Noon Patrol

When you live in the land of the midnight sun, what’s the point of alpine starts?

NORTHERN CRACK

Beginner Trad (and mixed) Climbs in the Yukon

BEGINNER TRAD IN THE YUKON

DISCLAIMER: This is not an exhaustive how-to on trad climbing, while I provide some insight and resources regarding skills, this blog post is specifically meant to give some local insight for budding Yukon trad climbers. To be as safe as possible, you must leverage a wide variety of knowledge resources beyond this post. This post is written assuming you have some pre-existing knowledge of trad climbing, if any term is confusing or new, Google is your friend.

For people who want to dive into more adventurous styles of climbing, like alpine rock in the Bugaboos or multipitch climbing in Red Rocks, learning how to place traditional protection is one of the most daunting learning curves. In the Yukon, we don’t have access to the abundance of climbing seen in areas down south, let alone an abundance of beginner gear protected climbing. Indeed, when I first came to the territory I was a bit dismayed at how difficult the grading seemed to be and how hard it was to find a climb that had any sort of consistent, protectable feature like the splitter cracks of Squamish.

I’ve now spent my fair share of time plugging gear around the territory’s crags. I also don’t climb particularly hard and I’m averse to bold, runout climbing so I’ve spent a fair bit of time with moderate grade climbs figuring out the protection.

I think the Yukon, despite it’s objective lack of vertical rock, does have a lot more opportunity for adventure-type climbing and I’d like to see that portion of the community grow. So, of the large portion of ‘easy to access’ single pitch trad climbs within a few hours of Whitehorse, here are my favourite recommendations to beginners.

Note: Gear recommendations are according to Black Diamond Camalot sizes. ‘Single Rack’ (SR) usually refers to a set of cams, one of each size, 0.3 to #3 (7 cams total), and implies a set of standard nuts as well. This isn’t to say BD cams are the best for Yukon rock, they are just the most commonly used cams in North America. Other brands work just fine as well.

For many shorter routes, a SR will be fine, but as you progress or move onto longer/more difficult routes doubling up on those SR cam sizes will be handy, starting with the smallest cams first typically. In addition, I’ve found microcams (such as the 3 smallest Z4 sizes) to be incredibly useful here and rack them often. Bigger cams, like a #4 and #5, are usually good additions when you have a particular route that you want to use one on.

With a few exceptions, a single 60m rope will be suitable for single-pitch trad climbing in the Yukon. You should also have a handful of alpine draws to reduce rope drag.

Rappelling from Chunder Gully at Paint. Trad climbing can bring you to some of the most outstanding views in the territory.

Pre-Requisite Skills

Trad climbing is obviously not something to immediately dive into. You should have a solid foundation of skills before starting your trad climbing career. You and your partner should:

Any additional advanced rope rescue or first aid skills are assets as well, especially if you are climbing in hard to access areas. The Yukon’s rescue capabilities are extremely limited and everyone should strive to be as self-sufficient as possible. In most single-pitch areas around Whitehorse, a scenario where you’d have to do more than simply lower a hurt climber and help them out via a trail is likely pretty rare. But climbing protected by your own placed gear adds an extra layer of risk, especially as a beginner. It’s better to be over-prepared than under.

Headpointing

Just a general beginner trad tip: embrace headpointing! I do this all the time, still, but it’s particularly helpful in learning to trust your gear when starting out. Climb a route on top rope, placing gear as you go as if you were leading, then when being lowered take a sling and clip it to the piece. Next, bounce on it with your full weight. Napkin math has shown this will produce forces equivalent to a small lead fall because of the static nature of slings. It may not guarantee you that it will hold a giant whip but it does give you some initial feedback on your placements. Nowadays, if I’m headpointing I never really bounce test the pieces I place unless I feel they are suspect, as it can cause wear. But starting out, it’s not a bad idea to test them all.

Jamming (Crack Climbing)

A lot of people are weary of learning to crack climb because jamming is not very intuitive at first. For starters, just because a climb has a crack does not mean there will be any required jamming on it, especially when it comes to granite. Climbs like Green Circle or Two-Ply Receipt follow consistent cracks but are frankly easier just to climb using the face features around it. This is why granite is my favourite type of rock to climb, it often requires a combination of styles such as face or slab climbing and jamming.

