In British Columbia there are more mountains than people, but for Ryan Glass the magic occurred when they came together.

Tyler
As I swung open the heavy door of the GMC pick-up, I was greeted by the unmistakable smell of “BC bud”.
I felt uneasy. Thoughts flitted through my head of struggling with a desperate crux, gear below my feet, glancing down to find my belayer staring, stoned, at a long loop of slack.
“Hey buddy.”
“I’m Ryan. Good to meet you.”
“You smoke?”
“Not anymore, not when I climb.”
“Cool.”
I made a mental note not to push it today.

Tyler had got my number from an ad I’d placed in the climbers’ car park. We met below the Chief, the famous massive granite monolith, but opted to climb at the shorter Malamute instead. I was glad of the lesser commitment, but a few routes under our belts and I was more relaxed - Tyler was a smooth climber who looked at home in the Squamish cracks, his hands remaining unscathed after long pitches of sustained jamming. I on the other hand had a few flesh wounds despite taping up - apparently something I shouldn’t do. People would think I was American - a bad thing.

I’d been weighing up Slap & Tickle and decided to go for it despite my earlier misgivings. Having spaced the gear to leave some for the high crux I was taken by surprise by the flared middle section. The cams were crap, the jams fudged, and I cursed myself for managing to make a crack feel run out. And then the crux itself was upon me. Goddamn, think positive, I breathed. I glanced down to Tyler. He was watching my every move attentively - I was wrong to doubt. Cross, smear, hold it. I cut loose with my right hand and slapped the arête. Relief, pleasure and joy followed by that brief, slight emptiness that always comes.

Before long we required few calls, had quick changeovers and a silent confidence in each other. We dispatched the classic eight pitch Diedre in an hour and the 13-pitch Angel’s Crest in half a day. Okay, so we had our differences. Tyler hated my “double roped clusterf*ck, dude”. I was worried when we’d been 14 pitches up, clouds gathering, and only a single cord between us. He’d tried to reassure me, “I don’t mind leaving the whole rack if there’s an emergency.”
I just hoped the emergency would never come - that rack was my life.

Jayne
I’d been reading a book How to Climb 5.12 a little too much, and had adapted the training schedule to my own obsessive needs.

This involved four weeks of trad, one bouldering and two of sport - not to mention an exclusive diet of protein shakes and grapefruit. I was convinced I’d be waltzing up modern desperates in no time. In reality, I climbed trad for six weeks, got injured, went bouldering twice, ate Mountain Man breakfasts and drank Guinness. And then the rain arrived.

This fitted my schedule perfectly - a road trip inland to the Okanagan. Vineyards, rattlesnakes, lakes warm enough to swim in and the beautiful yellow crags of Skaha. Locals will tell you that Skaha is not all about sport climbing. but hell, my rack consisted of 18 draws and lots of finger tape - I mean, I had a training regime to think of.
Jayne sat beside me as I drove our minivan east. We’d met the previous summer. She hadn’t climbed before and I was determined not to put her off climbing forever, reasoning that starting gently with a gradual progression was the way forward. We stayed in a good hotel and climbed some sunny Diffs in Langdale, things were looking good. I figured the next step should be a two-month trip to Yosemite, sharing a one-man tent on Camp 4. Okay, not perfect, but my flights were already booked.

Once at Skaha, we scoured the crags for the climb. I’d never had a project before and was relishing the exoticness of it all. It had to be 5.12 of course; “the door to elite levels” so to quote my book. But on my first visit to Blister in the Sun I couldn’t get past half way. A passing stranger revealed my mistake - I should have been working it in blocks, from top down - a schoolboy error. But next time I couldn’t get from half way to the top. This wasn’t looking good.

But a few more grapefruits, and I was on fire. And in less than three minutes of starting up, I had all the bolts clipped and was staring down the barrel of the last and crux move. Laying away off two tips, left foot flagged, my body started falling as it always did at this point, but my hand moved faster and caught the well chalked, flat hold. I can still feel the satisfaction of pulling onto the top to this day.

