Hazel Findlay E7/8 Crack in Squamish...
17th Sep 2010
Wild Country climber Hazel Findlay has bagged another hard trad route with her ascent of 69 (5.13b/c F8a/+) on the Leviticus crag in the Murrin Park area of Squamish, British Columbia, Canada.
Leviticus crag is small granite outcrop, a stone's throw from the road and with a rake of hard crack testpieces. Hazel described the route of 69: "It's an intermittent crack line that doesn't really climb like a crack, it has some technical face moves and a bouldery crux that involves slapping and laying-away off slopers above a nut."
The 30m route is protected by small cams and wires and has two distinct crux sections which would rate V7 and V6 as stand alone boulder problems. The V7 crux runs straight in to the V6 sequence with no rest. A route of this physical difficulty, with runouts and small gear would equate to E7/8 in the British scale. "I was pleased to do it, because I am not very good on slopers or bouldery moves. It took me 5 days."
Last year Hazel also visited Squamish and onsighted the 5.12+/13a undercling pitch of The Free Grand, a 10 pitch route on the grand wall. This year Hazel completed the whole route, which has a crux slab pitch of 5.13b (F8a).
See the womens Vision harness that Hazel wears here..