That being said, it’s not a bad idea starting out to play around with your jams even if they aren’t necessary. There are climbs like Memories of Squamish that can be lapped on top rope and you can practice perfect hand and foot jams. There are a lot of resources out there to learn proper technique, like WideBoyz Crack School. However, my opinion is that it just takes a lot of mileage for it to eventually click. Especially in the Yukon. Before I got here, I spent a season in Squamish and felt that I had a decent understanding of crack technique. When I started trad climbing here, it felt like I had never crack climbed in my life. I’ve noticed that most of the trad climbs here tend to be on the steeper side, vertical (or just off), whereas in Squamish you can be climbing up to 5.11 cracks that are on slab, which rewards a more balanced mixture of footwork and jamming. Don’t despair if it takes awhile for jamming technique to click, keep at it!

It ain’t always about the jams when trad climbing.

McIntyre Bluffs

McIntyre is my favourite crag in Whitehorse due to the natural atmosphere and solitude. As everything around town, it’s relatively short but it’s made up of solid granite with some good cracks. Though many of these cracks are not sustained throughout the entire route so you often see bolts.

TR access is generally easy though can be exposed in some cases. There are ways to mitigate this by using trees above the anchors to secure yourself to a rope while setting up anchors.

In order of ease, the routes I would recommend for beginners are:

Feeling confident after all these? Try out Rule of Two or Life is Suffering. Both are 10a and have enjoyable climbing, not particularly difficult, but the gear tends to be on the trickier side. Life is Suffering requires microcams to protect the crux and Rule of Two can feel a bit heady at the start with multiple options that can put you in an awkward position if you choose wrong and mediocre protection over a poor landing. Both have easy access TR anchors and can be given a headpoint.

  • Green Circle
  • Two-Ply Receipt
  • Memories of Squamish
  • Pusher
  • Rule of Two
  • Life is Suffering (PC: Alex Weber)

McIntyre Bluffs climbs in order of the list

Vinyl Village

Vinyl Village is, next to Rock Gardens, the next most popular crag in the Whitehorse area. It is mostly sport climbing with a couple mixed/trad routes:

Otherwise, there’s not much for gear protected climbing at Vinyl. e^2 is a weirdly contrived climb that requires a couple small cams to protect the true line. Though the bolted face climbing above is as good as Sting in the Tail to the right of it, I’m not sure why this was established as a mixed route. The ‘Untitled Offwidth’ next to the mini off-width is a heinously tough, proper offwidth that is very dirty. I tried to TR it once but didn’t make much progress.

Owen TRing the route, with the 5.11 offwidth to the left.

Rock Gardens

Rock Gardens is well known in the Whitehorse climbing community. Easily the most popular crag, has ample parking, and an easy approach. There are a handful of easy trad routes but not too many I’d really recommend. But if you’re heading there for some bolt clipping anyways, why not bring the rack and mess around?

There are a number of short, easy trad lines on the North side of Grand Central Station (Lunch Cart, Riverdale Rise, The Caboose). Frankly, I’ve never done these. They don’t look long enough to be worth it and many of the protectable features are loose blocks.

‘Tabernac’ is a worth doing once route but I found it hard for the stated grade, 5.7 (though the fact that I was wearing jeans at the time and it requires a high step might have been a contributing factor). If I recall correctly, the gear at the crux was also small and fiddly. It doesn’t have a bolted anchor so you will need to use the tree above and either have a follower clean or clean on rappel then retrieve your anchor after from above.

‘Tree of Life’ seems to be a fan favourite and now has a number of bolts protecting it. Many people just lead it on bolts now. This is one I don’t personally enjoy and most of the placements would be in detached blocks.

Climbs at RG (Click on photos for description)

Golden Canyon

Golden Canyon is easily the highest quality single-pitch trad area developed in the Yukon. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of easy options there but there’s a couple high quality moderates I’d recommend. Top roping is generally not easy to access beside the Ballpark Boulder.

