Carrie’s Ramblings

The Ibex
Carrie posted in Recreation on July 8th, 2007

Yesterday I went bouldering at the Ibex. I don’t know, I didn’t name it. Nor did I get to see any sheep or goats, but it was still a good day. Recers name everything and usually have weird names. Some climbing route names I’ve heard have been things like “Timid Goldfish”, “Joe’s Lunch”, “Clutch Cable”, “The Aquarium”, “Conquering Army”, “Beaver Tail”, “The Cobra Crack”, “Discovery Route”, “Spiral Galaxie”, “ZigZag”, whatever! We drove down this gravel road that became a dirt road that became a sand and rock road that became a glorified ATV trail until we reached this bizarre landscape full of boulders. I could not believe the road we drove down or why it even existed or that we would ever get out again. I would have been cautious with an ATV but these guy seemed to know exactly what they were doing and 50 km later we were at the Ibex. Every year they host a bouldering festival there and bring in a stage and music and have stations and circuits and good food and all kinds of things in the middle of the bush! That’s awesome!! And the location is just perfect. Surrounded by rocky mountains and a lush green valley with patches of snow here and and there the Ibex is a young forest recovering from a forest fire about 50 years ago. Interspersed between the trees are HUGE boulders. Like, big rocks! Some of these boulders are the size of small houses or busses and as high as 5 metres. That’s a long way up for bouldering! It was neat because there were all these trails to the different rocks and when a couple more people showed up we set up different stations with the crash pads and you could just move around and try different problems. I could totally see why this was a perfect location for a climbing festival.

We climbed for a while and enjoyed trying to solve different problems with three totally different body types (makes each problem different for each person because you can’t always reach the same holds or bend the same way). Later on some others showed up and we would try to solve problems, challenge each other to new moves, or defeat a personal nemesis or two with people cheering you on and lots of hands ready to catch if you bail. Then this 14-year-old girl who’s home schooled and spends her winters climbing in Costa Rica totally schooled us. She’s at the perfect point when her strength to mass ratio is huge. So strong but doesn’t have that cumbersome upper body weight that will come soon enough. It was amazing to watch her get up some routes. I think I made 2 moves off of Clutch Cable but didn’t have the strength to do the free hanging chin up to keep going but she did it 2 tries. It made me smile to watch her show up the boys (because I certainly wasn’t putting on a clinic). So I have a couple of less layers of skin on my fingers and bit more of a tan on my face and it was a good day!