I recently heard an analogy. Free soloing is marriage with kids - total commitment and anyone who believes otherwise is deluding themselves. Alpine is marriage - no kids and really committing, but some people manage to stuff it up and get away with it. Trad climbing is a steady girlfriend - it feels more committing than it actually is, but occasionally it goes wrong and someone gets hurt. Sport climbing is casual sex - lots of fun, but ultimately not as fulfilling as the real thing.
Don’t believe a word.

Brad
Brad was built like a bull, didn’t believe in rest days and proved that 15 stone men can climb.
“Yeah man. It sounds like we’re in the same situation. I’m free most days too, on the rock ‘n’ roll until my employment insurance runs out.” We met at the Bluffs on a busy Saturday. He brought Violet along for the day out, “I just feel so bad leaving her at home.”
When he started up Penny Lane, Violet started barking. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him as clear as Ian Paisley during a minute of silence.

“Violet - no barking.”
I took in a few feet.
“I said no barking.”
“Bark, Bark, Bark”
The rope suddenly went tight and my harness dug into my hips.
“Lower me.”
“Bark, Bark, Bark, Bark”
I lowered.
“Hey buddy. Would you mind throwing a stick for my dog while I climb, she gets nervous.”
“Sure, man.”
“I recommend a really big one - yeah, that one there, and throw it right down into those bushes. That’ll keep her busy. Thanks man. Climbing!”

After a few more routes and a bloody disagreement between Violet (aka Violent) and a golden retriever, Brad showed me what a technician he was on the viciously thin granite slab. My hands started sweating before I left the ground, no amount of chalk would dry them as I pinched individual pebbles and tried to smear, both feet moving on the grease inside my rock shoes. I remembered how much I hated slabs - probably something to do with a very frightening and formative experience I’d had on Three Pebble Slab at Froggatt during my first year of climbing. Then I’d pulled it off, just. This time I didn’t - luckily I was seconding.
In a couple of weeks our partnership was more refined. Brad took the friction pitches, I took the steep stuff - anyone who enjoys life as much as Brad hates overhanging cracks. Violet remained calm as long as she was tired. And I was introduced to the miracle of the trailer trash dog walk:
Just put the lead through the window and drive real slow.

Richard
If summer in Squamish was a climber’s paradise, then winter was a paddler’s, so I found sanctuary in the Rocky Mountains.
The odds were upped because of the winter environment and finding reliable partners wasn’t easy. I tried to weed out the extremes when scanning the notice board at Mountain Magic:
“Partner required for hard mixed climbs and even harder ice climbs. Anything hard. Conan.”- Maybe not.

“Want to climb. Have own harness and ice screw. Well experienced. John.” - I think not.
“Ice climbing - long or short routes. Live in Canmore. Richard.” - Could work.
I’d been hanging off two ice screws for the last hour, lashed by spindrift every ten seconds. My right foot had gone dead and my left had pins and needles in it. Snow piled up in little pyramids on my knees where they leaned against the ice. Richard was out of sight by now, near the top hopefully since the light was fading. I paid out on yellow and both ropes went slack, slack, very slack. Richard was getting bigger, fast, very fast. Oh my God. “Falling,” called a calm voice. Yes, I f*cking know. He jolted, stopped, and something smaller was coming towards me. An axe. And a glove. I ducked as they shot past.

That morning Richard had hitched to my house. We’d driven north, skinned across a lake, up to a bowl, stashed our skis and walked to below the Bow Glacier. By the time we stashed our bags at the base of Bow Falls it was about noon and puking snow. Ah well, our route was low avalanche risk and hey, if you can climb in Scotland you can climb anywhere.
“Are you OK?” I yelled up, having just mentally digested what had happened.
“Yeah, I’ve lost a glove though.”
“I can’t lower you, not enough rope. Can you make it back up to your top screw and bring me up?”
A circle of blue-white torchlight illuminated my path upwards, like a deep-sea fish. The scene had an air of calm, there was no urgency any more, the race to the top had ended. We were going down. It took many V-threads, a torchlight ski descent, and two hours to dig the car out of the snow.
Another perfect day.

Ryan Glass is a BMC member who has now reluctantly settled back in the UK after his Canadian affair.

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