Eldrid Valley gets some funk soul, brother!
Wall climbing in Powell River, Canada. By Mathew Maddaloni.

Article in the Canadian Alpine Journal 2000.

"You were actually there! So what's it like, are there walls awaiting first ascents?" I probe.
"Man you have no idea how much unclimbed rock is in this valley. There are several walls reaching heights up to 2000 feet. Here is a number of a guy who could give you some more details." Al hands me a tourist map of Powell River with a big circle around Eldrid Valley and a phone number. Beside me is my wall partner John Millar and all it takes is one look between us to decide to check it out. Neither of us had ever done a first ascent of a wall, it was sure to be an adventure and a learning experience.

We drive from Squamish on July 15 with our wallets frustratingly empty as usual. Stopping at various places in Vancouver to scrounge what we can including food from Millar's Grandmothers house. In five hours with two different ferry rides, we get to Powell River the long way, which only lies 40 miles west of Squamish beyond the Tantalus range. Powered by a V8 engine my seriously beat up dodge camper van "Brutus" makes it to Powell River with no signal lights, one window wiper, and no spare tire or front shocks. In my view a pretty reliable vehicle, the problem being the reliability of Brutus changes over the next week. My stereo is the one thing that works well so the whole way we blare out techno, particularly a tune called Rock a fella shank, a song that turns Millar into a dancing freak.

In the early morning I dial in the number we were given from a pay phone in front of Smith and Sons general store and Colin Dionne answers the phone. He tempts us to come over and enjoy breakfast with him and his girlfriend Christie and his enthusiastic voice leaves a smile on my face. Minutes later I drive my sagging van through a dense grove of fir trees and find Colin sprawled out in a hammock on the porch of his A frame home. He jumps up and invites us inside, my eye catches a collection of rocks and animal skulls on a shelf and an original portaledge used in the movie K2 propped up by a blackened wood stove. The rickety floor creaks as I tread across the sun-filled dusty room and I can smell a thick paste of oatmeal from the kitchen. Christie swings out from behind a pile of steaming pots and introduces herself. Her shiny black hair flowing around her knees and her hazelnut eyes revealing her excitement on having visitors. Colin unearths the stories of the old rusty bolts and pitons Millar has taken interest to which lay haphazardly among dusty volumes. His shaggy dirty blonde beard and Cro-Magnon style muscles move about the room as he illustrates with energetic design. John and I ease into chairs overlooked by a collage of photos taken of adventures and wrinkled maps of the surrounding mountains. Colin and Christie, incredibly stoked that their little valley was getting interest at last, offered assistance through their company, Fjord Coast Expeditions. They reasoned helping climbers access the area would in turn allow the Eldrid Valley to become a destination. This would result in keeping the logging road from being deactivated, and cross-ditched, but nothing showed they wouldn't have offered help otherwise. How could we refuse?

After breakfast we all piled into Brutus and bombed out to the valley. An hour and a half of logging roads stretching 35 miles brought us to a secluded valley surrounded by snow covered peaks and lots and lots of rock. Nothing but blue sky, rock and trees with the roaring Eldrid River dropping down a gorge through the middle of it all. What a difference it was from Squamish's hustle and bustle. This place even turned out to be bigger then Squamish as far as rock went and way more suited for free climbing. Three major walls stood along the river. The farthest, called Amon Ru`dh, looms high above the valley with huge granite dihedrals protecting its summit. The middle wall called the Mainer soars a good 500 feet above the other two, getting up to 2300 plus feet. Colin and Rob Richards climbed it first in 96, topping out after 25 pitches and named it, The Main Line, (VI 5.11, A4). There is also a 'community project' free route going up but is so far only about six pitches long. Each person getting a different pitch to clean and name. The first wall of the three stands at the entrance to the valley and is called Carag-dur, or black tower, taken from the Simirillian of J.R.R. Tolkien. On the opposite side facing the three walls lies a large buttress similar in size to Angels Crest in Squamish but it is much wider. Next to that where an intersection between Eldrid and a smaller valley meet sweeps an apron approaching the size of Glacier Point in Yosemite. Three long multi pitch routes each having approximately fifteen pitches explore this slab.

