The long ten hour drive wasn't bad at all.  Aidan began giving me a survey of rap and hip-hop music at my request.  Now, I'm semi-literate in the genre.  Near the small lumber town of Brisco in British Columbia, we found the signs directing us to the dirt road that led to Bugaboo Provincial Park.  However, the crappy guidebook (the one by the Mountaineers) didn't mention the maze of logging roads back there, and, what's worse, the signs to the part are practically non-existent.  At a fork in the road, maybe a mile or a mile and a half after we turned off, we thought we would take the left hand, which appeared less traveled, because it looked to be a cut off road, at least according to the map in the book.  We even saw a sign that said "Bugaboo" not far after the turnoff that made us think we were going the right way.  Not so.  For those of you reading this looking for beta to the Bugaboos, just stay on the most prominent fork of the dirt road.  You'll be fine; there are signs when you need then.  Aidan and I, however, bounced our way along passing more forks and getting more confused.  Eventually, we passed a red pickup truck who was also searching for the Bugaboos.  "Great.  At least we're not the only idiots", we thought.  The two of us searched together, the pickup truck being able to cover more ground than us.  A couple of backtracks eventually and somehow got us back to the main drag and we were on our way, after losing about an hour of time.  Thankfully, there was still ample light to hike once we arrived.

We moved quickly encircling my car in chicken wire to prevent porcupines and other varmints from chewing on the tires.  Shouldering packs that were way heavier than we were accustomed (each of us carrying a sizeable rack and a full-on 60m rope), we set out.  The trail is great, easy to follow, and scenic.  We arrived up at the Kain Hut just as the sun was nearly gone, at the point where you begin to think if it's worth taking out your headlamp or not.  I thought I'd seen a sign that said the Boulder field camp was just above the Kain Hut (someone else we passed a few days later mentioned something similar) but a sign above the hut indicated that the campsite was below us.  We were both tired at this point; the long drive followed by a two hour grunt with a heavy pack can wear you out.  Aidan, though was adamant about not losing elevation.  So, with headlamps donned, we went up, searching for the Applby Camp.  We never found it.  We lost the trail almost instantly.  It's nearly impossible to reliably follow it in the dark when the white and yellow granite blocks everywhere just seem to melt together.  We found ourselves crossing several wide streams.  We saw headlamps coming down from the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col and Aidan went to seek them out to ask them about the camps.  Eventually, I called back to Aidan.  I knew the camps weren't in that direction and I'd found a place to camp anyway.  So, we bedded down on a large slab on the edge of a large gully.  We both suspected that the Appleby Camp was on the other side of the gully but we were fed up with looking for it.  Because it was so late, we decided to skip Bugaboo Spire tomorrow and instead have an easy day on Pigeon Spire. 

We awoke to brilliant sun.  I slowly opened my eyes and looked across the small chasm.  Sure enough, there was the Appleby Camp across and above us.  We took our time getting ready.  We stashed our leftover goods down between the boulders and set off around 9:30 or 10am to the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col and beyond to Pigeon Spire.  At the base of the Crescent Glacier, we heard "Aidan!".  We turned around to see Colin, Aidan's cousin, and TeleRoss who were heading up to climb a route on Snowpatch Spire.  We ended up hiking together up to the col where we took a break, at some food, and admired the impressive Howser Towers.

Pigeon Spire

We didn't bother roping up to cross the upper part of the glacier and encountered no one disapprovingly shaking their heads at us.  Staring straight into the Howsers, we strolled easily up the glacier underneath Pigeon Spire on our left.  Everything about this climb is nearly perfect, even getting from the glacier to the base of the ridge.  There's a brief section of easy ice and no moat.  Suddenly, you're on the route.  I suppose the crux of the entire tour of Pigeon is the nasty col.  We immediately took off our crampons and boots, had a bit to eat, and packed up the rope, rack, and not much else and headed out.  We planned to solo as much as we could.

OK, so there were a couple of super solid boulders to scramble over to get to the ridge proper, but once there, we enjoyed solid long stretches of rock with wonderful cracks, ledges, and ridges.  Most of the climb is 5.0 on as -good-as-it-gets rock.  The first steep part featured a quick exposed little move to get on top of a small knife edge that led to more cracks and on to the famous first false summit that is down-climbed, or rather walked.  Beyond, we had great views of the second part of the climb which looked more challenging, but it too is an optical illusion.  The climbing is easy, consistently 5.0 and secure.  Still soloing, we passed a party of three who were also raving about the quality of the route.  On top of this second false summit, we cruised across the famous knife edge with outrageous views behind us.  Above us, the rock became steeper, but more blocky and we were soon to the point where we needed to down-climb to attain the last pitch to the summit.

The last pitch of the summit required a careful down-climb (the most difficult part of the climb, but still easy.  I believe many people rappel this) to another small col where we traversed briefly over easy blocks towards the 5.4 crux.  The crux is a short wide crack with good exposure down to the approach glacier.  It's short though.  We followed easy slabs to the summit.

We made one rappel down from the summit and down-climbed the rest.  Because there is so much up and down on the route, the descent is almost as fun as the climb up and this time, you've got the Howser massif in front of you the whole way.  Back at the base of the route, we put our boots and crampons back on and headed back.  Aidan's mood had strangely transformed into more quiet and inward and he admitted to not feeling quite right.  He didn't know why.  Fortunately, he snapped out of it the next day because it was my turn to get weirded out and inward for the climb of Bugaboo Spire.  He snapped back to his old self back at camp.  We packed all our things up and headed up to Appleby Camp where we found Colin and Ross's tent, the exact same model as ours:  the Black Diamond Beta Light.  We had dinner, set the alarm for 4:30, and went to bed.

Day Three:  The Northeast Ridge of Bugaboo Spire