After hiking many oversized haul bags up to the base of the wall and after four separate weekend trips between August 20 and September 18, Cory Rogans and I finished a steep new route in a ground-up effort on the intimidating Suicide Wall on the south face of Mt. Yamnuska. This section of the mountain sees very little attention due to its sustained steepness and difficult climbing, combined with very spacious pro. The protection and belays on all of the existing routes mainly consist of 1⁄4” self-drive bolts that were hand-drilled in the 80s, placed at spacious intervals due to the blank nature of the wall and the difficulty of drilling. Many of these are in very poor condition, making them unreliable to catch the large leader falls that are very possible on these routes.

All pitches on our route were put up on lead with a power drill. The majority of the pitches are quite bold and run-out, even with the addition of expansion bolts, although the crux pitch is well bolted. Each pitch is unique, and the climbing follows steep corners and excellent gray limestone faces, with the odd sections of choss thrown in to keep the leader honest.

We had initially spotted the line while retrofitting the route beside it to the left, Astro Yam (275m, 5.11c R, DeMaio-Gross-Marshall, 1986), with new bolts. After coming back to check out the first few pitches of our planned line, a race began to finish the route before the first snowfall. Our line weaves between Astro Yam and Quantum Leap (295m, 5.11d, De-Maio-Marshall, 1990), taking a more direct line up the wall than the existing lines.

The route starts up steep, soaring corners of yellow and white limestone in the 5.11- range, before run-out 5.10 face climbing spits you out at the base of the crux pitch, an intimidating roof that goes free at 5.12c. It starts out in your face (as there are 5.12 moves directly off the belay), and has multiple mini-crux sequences to figure out throughout the pitch. After you pull the last big roof, with an inevitable heinous pump, there’s a tricky sequence that proves to be the sting in the tail. This pitch was almost freed on the first ascent push, during which Jon Walsh accompanied us, but was ultimately redpointed the following day by Cory and me. Overall, it took each of us three separate tries to send this pitch.

The remainder of the route tackles two more steep dihedrals with quite good rock in the 5.11 range, with the quality deteriorating in the last 30 to 40 feet at the top of the wall.

People of The Sun (230m, 5.12c R) still awaits a continuous free ascent, but all of the individual pitches have been freed on lead. (On the day we sent the crux pitch, we accessed it by rappelling from the top of the wall while collecting some gear and cleaning up dirt and rubble from belay stances.) This route presents a wild arrangement of gymnastic movement on mostly bullet hard limestone. We both feel it was a necessary and important addition to this historic wall, and highlights the potential for future climbing on the “Mother Stone.”

— Rory O’Donnell, Canada