Toyohashi Alpine Club
Climbing in Canada
Val David, Laurentians, Quebec
11-12 July, 1998
Report by: Darren DeRidder
Party: Darren DeRidder, Kenji Suzuki, Martin Kessner
At the beginning of this summer I made a wish list of stuff I wanted to do climbing-wise, and I'm happy to say that a considerable number of items on this list have now been ticked off, the latest being a visit to Val David. It's not quite the Tour de Classiques du Quebec I had originally put on my list but it's definitely a good weekend of climbing. To give it some geographical perspective, Val David is about an hour west of Montreal and two hours north-east of Ottawa. There are two or three mountains w here the climbing is done. None of them are very big, but they have some impressive cliffs, and a lot of routes, especially in the higher grades. I went with a guy from the Alpine Club of Canada named Kenji and a German exchange student named Martin.
We drove out early on Saturday morning and went to the place where I had been about a year before, called Mont Cesaire. There are several cliffs and we went to Les Champs-Elysees. We had the place to ourselves in the morning but shared the cliff in the afternoon with two parties, one with a fellow who wore jogging shorts and black patent leather brogue dress shoes. To start out Kenji led a 5.5. crack which I had done last time I was there, and none of us had a problem with that. After that we top-roped a parallel route and I decided to lead it. It was a 5.6 hand crack with good pro. Next we decided to try Fritz Directe, a 5.8. Kenji decided to try the lead so he set off and I could tell by watching him that he was pushing it all the way. It looked really delicate and at one section he put in a couple pieces of pro and hung for a while, while contemplating the moves. Then he finished it without trouble. I think he was a bit frazzled after that lead. I seconded and at one spot I just about swung off as I tried to deal with the pro. I was thinking the lead would have been beyond me. At least it felt really exposed. After a lunch break we moved our rope over to do some top-roping on the left side of the cliff. Kenji and Martin top-roped Magnum, a 5.8+. I top -roped Le Trou, a 5.11a. With some grunting, cursing, and hanging on the rope I eventually made it to the top.
By this time we were pretty hungry and tired so we went into town and drove around looking for a camping place. We had to drive to the next village to camp with about a hundred other tents all crammed onto a terraced hillside. You could have more privacy camping in your backyard, but some people actually do this for vacation. Anyways...
We went to Mont King the next morning, getting a rather slow start. At the trailhead a fellow from the Federation Quebec des Montagnes Escelades or something like that, asked us if we were members. If you're not, you can't climb here. We said we were members of the Alpine Club of Canada, which is an affiliated group, so he let us in and we hiked in to Mont King. The section we eventually decided to go to was called the Ampitheatre, so we looked for that and eventually figured out where it was and where the topo lined up with the rocks. It looked like nobody had climbed in this particular section for quite a while, but we decided to go for a 5.7 offwidth crack called Absence which went halfway up the cliff, and then finish with a second pitch of whatever looked do-able. Kenji won the Jan-Ken-Pon (paper scissors rock) so he took the first lead. It was offwidth and unforgiving all the way. He tried to talk me into taking over the second half of his pitch, but I told him he had a ways to go yet. The upper half of his pitch continued up an off-width crack that was a real pig to get up. I think all of us resorted to some laybacking to get over the steepest part. Once all of us were at the top of the pitch, I had a look up. It was pretty much straight up over big blocky sections of rock. It looked like there were big holds and ledges all the way up, with good pro, so I took the rack and set off on lead. It was easy going, on a route called L'Unique Directe (5.5) with one or two mantle moves which required a little care. Being the second pitch, it was pretty exposed in places, but all the holds were positive. I ended up in a sort of cave just below the top and set up an anchor there.
I belayed up Martin and Kenji followed. The height really impressed Martin, who had never done a multi-pitch climb before. He expressed this quite colourfully and I could tell as he climbed that he was getting worried when he started farting like a horse. We thought we had missed a quickdraw somewhere, so Kenji down-climbed a bit for a look, but didn't find anything. After walking down and descending a pretty long, steep fixed rope, we sorted our gear and found nothing missing. After lunch we were surprised that it was 4:00 p.m. already, and Kenji had to get back to Ottawa for a hot date, so we packed up and headed out.
