Grizzly Groove
An Airy Arch High in the Kootenays
It wasn’t until we were wedged between two puppies and a cooler full of weed under the scarred canopy of an old grey, Nissan pickup truck that I f inally paused to ref lect on the past 36 hours of adventure. We had set out to climb the coolest rock feature i n Canada, a thin natural arch that spans 100 metres on a knifeedge ridge line near Jumbo Valley in the Purcell Mountains of British Columbia, and we’d succeeded. But as with most new routing in the alpine, there was no shortage of hardship, such as the two f lat tires on the Hylux van that had forced us to hitch a ride in the back of this beater.
Professional photographer Steve Ogle was the one who introduced me to the arch feature in June 2017. He had first spied it from a small plane eight years earlier during a f light to the Purcell Wilderness Conservancy. The pilot was skimming over the Egyptian group of spires near Mount Amen-Ra when they noticed a heart-shaped opening in the ridge that was so large they could have f lown through it. Ogle had bided his time and finally decided that July 2017 was when he would travel into the region, climb the structure and shoot it.
It was a daunting task. Armed only with a topo and some pics he’d gleaned from Google Maps, he’d have to bushwack through the world’s foremost grizzly bear corridor to a ridge of rock that, for all anyone knew, could be total choss and unclimbable. The fact is, there’s not a lot of beta out there when it comes to the peaks and valleys of the southeast corner of British Columbia. The Purcell Wilderness Conservancy, established i n 1974 thanks in large part to the efforts of mountaineer Art Twomey, is one of the last uninhabited chunks of Canadian real estate near the U.S. border. And while the arch is located just north of its borders, i n the JumboRoby Creek watershed about 55 kilometres west of Invermere, it’s also seen very little human traffic over the years.
Ogle selected four friends for the mission, all of whom lived in or near Nelson, BC, including acmg guide and Patagonia athlete Jasmin Caton, her father Dale, celebrated filmmaker Nick Waggoner and me. We had all enjoyed adventures in this special area of the country before and Nick had worked here with Ogle to film the documentary Jumbo Wild about the controversial alpine ski development slated for Jumbo Glacier.
The plan was to try and access the arch via the popular camping spot of Monica Meadows. We left Nelson while it was still dark out and drove north along Kootenay Lake for 140 kilometres to the trailhead, then hiked for about 45 minutes before veering off the well-established path. Luckily there wasn’t a lot of bush to wack on our route, we walked mostly open areas through bogs, over streams and onto a talus slope that lead through a col. Another 75 minutes of hiking through meadows brought us to a tiered system of small alpine lakes at the base of the ridge. All told it was a surprisingly easy three-hour hike and no grizzly bears were encountered during the journey.
This is a bit remarkable given that the area is dense with ursus arctos horribilis. In fact, the Ktunaxa Nation consider the Jumbo-Roby Creek watershed a sacred place where the grizzly bear Spirit is born, where it celebrates in ceremonial dances and where it eventually dies. Not surprisingly, the Ktunaxa are some of the most vocal opponents of the Jumbo Glacier Ski Resort alongside environmentalists and biologists.
None of that came to mind, however, when we set eyes on the spectacular natural
rock arch. It defied gravity, hanging between two halves of the ridge like an ancient Roman viaduct. The hole punched out of the rock was perfectly shaped like a heart and the bright blue sky shining through beckoned. Despite being on the move since 5 a.m., Ogle, Caton and I decided to grab the gear and go for a closer look.
We picked our way up the talus and snow to the base of the main corner where we were greeted by unclimbable choss. However, f ive metres to the left of the corner the slab appeared solid, albeit strewn with softball-sized stones. In hindsight, the decision to go for it at that point probably wasn’t the wisest. We had about six hours of daylight left. We were embarking on virgin terrain. I had left all the webbing in my large backpack by the lake. And each of us had less than a litre of water in our packs. But why let a little common sense get in the way of a good adventure?
Caton led the first pitch while Ogle and I cowered under a hailstorm of falling rock that the rope swept off the face. This barrage continued for the belayers during the next two pitches until the wall steepened slightly. The climbing was easy, the pro plentiful and it wasn’t long before I found myself directly underneath the arch belaying up the other two while considering the forces of nature that had caused this beautiful natural anomaly. One more pitch that featured two perfect splitter cracks brought us to the top of the ridge just as the sun was starting to set. At that point things got a lot more exciting.
Ogle frantically searched for an optimal position to shoot while shouting at us, “Hurry up! We’re losing the light!” Caton scrambled to find an easy way to the top of the arch while leaving swaths of slack in her wake. She reached its apex just as the sun’s rays settled into a soft pink glow and I was struck by the beauty of it all, like watching a figure at the top of the world become engulfed by light. The only thing that marred the moment was Ogle laughing and screaming with delight.
Far too soon the glow was gone and Caton backtracked to the ridge where we were then faced with the challenge of rapping in the dark. Thirteen hours on the move and the hardest part was yet to come. First, I discovered a core shot in the rope. Luckily it was close enough to an end that we made due. Then Caton dropped her belay device. Then our water ran out. By the time we finally made it to the base of the wall we were cold, dehydrated and drunk from exhaustion. We staggered into camp at 1 a.m. and collapsed. But our adventure wasn’t over yet.
The next day, we dragged our sore bodies back to the trailhead only to discover that one of the tires on Ogle’s van was f lat. When we went to unhook the spare from the undercarriage, we found it had a massive hole, burned through from contact with the exhaust.
And so it was that we found ourselves hitchhiking on Highway 31 north of Kaslo. A young couple picked us up, introduced us to their pups and graciously offered a toke from their large stash in the cooler. We declined as we were so tired. I simply crawled into the cramped quarters in the back of the truck, closed my eyes and daydreamed of grizzly bears dancing.