Will Stanhope Remembers the Bugaboo Dream Route That Fell Off

The Tom Egan Wall was a beautiful diamond-shaped panel adhered to the East Face of Snowpatch Spire in the Bugaboos of British Columbia. Bordered by Sweet Sylvia on the left and Power Of Lard on the right—both King Lines themselves—the Tom Egan Memorial Route took center stage. They were like laser cut splitters etched into white, grey, and yellow granite above the Crescent Glacier. 

The Tom Egan Memorial Route was first climbed by Daryl Hatten and John Simpson in 1978, named after a friend of theirs that had passed away in a plane crash. A few pitches off the deck the climb started in earnest with some very thin knife blading—a skill Hatten was particularly deft at, being the preeminent Squamish aid climber of that era. Then the seam got bigger, barely finger jams at its widest, for three pitches before the wall’s steepness eased off. A perfect, singular splitter. 

I saw in 2008 what John and Daryl saw. Doesn’t matter if it’s ’78 or ’08. Timeless beauty is timeless beauty. Chris Brazeau, understated Golden local, Rockies alpine heavyweight, and Bugaboos workhorse and I had just marched in there and wiped the sweat from our brows. Me for the first time, him for the umpteenth. That trip would begin for me a long term love affair with the place and that face in particular.

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