Horses, Snakes and Some Climbing

September 13-14 2008
VOCO trips are generally last minute ideas, planned during an organic chemistry lecture on a sunny Friday afternoon. This trip was no exception. Ivan, Benson and I decided that this weekend would be the last free weekend before the onslaught of schoolwork. The forecast was for sun. Why not climb? Even better, why not climb for two full days and camp out in between? Heather was a last minute addition to the team of three, making two solid climbing teams.
I awoke early Saturday morning to my cell phone ringing. It was
Ivan realising that Benson needed a harness. Of course Neil was sleeping and there was no way to get to the gear locker. I knew that Dylan had a harness so I sped down to his place at Phase II. His room being on ground level made tapping on his window quite easy. Getting a hold of the right person proved to be more difficult. “Nick what are you doing here?”, I asked. “Sleeping in Dylan’s bed”, he replies. Was that a faint smell of alcohol from Dylan’s room? As I am about to ask where Dylan is he comes up the stairs and we get the harness. First order of business taken care of.
Heather and I left campus and met Ivan and Benson at the bus station. Unfortunately none of us have a vehicle so we had to Greyhound it to Penticton. Some of the more “tired” climbers were able to catch up on some sleep they somehow or another did not get the night before.
We walked to Safeway, grabbed some food, and managed to get to the edge of town on one of the city busses. Off we went on Ivan’s idea of a fifteen-minute hike to the Skaha parking lot. Ten minutes later and we were still climbing the hill to Valleyview Rd. Luckily we were spotted by some other climbers who offered us a ride in the back of their pickup with their over-excited canine companion. The drive there turned out to be close to ten minutes. Thanks Ivan.
We finally arrived and spent the day climbing Red Tail wall. The four of us climbed 6 awesome routes ranging from a 5.9 to a 10.b. Me and Ivan climbed a 5.9 that led to a 5.10d where you had to get to the first bolt by climbing a tree. We were all tired from a day of climbing so we packed up our gear and headed out in search of a nice place to sleep.
We ate some dinner, played some frizbee in the dark, and set up the tents. Before retiring for the night we decided to put our food up in a tree, a lesson I learned when a mouse ate Dylan’s sandwich on the last trip to the Kelowna Crags. While most of the food was out of reach from anything shorter than a giraffe, Benson assumed that he was only keeping his food away from mice and small rodents, so he put it a few feet off the ground in the tree right behind my tent. This is important information for the rest of the story. Anyways, we all climbed into our tents, Benson and Heather in one, Ivan and I in the other. After a long day of hiking and climbing we all fell asleep very quickly.
At sometime around midnight Ivan heard something moving about outside and frantically woke me. I sat upright in a flash realising that while I was sleeping I was hearing something too but my mind was not processing the signs of danger outside. Sure enough there was something big moving around, and it was doing quite a number on Benson’s bag of food. We both assumed that it is a bear but neither of us was gutsy enough to unzip the tent, stand up, and see what was right behind us. We resort to rock-paper-scissors. I won. As Ivan unzipped the screen we heard the beast crash into the forest. He stood up and turned to investigate but all he could see was a large shadow moving through the trees. We woke up the other two to let tell them it was time to say their final prayers. We tried to convince Benson that he had to find out what it was since it was eating his food. He said to yell at it if it returned. After a couple of minutes of silence it did return. This time it was moving around right beside the tent. We thought for sure we were goners. Just as I was thinking that the bear was going to tear into my tent, with a snort it revealed its true identity – a horse. A harmless horse that just wanted to eat Benson’s apples. Next time we may not be so lucky.
We all slept in until well past eight o’clock. After a quick breakfast and camp teardown we were back on the rock, this time at the top of the stairs on a wall known as The Fortress. We managed to climb a few routes each before the second wave of VOCO climber’s pleaded for us to join them over in Grassy Glades. Nick, Dylan, Neil and Raeleen only had three harnesses between them and they were tired of sharing. Damn them for asking us to go over there, the whole place was full of rattlesnakes. As I was just conquering the crux of a nice 5.10c I see Ivan, my belayer, jumping up and down. Whitney was beside him fending off a deadly rattler with a stick. The snake was trying to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Take out the belayer and the climber falls as well. Nick, Neil, Heather, and Benson all had enough of the snakes, they ditched out early for a swim in the lake. A few of us braved it for a little longer but after Dylan almost stepped on one we decided it was time to leave. Anyways, we got two days of solid climbing in, perfect weather, and some exciting stories. It was another fun VOCO weekend.

Dave Donnelly