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Mt Webb - first ascent of The Digestive System
Timestamp Free: 2021.01.25 - 20:57:58
Ranges: North America Ranges / Pacific Cordillera Range / Cascade Range / Canadian Cascades / Skagit Range
  (1 days)
Participants: Eric Hutton; Carl Fleet; Drew Brayshaw; Doug Wilm Grade II-III, 5.10b or 5.10+ depending on variation.
A new route on the NE side of Mount Webb.
This trip, undoubtedly like a lot of other trips, began in a bar. Doug and I were sitting in The Pit in September of 1997 and talking about mountaineering. After some discussion of the Chilliwack area and the weather we decided to head up to Radium Lake in search of unclimbed rock. Eric Hutton was dragged along as rope gun and Carl Fleet was abducted from his dreams of a weekend sport cragging at Cheakamus in order to make a party of 4.

We headed out to the Valley on Saturday morning in order to allow some gloomy weather to clear up. After the important gas, beef jerky and Tim Horton's stops we made it to Chilliwack Lake and scouted out a route from my 'black book' with binoculars - the NE buttress of Mt. Webb. I had originally noticed this line on an air photo stereopair while engaged in terrain mapping. From the valley floor the line looked feasible and we anticipated about 6 pitches of 5.8ish climbing.

We trucked up the trail to Radium Lake in fairly good time (2.5 hrs up)and spent the afternoon eating blueberries and exploring the dilapidated Forest Service hut - a great place for hantavirus if you ever feel like catching it...

The next day saw us up early and 45 minutes of hiking up a treed line between avalanche swathes put us on Webb's NW ridge. From here there are great views of Rexford et al. We dropped down into Webb's N. cirque on scrambly 3rd class ledges and gullies, requiring a bit of route finding expertise plus the wearing of helmets, and traversed under the N. face to our objective.

The best lines up the buttress appeared to be on the left hand side of the crest, and we started climbing two parallel lines as parties of two (Doug & I, and Eric & Carl). The first pitches were trickier than expected and involved thin cracks and the odd roof...

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