Genius Loci
By Hamish Fraser, 2013
Photo Credit: Bruce MacDonald
Reprinted from The Alpinist, 2013, with author’s permission
PEDER OUROM, THE "BEAR," was so burly that he could probably remove a grown man's head with one swat. This strength proved handy for those runout climbs when he operated power drills high above his head. During the winter, he was a ski patroller at Whistler Mountain. One day, the Bear skipped work and started hitching down to Squamish for a little new-routing. Rope over his shoulder, he got picked up by his boss. The Bear soon redeemed himself with some excellent first aid work, and he received "employee of the year." In 1991, as the resort season winded down, the Bear was keen to bite into a new Grand Wall route. Mark Gandy was also eager for an adventure, especially if he could follow instead of lead. For years, the three of us had eyed a potential line that started on the steel-grey slabs low on the Chief, and then shared 100 plumb feet with the aid route Ten Years After-a perfect headwall that seemed destined to become one of Squamish's finest pitches. Above the face, a twenty-five-foot crack tapered into easier ground that led to a ledge. You could see this perfect perch when the snow fell eight inches thick and five feet long, it bisected a long white diagonal dike that continued toward the clouds.
We intended to establish the route in the purest form possible, influenced by John Bachar's style and Squamish's bold history. Two decades ago, Gordie Smaill and Neil Bennett set the standard with The Grim Reaper, bolting on lead in Robbins Boots as they clung to (what Gordie called) "exploding crystal tips and pie-crust flakes." In the end, we had to compromise our ethics a little. The Chief rises at the head of a coastal fjord surrounded by luscious rainforest; as a result, a grimy layer of moss and lichen coats much of the stone. Our plan was to rap in and scrub the granite in our running shoes, as fast we could, without trying any of the moves. We assured ourselves that the future would likely never produce anyone capable of gardening this face on lead. We'd also strip the bolt ladder. Its quarter-inch spinners had rusted like a shipwreck in the salt-laden air. And then we'd begin again at the bottom, bolting ground up.
In late March, we started rappelling, using a tipped-out knifeblade along the dike as a di rectional to reach the ledge At the finger crack, the Bear started banging out a fixed pin I yelled down to him to leave it be-just belt it in harder. Years later, John Rosholt tied a plastic sign to the pin asking climbers to leave it and not nail out the crack. By April, we'd finished cleaning the face. It was so cold we wore down jackets, but the temperatures gave better stick to our shoes. I don't remember how we got our first bolt in probably a combination of liebacking the rock and clenching a useless cam, the kind of marginal "free-aid" stances that we'd conjure again and again. Outright, the face became blank, and I gastoned off a pin scar with my left hand until my shoulder felt ready to dislocate. One by one, we tried the move, fell, and lowered to the belay. That night, I drove back to Vancouver in the pouring rain, my left arm limp in my lap.
Bolt by bolt, we pushed the highpoint. We wanted to leave a route that was mentally challenging, beyond its technical difficulty. Each time one of us led out, the other two would yell, "Go farther I" until the climber finally stopped to haul up the ten-pound Hilti. The process went something like this fight off images of the five inch drill bit embedded in your skull, pull up the drill with your free hand, clench the rope in your teeth, blast in the hole, hammer in the bolt, clip a 'biner to the hanger in case the bolt rebounded with the first tap, and then tighten it. The Bear excelled at this work. His arms were the size of my legs, and he'd toiled for years in construction. The finger crack, however, spit both of us off the fingerlocks were thin and bottoming, the footholds nonexistent. One day, I came close-my goal was an obvious bucket atop the crack-but I couldn't free up a hand to place a critical yellow cam. I vowed to carry two yellow cams next time, one on each side of my harness.
On a drizzly day, about a week later, we sat in town eating greasy burgers and drinking coffee, contemplating heading out to cut firewood, when the clouds began to lift We rushed to the second belay by the quicker approach of Merci Me. Convinced that the grease and caffeine would propel me, I clawed my fingers deep in side the crack and leaned out to weight my feet on the tiny quartz crystals Perched well above the pin and barely attached to a painful left jam, I plugged in the yellow cam. More chalk, more bad jams, and then I popped for the bucket and latched it. The thought of re-leading the pitch was so daunting that I crawled the remaining thirty feet to the ledge.
We later named the completed route Genius Loci, "the pervading spirit of the place." In architectural terms, it describes the right thing done the right way in the right location. The final pitches would go at an easier grade, but that was for another day. For now, I clipped in, slumped back in my harness, and then, whoooosh, felt some thing warm gush over my upper lip. Sticky red blood cascaded everywhere-all over my shirt, all over the gear, all over the rack. It was the only time I've ever climbed so hard I got a nosebleed.
Reference:
Fraser, H. (2013). 1991 Genius Loci. The Alpinist, 43, 52.
Photo credit: Bruce MacDonald
Photo: Hamish Fraser on an early reconnaissance of Genius Loci. His partner Bruce MacDonald says, "We concluded it was possible to link to the face crack from where we were." Fraser's 1991 ground-up first ascent, with Peder Ourom and Mark Gandy, still inspires climbers today. Stanhope says, "Fraser set the gold standard...... He gave that historic and perfect section of wall the respect it deserves." Perry Beckham declares, "Hamish is still the greatest climber nobody's heard of." Bruce MacDonald