There’s a number of other moderate routes there if you look on MountainProject. I haven’t climbed some of them as descriptions are a bit vague and they don’t necessarily follow obvious features, so I can’t speak to those. Kootenay DJs (5.8) is the first climb I did in the canyon and the bolted crux felt very sandbagged with the rest of the climb being gear protected on shitty rock, not worth it despite the grade in my opinion. Bird Nest (5.7) is right next to Shark Fin and the grade might seem attractive but overall it’s a pretty meh climb with lots of loose rock, though the TR anchor can be accessed easily. Feelers Protected (10a) is a mixed route with some gear at the start then ending with fantastic bolted face climbing. I found the gear on it a tad tricky in spots but didn’t feel too spicy.

  • Nicole on her first trad lead on ‘Tour de France’
  • Rob after pulling the crux bulge on ‘Battle of the Bulge’
  • ‘Feelers Protected’
  • The start of ‘Shark Fin’

Paint Mountain

Paint Mountain is one of the most spectacular places to climb in the territory. It is also a large zone with a number of different crags, most of them trad or mixed.

Highly recommended you use the .gpx files on each crags MountainProject page your first time out to find the approaches.

Orange Corner

This is the most popular crag at Paint. It’s accessed by following the standard Paint Mountain hiking trail then branching left (see MP).

I won’t delve too much into these routes, most of them have either run-out sections or options for fiddly or micro protection. However, it’s the only spot on the mountain that has top rope access. It’s not anywhere as simple as a spot like Rock Gardens though. It requires you to solo or lead up some low 5th terrain far left of the routes then fix a second rope or rap off of upper anchors to get to the anchors of each climb. Practice dialing in those skills in a low-commitment crag in Whitehorse before you attempt it here.

Gato Buttress

The next crag lookers left of Orange Corner. Easily seen from the parking lot. No TR access.

Rob on Gato Crack

Swiss Wall

Swiss Wall has some of the most fantastic granite cragging in the territory. All of the routes are mixed protection but don’t let that fool you. There can still be a bit of spice. Basically every line there is high quality but there are only a couple I would recommend to beginners. No TR access.

Owen cruising through Swiss Family Robinson

Buffalo Shoulder Buttress

No TR access.

Buffalo is a fantastic area to climb. Has a relatively long and difficult to find approach but is usually secluded because of this. Previously, the only published routes here were multipitches but recently Jon Driscoll has been reviving some old moderate routes with fixed anchors. These are long pitches that generally require a double lower/rappel to descend and a large rack. He’s provided a good explanation of all the lines in a Facebook post. I will update my opinions on the suitability of these routes for newer Trad climbers once I’ve actually attempted them.

In addition, my major project last year was establishing a short, moderate multipitch. Named Let Them Eat Cake. Once you are breaking into multipitches, this is a great first trad multipitch in the territory. It has much less committing climbing compared to other moderate trad multis. Set up to easily bail with a single 60m rope and descend via walk-off. The one 5.9 crux on the first pitch is bolted and all other cruxes protect well with gear. The first pitch alone would be a worthwhile route to climb if you’re out there cragging. It is less than 30m, so easily descended in one rappel/lower. But due to the traversing nature, you’ll want your follower to clean the pitch.

Rob starting pitch 2 of Let Them Eat Cake

Skagway

Despite being in Alaska, Skagway is an often visited area for Yukoners and is almost as close to Whitehorse as Haines Junction, so I am adding it here. There isn’t exactly loads of climbing developed in the Skagway area, though there is huge potential for more. I also have only scratched the surface there so my suggestions are limited.

For beginner trad climbers, there are two good crags to visit.

Tidal Flats

This small, oceanside crag is located on the Western edge of the shoreline near the popular Dyea Flats campground. It is only easily accessible at low-tide, so timing is key. I have not climbed here yet but Top Rope access looks fairly easy with a number of moderate crack climbs. There are few bolted anchors, so you should expect to bring tat to replaced fixed tree anchors.

Black Lakes

Black Lakes sits right above the Klondike Highway, right before you drop down the big hill toward sea level going into Skagway. From below, through the trees, it looks quite crappy. However, it hosts a number of quality, good length routes. I’ve yet to dive into all of them there but all the moderate trad climbs I’ve done, I would highly recommend.

Top rope access is probably doable but definitely not easy, especially trying to identify the climbs from above.

Nicole following ‘Unnamed 5.8’