We drove out early on Saturday morning and went to the place where I had been about a year before, called Mont Cesaire. There are several cliffs and we went to Les Champs-Elysees. We had the place to ourselves in the morning but shared the cliff in the afternoon with two parties, one with a fellow who wore jogging shorts and black patent leather brogue dress shoes. To start out Kenji led a 5.5. crack which I had done last time I was there, and none of us had a problem with that. After that we top-roped a parallel route and I decided to lead it. It was a 5.6 hand crack with good pro. Next we decided to try Fritz Directe, a 5.8. Kenji decided to try the lead so he set off and I could tell by watching him that he was pushing it all the way. It looked really delicate and at one section he put in a couple pieces of pro and hung for a while, while contemplating the moves. Then he finished it without trouble. I think he was a bit frazzled after that lead. I seconded and at one spot I just about swung off as I tried to deal with the pro. I was thinking the lead would have been beyond me. At least it felt really exposed. After a lunch break we moved our rope over to do some top-roping on the left side of the cliff. Kenji and Martin top-roped Magnum, a 5.8+. I top -roped Le Trou, a 5.11a. With some grunting, cursing, and hanging on the rope I eventually made it to the top.
By this time we were pretty hungry and tired so we went into town and drove around looking for a camping place. We had to drive to the next village to camp with about a hundred other tents all crammed onto a terraced hillside. You could have more privacy camping in your backyard, but some people actually do this for vacation. Anyways...
We went to Mont King the next morning, getting a rather slow start. At the trailhead a fellow from the Federation Quebec des Montagnes Escelades or something like that, asked us if we were members. If you're not, you can't climb here. We said we were members of the Alpine Club of Canada, which is an affiliated group, so he let us in and we hiked in to Mont King. The section we eventually decided to go to was called the Ampitheatre, so we looked for that and eventually figured out where it was and where the topo lined up with the rocks. It looked like nobody had climbed in this particular section for quite a while, but we decided to go for a 5.7 offwidth crack called Absence which went halfway up the cliff, and then finish with a second pitch of whatever looked do-able. Kenji won the Jan-Ken-Pon (paper scissors rock) so he took the first lead. It was offwidth and unforgiving all the way. He tried to talk me into taking over the second half of his pitch, but I told him he had a ways to go yet. The upper half of his pitch continued up an off-width crack that was a real pig to get up. I think all of us resorted to some laybacking to get over the steepest part. Once all of us were at the top of the pitch, I had a look up. It was pretty much straight up over big blocky sections of rock. It looked like there were big holds and ledges all the way up, with good pro, so I took the rack and set off on lead. It was easy going, on a route called L'Unique Directe (5.5) with one or two mantle moves which required a little care. Being the second pitch, it was pretty exposed in places, but all the holds were positive. I ended up in a sort of cave just below the top and set up an anchor there.
I belayed up Martin and Kenji followed. The height really impressed Martin, who had never done a multi-pitch climb before. He expressed this quite colourfully and I could tell as he climbed that he was getting worried when he started farting like a horse. We thought we had missed a quickdraw somewhere, so Kenji down-climbed a bit for a look, but didn't find anything. After walking down and descending a pretty long, steep fixed rope, we sorted our gear and found nothing missing. After lunch we were surprised that it was 4:00 p.m. already, and Kenji had to get back to Ottawa for a hot date, so we packed up and headed out.
Although we didn't get an awful lot of climbing in, which can be attributed to the fact that we were unfamiliar with the place, we did have a lot of fun. Kenji might have taken Martin and I for a couple of clowns with our joking and goofing around, but he was pretty happy with his leads. He said if he'd known what he was getting into he definitely wouldn't have done them. Good way to get the adrenaline going.
There's just a couple of more weekends before heading over to Europe, so I'm hoping to get some good climbing in, locally in the Gatineaus or down in the Adirondacks.
There's just a couple of more weekends before heading over to Europe, so I'm hoping to get some good climbing in, locally in the Gatineaus or down in the Adirondacks.
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