On Saturday, Ground Up Climbing Centre filled to capacity for Big Wall Night.
The event was a mixture of photo and speaking presentations by climbers such as Marc-Andre LeClerc, Brett Harrington, Russ Mitrovich, Nathan Kukuthas and Chris Trull and also a soft launch for Kukuthas and Trull’s new custom big wall gear venture: G7. Once the two had unveiled their new company and their intention to bring a renaissance to the archaic gear used and abused in big wall climbing, the night shifted, like a RURP in a crumbling, bottoming seam, to DJ Just Sheila and bar staff slinging drinks.
The sold-out event showed a unique mix of families with kids running rampant in the darkened gym, professional climbers, gym rats, dirt bags and everyone else in between. Paul McSorely, a local guide and Arc’teryx athlete, emceed the event with panache to spare, which was lucky because some in the crowd needed a little top-up.
First up was Russ Mitrovich doing a photo show of his trips to Baffin Island and Patagonia. Understatement was the theme of the night, and Mitrovich gave a heavy dose as he described weeks of life above sea ice and serious, technical aid climbing – all on a diet fortified with Skippy peanut butter.
Next was Brette Harrington talking about her bid to freeclimb the PreMuir Wall on El Cap in Yosemite Valley. The picture of innocence, Harrington showed images and told stories of climbing pitches too hard for most climbers hundreds of metres above terra firma with the calm of someone casually trying to decide which artisanal micro brew to buy in the liquor store. It was impressive.
Next came Marc-Andre Leclerc, young Canadian alpine phenomenon with some truly mind-blowing sheets of understatement. Pure and uncut, Leclerc told tales and showed images of his winter alpine exploits in the Canadian Rockies and Patagonia, any of which would stop the heart and freeze the soul of most humans. With humble grace, he proved he may indeed have a vision for the next step in hard, clean, mixed alpine climbing.
In between each presentation there were such antics as a handstand competition, a rope-coiling race, and most geeky of all, an air-beta competition where a well known climber mimes the hand movements to a famous route or boulder problem from Squamish and the first audience member to guess it wins.
Hearty applause went to Jeremy Smith for recognizing the flying arm-bar from U-Wall’s first pitch.
The presenting climbers gathered on stage as a panel to answer questions, jibes, heckles and tell stories of their most proud, least favourite and most profound experiences while living up on some of the largest walls of stone on the planet. Hot topics were, as always, bathroom humour, wild animal encounters while up on walls and the holy grail of them all, romantic encounters on portaledges.
The evening’s trip kept rolling as local climber and designer Nathan Kukethas told his story of how he was lured into climbing as a youth, how it shaped him for better or worse and finally the unveiling, with the help of his partner Chris Trull, of their local big-wall climbing company G7. If their gear turns out to be half as funny and ingenious as their storytelling, then the walls of stone around the world have little chance. The company’s name is a reference to the size grading of a wall climb. Grade VII is given to the largest and longest climbs on the largest walls in the world, such as those of Baffin Island, Pakistan and Patagonia.
With all the stories told, the DJ queued up the music, the bar staff flew into a frenzy, and the party got into full swing.
