Subject Mountain: Stawamus Chief Mountain Regions: BC Coast / Greater Wedge / Sky Pilot JavaMap . ZoomMap . Automap . Radius Search October 4, 2003   (1 days) Calculated Length: 5 km Participants: Drew Brayshaw, Kelly Franz, Matt Buckle, Lena Rowat, John Millar, Guy Edwards, Kris Holm, Katy Holm, Tamara Rusnak, Chad Rudiak, Ann-Marie Conway and a few dozen others. class 4, fixed ropes Equipment: shoes and a pack Abstract: Nude "speed" ascent of North-North Gully. Descent via obscure NE ridge of 3rd summit and Squaw-Chief col. Value: 42

Trip Report: A memorial for Guy Edwards and John Millar took place October 3 and 4. For the October 4 event we were all encouraged to climb to the 3rd summit of the Chief by whatever route for a little get together.

Now, I had tweaked a pectoral pretty badly bouldering up in Ault Creek and felt like difficult climbing would be out. When Lena R. mentioned to me she had been doing some naked speed ascents to honour Guy’s memory I thought this was a good idea and I would try it out.

The history of the naked, speed ascent has surprisingly long roots in BC mountaineering culture. Perhaps it comes from our carefree attitude or unconventional nature or just from fond remembrances of Wreck Beach. I do know that at the official memorial event on the 3rd it seemed like a third or so of the pictures of John and Guy depicted them clothesless.

Peering back into the murky beginnings of local climbing we come across examples such as the West Lion, 1889. A hunting party consisting of H. Bell-Irving, Chief Joe Capilano, and several others bagged the peak while goat hunting, then decided to have some sport. From Fairley guide p. 2 “Capilano...later that evening asked Bell-Irving to time one of his Indian youths in a race from the base to the top. According to Bell-Irving, the youth, stripped naked, completed the ascent and descent in twenty minutes.” This is thus both the first documented nude ascent and the first documented speed ascent of a local peak.

Nude climbing without the speed emphasis was popularized in the 1960's and 1970's by the Vulgarian climbing club of the eastern US, through their influential publication, the Vulgarian Digest. The craze briefly was commemorated at Squamish, in which 3 of the local crowd clad only in swami belts, EB rock shoes, with paper bags over their heads for anonymity, cooking pots for helmets, and kitchen knives for imitation pitons, streaked up the climb Diedre in 25 minutes or so.

In the regressive late 1980's no one was into naked climbing anymore - although with the tight Lycra then in fashion there was little difference.

Naked speed climbing burst back into the scene in 1999 when Guy Edwards was enjoying a long stay in the Bugaboos. In between solo ascents of hard routes like the Beckey-Chouinard he worked on speed climbing the west ridge of Pigeon Spire. Finally he decided he would go as fast as possible, took off all his clothes, and zipped up and down in 19 minutes clad only in rock shoes and chalk bag. The world was impressed - pictures were even printed in Climbing Magazine.

Maybe climbing naked has been on a trend up since then. Lena knocked off the NW ridge of Sir Donald nude, and several Rockies classics. Even Rexford has been climbed naked.

Well - OK, then. The goal having been decided, what route was within my diminished abilities? I decided to go for the North-North gully, a gloomy chasm I had never previously visited. Rated 3rd class in one guidebook and 5.7 in another this promised to be a fun challenge. The on-sight would be more worthy than an ascent of North Gully which I had already climbed - also the bushy nature would provide additional challenge for the naked climber.

On the day of the ascent I pulled into the Apron lot at noon and encountered Kelly and Matt just back from an Apron climb. They knew my plans and also decided to go for NNG. Well, I am modest, so I decided to rip it up and get well ahead of them to avoid embarrassment on anyone’s part. I ran down the Stawamus road to the NNG trail and then up through the forest to the base of the north walls at a fairly quick walking pace. Unfortunately Kelly and Matt were also pretty fast and they caught up while I was pulling my shirt off. I kindly let them pass while taking off my sweaty Carhartts and underwear. Being naked was a definite improvement over cotton on this muggy day, I decided.

Nude, with helmet on, running shoes on feet and clothes in a pack, I set off up the gully, quickly encountering Matt and Kelly stopped at the first step. I breezed past while they were trying a direct chimney and followed a trail hugging the right gully wall. Soon I was a ways above them and past the traverse ledge out to North-North Arete and Zodiac Wall. I paused to gape at the impressive Promised Land crack before running up the gully some more to stay ahead of the other guys. From here on there was no real trail and bushes grew thick.

At a big cruxy chockstone I saw a trail going up the left hand wall and followed it to a long dirt chimney with a handy fixed line. The top of this chimney was a ledge system leading back into the gully above the chockstone. Kelly and Matt tried the chockstone solo and direct but were beaten back and also came up the fixed rope but not until I was well in the lead and out of modesty zone. Just as well because Matt had his camera out looking for photos by this point.

When I climbed back into the gully I smelled fresh cookies baking quite strongly. Perhaps someone in Valleycliffe had just taken their baking out of the oven, but knowing of John’s famous cookie baking marathons with borrowed ovens, I chose to interpret it as a meaningful event. It made me feel like my choices were correct and appreciated.

There was one more chockstone and a whole lot of ball-bearing gravel between me and the top. I finished up to the 3rd summit-Zodiac summit notch and dressed while waiting for Kelly and Matt to arrive. The whole ascent from the car had taken about 45 minutes which wasn’t the fastest ever solo of the Chief but certainly good enough for me.

Well - we went on to the summit and hung out for a few hours playing hacky-sac, flying kites, eating and generally making merry as befitting of the memory of two friends. In contrast to the solemn slideshows of the memorial the previous night this was a much more joyous and relaxed event which I enjoyed very much.

Eventually it was time to descend and a few of us decided to continue the adventure by wandering down the North-East ridge of 3rd summit. This is a little known, scrambling summit route to the Chief which is left out of both the hiking and the climbing guides. It provides a good adventure with some 3rd class sections.

Myself, the Holm siblings, Chad, Tamara, and AMC set out to descend this route. Kris and I had both done it separately a long time ago and we made a few route finding solecisms before getting locked in. Basically the route links up the 3rd summit of the chief to the Chief-Squaw trail via the base of Above and Beyond. We scrambled down the NE ridge from the summit, downclimbed a few sections, followed flagging and got on the A&B traverse ledge - from the base of the route “Exploring Uranus” we descended easily through the trees to the Squaw trail.

After heading along the Squaw trail to the general vicinity of the Squaw-Chief col we cut left into the forest following a faint trail with ribbons and dropped over the rim. We should have traversed into the Squaw climbers’ trail below the chockstone gully on that route, but instead bashed down through the forest any old way - I got us lost, actually, cause it was near dark and the ribbons became hard to see - but eventually we came out on the Mamquam Road.