Out of the five major formations Carag-dur got our attention. There were no routes up it other than a five pitch attempt in a bushy corner off to the left. This wall rises out of the trees 1800 feet high with no trees or ledges cluttering up its mostly featureless wall other than a huge arch crossing the middle that creates a pitch of overhanging rock above a steep slab. Beautiful and unclimbed, Millar and I spent a couple of hours with binoculars scoping our line. Only two problems existed that we could see. The bottom of the wall lay in mystery due to trees obstructing our view and the river at this time of year left nowhere to wade or jump across. Nevertheless we choose to try it.

On the way back the adventure really began with the rear end of both leaf springs braking off my van leaving no rear shocks resulting in a tire blowing out. At mile 30 and realizing our predicament, (no one would be coming up here for days) we decided to drive out on the blown tire. A mile down the road the tire ripped the brake line and the overflow gas line out and then went and wrapped itself around the axle bringing the vehicle to a sliding halt. I apologized to my new friends for being such an idiot and we went to work to remove the tire from the rim. We continue on the rim, knowing that it would take an entire day to walk out of here. The rim flattened out and destroyed the brake drum so we finally give in to walking. Colin suggests that we hike up a side road to a mountaineering friend's truck that might be 6 miles up 3000 feet of elevation gain. John, exhilarated at the chance to get really sweaty takes off with Colin up the side road. Kristie and I, stoked they volunteered, continue along the main road hoping to get 16 miles to a campground. Hours later Colin and John pick us up with the truck.

We retrieved my van the next day, racked up and discussed methods of getting our gear over the raging gorge. A couple of miles up the river hung a cable Colin had rigged for the Mainer ascent. This was to far away for us so we equipped a 30-foot ladder with two ropes on one end so that we could lower it into place and anchor it off. Back up we went in Colin's van, mine on blocks at his house, and got our idea under way. On the edge of the torrent with water rushing up over his knees, Colin held the ladder fast against the flooded slab, as John and I lowered it down to the far sloping bank. We anchored the ends, one up river and one down. Since no one was volunteering, Millar belayed me as I slowly crawl across the manky bridge. I knew Colin would have a hard time holding the ladder from slipping off the edge so I gingerly laid my foot on the far bank and eased my weight over. My foot began to slip on the green slimmed wet rock so I got on my knees to add dry clothing for friction. Completely committed and still slipping I ended up sprawled out completely trying to get as much clothing against the rock as possible. Scared out of my mind during what seemed like an eternity, I managed to crimp my way up wet moss to the lip of the forest and beach whaled myself onto a ledge. An hour later we had set up a tyrolean and ferried over our haulbags.

Colin led the way with machete in hand as we excavated out the old trail. He created this trail on a previous attempt of the wall years before but most of it had disappear under the old growth forest and needed remarking with tape. When we reached the base after an hour of groveling, we saw for the first time the lower part of the wall that had been hidden by the trees from the road. A thin but climbable seam fired straight up a featureless slab for a couple of pitches filling in a big hole in our scoped line. No excuses to screw around any longer we hiked back down to the river, bid Colin goodbye, and marched back up with a final load of water. I even managed to do the first pitch before nightfall. It consisted of beautiful straight in nailing right off the ground. We slept at the base dreaming of higher adventure after our first hard day.

