I start out this week listening to the collective groans and heaving signs of a Squamish buckling under the weight of yet another increasingly busy summer climbing season.
I try very hard not to be the overly critical complainer singing away about how it was always better in the good old days. Great things like flourishing local climbing gyms, successful new local businesses, well-equipped new crags, long routes and bouldering areas are but a taste of the good sides of a growing interest in the activity of rock climbing.
Camping has become a continual challenge here and trying to hide away unnoticed in a van, something that was de rigueur for the travelling climber of yesterday, has become a serious issue. Not every climber has the inclination or cash to stay in an Airbnb pad and campgrounds here have become a serious bottleneck. Two new campgrounds have been created to ease the low-cost void in Squamish but not without problems.
The first is the much-anticipated Mamquam River Campground nearby the Brennan Park Rec Center.
The campground’s creator, John Harvery of the Mamquam River Access Society, was forced to close the campsite around a week after it opened because its four outhouses were not approved by Vancouver Coastal Health, which said the outhouses do not meet minimum design standards under the BC Sewage System Regulation.
The campsite is reopening on Friday with temporary porta potties, Harvery said, and he hopes to operate with the original washrooms soon.
The second campground that has seen Phase 1 development is the Chek Canyon campground expansion up the Conroy Creek FSR north of Squamish. This has been a free, no-services camping area for some time and, and after the completion of Phase 1, it now has 16 new sites with bear-proof food storage, grills and tables. Phase 2 will begin in fall 2017, according to the Squamish Access Society.
Please spread the word if you are a member of the climbing community and let out-of-town or camping climbers know about these new options. Let’s hope the Mamquam River Campground stay open.
To finish this, let’s take a look at climbing where they have no people problems. I was just up in Yellowknife, N.W.T. for my second time instructing some basic climbing courses for a small climbing group, The Yellowknife Climbers Club.
Myself and Jason Green flew up, bolted a small sport climbing cliff named Big Crack in a day, battled bugs and shoddy rental hammer drills and basically had a great time adding a little terrain for the local climbers. It’s a vast and beautiful part of Canada where you fall asleep at midnight wondering why you didn’t bring an eye mask, only to wake three hours later to sunrise and birds. It is never dark and that is weird.
We met some great people up there and heard tales of massive cliffs rising out of lakes and hidden crags above waterfalls. All rumour and myth to be sure.
Now I just need to brush up on my canoe skills.
