With my windows a dripping mess, it was almost raining inside my car as much as out, where yet another new storm had rolled in the previous night. As I peered out the small patch of visibility in my windshield, I considered the words said by my friend Cody the night before: “If I can see the chief tomorrow, I’ll consider going climbing.” I couldn’t see the chief through the rain. There was a literal “rain warning” for the amount of precipitation we were supposed to receive today.
It wasn’t the first time a thought crossed my mind– not “what am I doing?” but “what the fuck am I doing here?”
Of the near month I’ve spent in Squamish, it’s rained almost half the days, mostly consecutively. September is usually a pretty dry month in the Pacific Northwest, so when I arrived on the 1st it was swarming with climbers ready for perfect fall temperatures. It didn’t take long for the first storm to roll through, promising day after day of constant rain for as far ahead as modern meteorology could predict. Sitting at Zephyr, the cafe that provides a home base for many dirtbag climbers seeking internet, coffee, and shelter, plans were being thrown left and right.
Skaha? It’s only 5 hours. We’ll come back after the rain. Leave tonight, get out of here ASAP. Some people waited a day or two for the first scouts to test the waters, find camping, confirm bluer skies, but after a few days there were almost no climbers left in Squamish. I thought about it too, but I had just arrived and my business here was unfinished.
I came to Squamish with a fantasy ticklist of hard fingercracks, ambitious multipitches, and line after line that I knew would challenge me in new and different ways. Weather aside, I knew the answer to the question I asked myself on more than one rainy morning: what the fuck I was doing here was trying to work on every possible weakness I could find in my trad climbing: Hands, fists, chimneys, offwidths, slab, sustained cracks, roofs, long days, etc. Everything that defines Squamish hard climbing was everything I was bad at, so this was where I needed to be, rain or shine.
After living in the Pacific Northwet for the past 8 years, I knew that the rain did not mean the end of climbing, it just meant you had to be flexible with your objectives. Since stepping outside my comfort zone was already my goal, it was just a minor obstacle to overcome. As one of my regular partners and good friends Louis said in his French Canadian accent, “when it rains, we just go harder!”
We climbed at the monastery in a full on cloud, we climbed on the Zombie Roof in a downpour, we climbed slabs in the smoke bluffs when it stopped raining for brief chunks of the day when the wind would dry the rock quickly, we climbed on projects when they were completely wet except for the crux holds. One of my proudest rainy day climbs was My Little Pony, the 5.12+ inverted roof offwidth/fist crack that presented a style of climbing with which I had ZERO experience.
It was an adventure, trying to find what was dry and accepting that so long as we could climb something it was still fun, even if we had to let go of many aspirations. We were kept going by perfect weather promised at the end of the storm, yet every day it seemed to get pushed farther and farther back. The words of my friend Pat echoed in my head with dismay, “Sometimes when it starts raining it just never stops.” Soon even things like My Little Pony had started to seep, and bigger multipitches would take weeks to dry.
Friends in Skaha would text that the rock was dry, sun was shining, and that I should head for Valhalla immediately, yet in Squamish I remained. There were so few climbers left that we banded together, forming close friendships and enjoying many a board game, movie night, karaoke party, shared meal, or van circle to block the wind.
At times I would continue to ask myself that question, “seriously, what the hell am I doing here,” because objectively speaking, it was a ridiculous place to be. If you tried to describe this September as a Squamish selling point to someone who had never been, staying here as long as I have would sound insane. Subjectively speaking however, the strange opportunities presented by the bad weather have collectively made me the happiest I’ve been in a long time.
Despite the precipitation, there have been dry days, and I was able to send some projects that weren’t roof cracks as well. Favorites included an onsight of Polaris, P2 of the Calling, and Big Daddy Overhang, and redpoints of Flight of the Challenger, Hypertension, Sunny Days in December, and a few various sport climbs. I have accomplished everything I came here to do. I got on almost all the lines I wanted to try. I sent the ones that were within my current ability. I tried things that made me scared and slowly watched that fear turn to confidence as I learned the style. I watched strangers become close friends. I felt my fingers tingle with excitement and my heart race with adrenaline and my spirit overflow with passion for the life I have. Objectively many things I do may seem crazy, but nothing about a climber’s lifestyle has ever been status quo anyway. We follow the calling, rain or shine. Besides, you can never grow if you turn tail and run at the first sign of a storm.
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