/send off ride.

This web footed blue ninja-duck-man wanted to go for a ride 

Our power animal, the snail.

Our camp on day 2.  An empty field in Helena, next to a trap shooting club (think shotguns).

Nice legs!!!

This turtle tried to cross the road...

This little turtle wears spandex.

 My dad Collin "Porter" Bangs joined us for 76 miles from Clearwater Jct. to Bigfork.  76 miles may not sound very long if your not 67 years old.  Good job dad!!!  Thanks for buying lunch.

Sometime the road is as long at it seems.

The Journey continues.  Enjoy the ride...

Expedition #3, eighteen months in California (part 2)

Standing on the summit of El Capitan in Yosemite.  Where dreams come true and rocks are as big as the imagination of men.

October 2006.  Expedition #3.
I don't hesitate when I say that the Sierra Nevada Mountains  in California have the best rock climbing in the world.  Of course I don't know that for sure because I have not climbed everywhere on the planet, but I'm going on my own personal experience and the consensus of other climbers as well.  This would be the second time I've spent 2 months in the Bishop area.  This time though I was planning on using Bishop as a base camp to get into the mountains instead of just a training ground in the boulder fields.  I had just read Steve Ropers book "Camp 4" and was super psyched to be in California.  "Climbing, more so than any other sport is defined by it's literature" (which I think is quote by John Long), and I had just read the history of big wall climbing in North America in Roper's book.  I chose the East Face of Mount Whitney partially because of it's history and partially because of the meandering type of route it is.  The East Face was first climbed in 1931 by Jules Eichorn, Norman Clyde, Robert L.M. Underhill, and Glen Dawson.  These were the best climbers in North America at that time and this was the first big wall  to be climbed on this continent.
I also chose this route because as a mountaineer I love the challenge of route finding.  I knew that this route would be technically quiet easy by today's standards but that the real challenge would be not getting lost on the immense East Face while climbing solo.  So after a couple weeks in Bishop, bouldering, lounging at cafes, and a quick jaunt up Mount Darwin in the Evolution Range of the Sierra's, I rode down to Lone Pine and up the wicked steep road to Whitney Portal.  This turned out to be one of the steepest and hardest hill climbs I have ever done on a bicycle.   Which turned out to be a comic interlude for me the whole time I spent on Mount Whitney.  Every time I tried I tried to impress somebody, usually a non climber, with the fact that I was here to make a solo ascent of the East Face, they shrugged it off casually and then looked at me quizzically and asked, "did you ride your bicycle up that road?" with the sound of shock and disbelief in their voice.

Enjoying the beautiful California sunshine on the summit of Mount Whitney

The route proved to be no less of a challenge than I had anticipated.  Staying on route was not all that difficult for me, and "the fresh air  traverse" turned out to be one of the best sections of rock I have ever climbed.  The pitch is easily identified by two old pitons protruding from the rock, and it gets its name from the fact that your climbing down and to the left 2000 feet off the ground.  Now usually when your climbing up something and you look down at your feet to find the foot holds, all you really see is your feet and a little bit of the rock.  But now when your climbing sideways and at a downward angle, your looking out into the space below you on every move.  The feeling is exhilarating.  For me, I feel like I have transformed into a spider and that the world around me has shrunk into this small plane of glass that I'm climbing on.  Move by move, making the long reaches between solid hand holds, I savoured every minute of this pitch.  Knowing that this was exactly the reason that I had come here.  This was it.  The mind boggling exposure that came into my view every time I looked down at my feet to find the next step.  "What could be better?"  I thought.  I've trained for years for this exact moment, and now I was doing it.  Climbing one of the most famous routes in the country with no ropes, all by myself, and no fear.  Just the pure exhilaration and sheer joy that climbing does for me.
Now if John Long says that climbing is defined more so than any other sport by it's literature.  I would like to add that climbing is still one of the most extreme sports in the world, if not (still) the most extreme sport in the world.  While people will always find new ways to test  their fears and new sports will keep pushing limits of what we think is possible, climbing has kept up with the times.  All it takes to realize this is one quick look at this months National Geographic.  Those people are pushing the limits for sure.  And while my climb may have only pushed the limits inside myself, those guys in that magazine are pushing a limit most of us will never understand.  It's beyond my imagination, and to me it's way more impressive than landing on the moon.  NASA, "ptff", who even believes that happened anyways.