Fun Climbs Around The World

The Squamish Chief enjoying beautiful blue skies and sunshine

We arrived in Squamish, British Columbia, under gorgeous blue skies and warm temperatures. The granite dome of the Stawamus Chief, usually called just the Chief, rears 2,300 feet above its base adjacent to the Howe Sound, a fjord that juts in from the Straight of Georgia above Vancouver.

The Stawamus Chief Provincial Park contains not only the Chief, but also the Stawamus Squaw, a slightly smaller granite monolith.

The town of Squamish, built in the early 1900s during the construction of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, formerly survived on logging, with the town’s largest employer a pulp mill that permanently closed in January 2006. Before that, the largest employer was a sawmill and logging operation but it closed even prior to the pulp mill, making tourism a greater and greater contributor to the local economy.

Squamish, with a population of about 15,000, provides three campgrounds near the Chief. The park brochure describes the Chief as the world’s second largest granite monolith, after Yosemite’s El Capitan. We know of larger monoliths in Patagonia, Pakistan, and Baffin Islands, but the two above were the first to be climbed. The main climber’s campground, right at the base of the Chief, has 62 sites according to the park website (I saw sites numbered to 66). It’s the social center (or centre, we’re in Canada) of the local climbing scene. In just a few days here, we ran into friends and climbing partners from Ohio, California, Indian Creek, Boulder, Portrero Chico (Mexico), and met climbers from Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Quebec (tons), Britain, and Poland.
More than anywhere, except possible Indian Creek in spring and fall, Squamish reminds me of Camp 4 in the 70s. The climbing is great, camping is inexpensive ($10 per night with a maximum of three tents), and it’s easy to get around without a car. Lots of climbers live here for the summer, with restrictions to length of stay not yet strictly enforced.
Town, with several grocery stores, restaurants, and entertainment (bars and pubs) is a few easy miles away, reachable by bicycle, and showers are affordable at the nearby aquatic center.

All in all, it’s the best place I’ve seen on this continent where a climber can camp for several weeks and climb regularly. The authorities welcome tourists, including climbers.
“Look”, said Tristan. “They built a ‘climber’s parking lot’. Can you imagine that in Yosemite?”
No, I can’t.