The next morning, stoked that I needed only to drill two holes, which were needed for the belay, Millar tries to lead the next pitch without any. Halfway up he came against an impassable blank section and started to drill a 1/4-inch bolt for pro and height gain. Above many bird beaks and heads his piece pulls and breaks his drill bit that he was hammering on. Luckily a beak below stops him right away and he decides his six-hour lead is enough for the day. He then drove a rivet into his shallow hole and lowered off. Through this we learn our first lesson of the wall, bring more 1/4-inch bits for we'll have to drill 3/8-inch bat hooks from now on. I finish the pitch, which added another couple of hours and strap myself to the one tree belay on the route finishing a 60-meter lead. Next pitch is the easiest and required a traverse of tcu's to a short A3 roof. Millar pulls a piece at the lip and takes his second fall. He was upset because he couldn't get a rurp to stick for he wanted to prove to me that my most hated piece of gear actually could be bomber. Instead of putting in a somewhat more solid beak, he takes a whipper trying to prove me wrong. We fixed our ropes to ground and spent the night suspended by our ledges in the trees.

With haulbags on the ground and having only three ropes, we fix one more pitch before committing. Meeting the wizard became the hardest pitch of all. This long seam took me the entire day, including all the remaining heads and thrashed most of our ten beaks. We notice that Colin was on the logging road below, so we rapped off to get more supplies such as heads and 1/4-inch bits.

Listening to Metallica blasted out on the way in the next morning gets us pumped up to space haul our eight days of rations to our high point. The next two pitches go really well over the course of two days even with the unexpected rain and fog. Looking down at John's yellow fly in the gloom one evening made me feel like I was on a wall in Patagonia. These two pitches brought us to the base of the overhanging head wall in a total of 6 long pitches. A couple of expando flakes to a ladder of 4 exhausting to place rivets and a long traversing corner required a 10-hour lead on the part of John. While John was hand drilling his station in the dwindling light I noticed someone below on the road flashing his light in our direction. I point this out to Millar and we yell down to see what's up. People start hooting and 300 feet of logging road lights up on fire from a trench with gasoline poured in it. We yell in surprise as it continues to twinkle far below us. We called that pitch Playing the Pyro.

Another entire day's lead creates some of the radest situations put into one pitch I've ever done. Lots of steep hooking, nailing and free moves to a huge death flake the size of a small tennis court that floats a foot away from the wall. A 10 foot hook throw and 30 feet of carefully climbed 5.7 gains the top of the Flying Saucer. The Surfing with the Alien pitch ends at 55 meters. Another bivy and John leads out the ninth pitch with a thrilling hook traverse and then a straight up, long crack taking blades passing over many horizontal dikes. He takes a big fall, which a copper head stops, resulting in him landing on his head and bruising some ribs. He decides to leave me to drill the ladder needed at the end. I drill a couple of bat hooks passing over many more dikes and decide a pendulum is better then hammering in 10 more holes. The 30-foot Escape from the Wrinkles pendulum gets me into a A1 corner.

One more day of climbing and we reach the top after 8 days total on the wall. We spend the night there with a big fire and cans of ravioli thinking of a name to call our adventure.

Late morning we pack up our stuff and start what we know will be a grueling hike through thick old growth forest down to the river. Fifteen minutes later and all ready covered in sweat we hear a yell. Colin thrashes his way out of the bush and in disbelief that he just climbed up here in five hours to help us we follow him once again. Machete swinging from a man who looks like he will never tire we spend the next three hours fighting thick prickly bushes and climbing down giant made boulder steps to the foaming Eldrid.

The following few days involve Millar and I eating ridiculous amounts of food, never seeming to leave the kitchen, climbing at the Lake Side crag and bouldering near the ocean. Colin invites every climber in town, less then ten, and before we leave we party hard. The locals had brought steaks, cake and huge amounts of beer for our celebration and we felt like kings. I follow through to my promise to Colin that I would spew if we completed the route and christened his lawn around 2 in the morning. Convinced that we had experienced the climbing here properly, we got ready to leave. Just enough money to pay for gas and ferry, we say goodbye to our new friends, and with Brutus having no rear brakes we roll slowly back to Squamish. All the while listening to "funk soul brother, check it out now," blasting out my stereo.