Pigeon Skunk – Winter Canyoneering

Jordan and I climbed Crystal Tear on March 3.  From the top of the route we spied a deep gully system on Pigeon Mountain.  From our vantage point it appeared this gully system had a lot of water ice.  We were so pumped we headed up the gully on March 18.  Jordan and I we joined by his good buddies Dan and Farzad. 

Well we got skunked, the ice was missing!  We only found steep snow and an interesting gully system.  No indication of ice anywhere. 

Fun hike up.  We did climb (M2) through several pinch points in the gully and did have to traverse out of the gully to bypass a couple of overhanging cliff bands.

We did descend the gully directly, required four steep and overhanging rappels; sort of like winter canyoneering ;-)

Crystal Tear 300m, WI3+, M4

Crystal Tear 300m, WI3+, M4. Fun day and first climb with Jordan. Saturday, March 3 we headed to Crystal Tear in upper Grotto Canyon. Had seen this route in the past, nice to get on it. 300m includes all height gain (creek bed to top of ice).




150 m of slogging to base of M4 pitch. I started lead on M4, got a bomber pin, but didn’t have much luck gaining the lower angle ledge above; took a minor lead fall, but pin held.

JR finished off the pitch. JR easily got up the crux ice pitch, a solid 3+ or 4 pitch (35m). Second pitch, easy WI2 or 3, my lead, fun, but too easy; a full 60 metres.

We solo’ed to the final top of ice, then rapped trees and bolted station to base.




Great little route.