Sandy:

It’s our fourth day in Squamish, and a heatwave crashed our afternoon single-pitch plans. So, we started waking up at 5:30 am every morning, grabbing lattes and delicious pastries from Cloudburst Café (RIP Zephyr Café, we loved you) at 6 am, and heading to the Apron parking. We were always the first ones at the base of all our climbs.

After our early morning climbs, we’d stroll by the ocean, chill in downtown parks, and hit the swimming pool and steam room at Brennan Park. The rest of our adventure and gear tips for St. Vitus’ Dance, St. Bernard with Vector Variation are in the image captions.

Pitch 2 St. Bernard (5.9, 30m): Pitch 1 (5.7, 5.8, 30 ish m) of St. Vitus’ Dance is pretty straightforward—a hand-sized crack that takes you to a big ledge with a tree for belaying. When I got there, I spotted this beautiful line. Unbeknownst to me, it was St. Bernard, not our planned route. We aimed for St. Vitus’ Direct (5.10a, 23m) to the right of this crack.

I saw the offwidth on St. Bernard but didn’t have a #4 or #5. Feeling brave, I thought I could solo it. I placed a #1 in the hand crack and climbed up to the offwidth, only to realize I didn’t feel secure leading it without pro. We had three #3s, two #4s, and a #5 since I was set to lead the first pitch of Vector, which involves hands, fists, and offwidths.

I set up an anchor with .3, .4, and .5 cams at the place I am standing in the image above and brought Rick up. He then continued with the big gear on his harness and belayed me from the ledge. From there, traverse right to reach pitch 3 (Pitch 1 of Vector), probably the best moderate on the Apron, as shown in the picture below.

Pitch 3 (5.9, 50m): Ladies, if .75 is your tight hand size, the offwidth will feel much longer than 10 feet! In the picture, the cracks to the left are cupped hands to fist size for me, and the crack on the right is the offwidth.

Leading this pitch was a blast! I placed two #3s, two #4s, a #2, two #1s, two .75s, and a .5. For the offwidth section, my usual techniques like double fists and fat butterfly didn’t work, so I resorted to side pulls, heel-toes, knee jams, arm bars, and double gastons.

Before pulling onto the ledge with a bolt, I placed the #5, but that section was super easy. I was bumping the #5 in the offwidth, but it was bigger than the #5 in spots, so the cam just sat there fully open. Shuffling gear took some time because I placed 11 cams in 50m. Save a #3 for the belay—trust me, it’s better than relying on a single bolt!

Pitch 3 Offwidth section

Pitch 3 towards the finish. Parties to the left are on St. Vitus’ dance pitch 3.

Pitch 3: locating the bolt on the right. I am in pink sunshirt.

Pitch 3 finish

Pitch 4 (5.10a or 5.10c, 20ishm): This is a fantastic corner crack and I regretted to miss leading this one. Right side wall has lots of friction for smears, way more than The Zip. Crack has several hand jams and finger locks. Rick said the crack is very wavy so it requires thoughtful gear placement. He placed a .3, .4, #2, #3 and more finger size cams respectively from bottom to top as shown in the next picture.

Pitch 4 towards the finish.

Pitch 5 (5.9, 40m): This pitch has just a 5.9 move at the bulge as visible to the right of the follower of the party above us. Rest of it is nice hand crack and easy slab. Crack takes #2s and #1s and slab is unprotected but super chill. Belay from the tree and then traverse right (while you are facing our follower) on the slab for the rap anchors.

View from the top of St. Vitus’ Dance.