Warriors of the Wasteland

Squamish, Canada’s granite wonderland is well known for it’s adventurous long free routes. Since most were climbed ground up, a style that promotes long run outs and makes the most of natural protection, they are a bold legacy to Squamish climbing history. Unfortunately times change and a lot of new routing is involving rap bolting. In 1999 British climber Alain Gordon-Seymour visited Canada with a ground up approach. Within his first year in Squamish he envisioned an entirely new 8-pitch free route in the Western Dihedrals. The classic route, Free Way, had been the last

addition here for the past 10 years partly due to severe rain forest growth. Vines and cedars had entangled themselves over the lower 400 feet of the sweeping 1000-foot wall presenting a major obstacle to new routing. Alain was determined to unearth the potential of these basalt spotted dihedrals and during the following two years he excavated a path that opened up a myriad of possible lines. Unfortunately his visa expired without seeing a conclusion to the project and he passed the torch to Squamish local, Matt Maddaloni.

Maddaloni, inspired by Alain’s bold style, became eager to push the route to the summit. He climbed Alain’s three pitches of 5.11 friction corners to his highpoint with Ben DeMenech and Ken Sharpe in the spring of 2000. Along the way they passed several zebra striped bolts, which the Brit had playfully painted giving the line a distinct character. Atop a small ledge 400 feet up, Maddaloni busted out to the left of the main face by nailing a slammed shut two-pitch dihedral to nowhere. Stumped by the blankness of the rock the climbers pulled their ropes.

A summer went by without a solution. Scanning the wall with binoculars, Maddaloni imagined large crazy pendulums and even a cable zip line to gain access to corners a hundred feet down and left of the highpoint. Maintaining Alain’s ground up style he kept from rappelling in. Nevertheless such a contrived line didn’t sit well with him so the wall sat in silence for another year.

Harry Van Oort from Victoria noticed Alain’s three pitches listed in the newly revised Squamish guidebook and found inspiration. Without knowledge of Maddaloni’s effort, he rappelled in and scrubbed off moss to the right of the Brit’s highpoint. There he unveiled a splitter 5.l2 finger crack that shot up and abruptly ended after 45 meters. After flashing the desperate jamming pitch he named it, “Crackis Smackis 5.12a.” Seeing climbers working on his alleged route Maddaloni hiked up and met Harry and his friends on their way down and learned of their success. Happy that the route could continue he immediately resumed the project and rappelled in to locate a final passage. The route had lost its ideal style in its manner of construction but he swore he would place any newly needed bolts on lead.

With a power drill and his friend Myles Holt for emotional support and a belay, Maddaloni bolted while on lead the face above Harry’s crack. Several hook placements, a run out, crimping and a little crying later, he managed to survive a new 5.12c pitch. Upon climbing this line days later, Ben DeMenech thought the unlikely sequence of holds appeared invisible from below and came up with the name, “The Invisible Jet,” after Wonder Woman’s personal aircraft.

Now it was DeMenech’s turn to step up to the plate and lead with the drill. Delicate 5.11 face confronted him and he almost pitched off backwards several times while trying to get a bolt in. Running out the crux with ledge fall potential, he made it to a stance and fired in a bolt. Above lay an enduro overhanging dihedral covered in basalt intrusions, which made for great edges. 40 meters later DeMenech was smearing in a stem position and was about to make the anchor when a lose hold blew him off into space and he lost the onsight. This pitch quickly received the nick name, “The Benduro.”

A couple more bolts on lead linked Maddaloni and DeMenech to the “Bonsai Traverse,” an unlikely path that leaves one feeling they down climbed more rock than they ascended. Linking into the last pitch of the aid route Western Dihedral, they jammed their way to the summit. Colin Moorehead had first freed this overhanging splitter hand crack at the age of 17 by rappelling in and named it “Cloud Burst 5.10.”

Eight pitches long, Warriors of the Wasteland stands as a statement of bold adventurous climbing, a style that is diminishing as climbing becomes more popular in Squamish. Enlightened, Maddaloni feels that climbing new routes ground is respected as good style, adventurous and most importantly a lot of fun.