Bagger Challenge 2010

I did a post-Challenge bag of West Lion yesterday.  As glorious as the views and day were, the climb is not recommended for casual baggers without climbing experience and/or ropes and psychological fortitude. It would be crazy to attempt it in anything less than perfect weather conditions: a hint of rain or ice would make the traverse very unpleasant and dangerous.

The scariest part of the climb is at the base, where one must traverse east along a series of 75 cm-wide shelves that slope gently towards a near-certain deadly fall on the rock slopes 45 metres below.

Neil, Carolyn, Heather and I squeezed in one last Bag today for good measure (Depencier Bluffs), the very last day of the 2010 Bagger Challenge. We worked it, toured it, scrambled it, bloodied it, loved it, and conquered it. I'm sure we hold the record now for the longest and strangest route to the top of perhaps the easiest peak. And in the nick of time too as we witnessed the first light flakes of snow for the winter season at the peak!

Congratulations to all my fellow Baggers (way to go Ean! and Carolyn!). I'll be dreaming up new ways of making it interesting for 2011.

The Bagger Challenge Champion of 2010 and recipient of the Munro Quaich is Ean Jackson.

With 11am sunny weather overhead and an enthusiastic 4-year-old son at my side, the encouragement from my wife to disappear until dinner was all we needed to head straight to North Van for some impromptu baggery.

We left the house with all the right provisions but without a specific distination - I'd figure that out on the drive there.

Nothing more glorious than returning from a triumphant bagging adventure down a steep slope that is a bit technical, but not too technical, on a surface that consists primarily not of rocks and roots, but of wonderful duffy decayed cedar.  Gravity and duff combine to emulate a slalom descent.