Coast Range Outdoors

On a sunny day in July, Peggy and I both had the day off work, and we decided we wanted to go explore a climb that was recently put up in the Brandywine Meadows area called Bastardo. A multi-pitch bolted alpine route above a beautiful mountain valley on a sunny day seemed like a no brainer.

We parked at the start of the Metal Dome Trail, instead of driving the last 2km to the Brandywine Meadows upper lot. We decided that we wanted to try and link up Metal Dome from the top of the climb instead of heading back into the Brandywine Meadows valley, so this would allow us to finish the day at the truck instead of an additional 2km of FSR walking after a long day out. I’d suggest doing this.

Two hours later, we were at the base of the climb. The GPS coordinates for the start of the route as found on Quickdraw Publications website was bang on. We had no issues finding the start of the climb.

The first few pitches were straight forward. The folks that put up this route did a great job with bolting to limit rope drag, but it’s an alpine route. Alpine draws are pretty much mandatory if you want to avoid serious rope drag, as some of the climbs wander back and fourth to maximize rock quality.

Once we got up to the middle of the climb, the pitches improved significantly. I lead us up the crux pitch which involved a few “solid” 5.8 moves. This section is called The Black Roof. The moves are all there when mantling up and over the roof. The bolt hanger that protected the crux move was loose, but fortunately I had a nut tool and was able to tighten it up a bit.

As approached the top, the views of Brandywine Mountain and Brandywine Glacier really came into picture. Even in July, we still had a few patches of snow on-route, but these didn’t interfere with the climbing at all. It felt great getting up into the alpine.

The last pitch, as the topo describes, is friable. The black rock is quite flakey. We weren’t concerned about pulling off large blocks, but we did take care with each hand hold and foot hold so we didn’t break anything off and go for a 5.4 screamer.

On top, we ate some lunch, watched a murder of crows fly overhead, and then started traversing a 4th class ridge over towards Metal Dome. This ridge was really fun, and had great views of Metal Dome Glacier and down towards the Callaghan Valley on the north side, and straight down to Brandywine Meadows on the south side.

Approaching Metal Dome, the exposure let off and turned into pleasant hiking. The descent off Metal Dome was non-technical, but the route finding isn’t super obvious. Having a GPS track for the Metal Dome trail was helpful.

We were car to car in just under 10 hours. The approach to the climb took about 2 hours. We pitched out all 10 pitches, but simulclimbing is definitely possible on this route. The descent took longer than we expected, so give yourself plenty of time to descend off the route. Overall, the climbing is quite good, with some stellar pitches mixed in. The bolting felt generous, and with about a dozen alpine draws, we were comfortable. All anchors are fixed, so rapping off the route is doable, but hiking up and over Metal Dome was much more enjoyable. There is additional route developement occuring in the Brandywine Area. There’s some great potential for new routing in this area! What makes this climb is the position of the route. The views of the surrounding meadows, mountains, glaciers and valleys are next level. Finally, a big shout out to the folks that established this route. The topo on Quickdraw Publications is extremely accurate. A lot of work went into developing this climb. Get on i!