It all started in the mountains.

   Me and Jarret both love being off the beaten path. Summer 08 he says to me "Hey, you want to go climb bulley?"
   I guess its a mountain right away but have to ask for details. Turns out its the  highest peak in our local maintain ranges and not that far away.
    Sitting at 8800 feet and about a 100 km. south of Tumbler ridge on the also south and east of Monkman park, a provincial park that was the site of my first good adventure with jarrett sometime round 1996. An area I can relate to for sure.
  "Of course!" is the only smart answer so i say just that. And the planning begins, we research routes, find a book on the local mountaineering by a local, and start making gear lists.
   We cut a bunch of pitons out of one of our old sawblades from jarretts sawmill, started looking at the available mountaineering hammers and decided to buy roofing hatchets instead. then carve them down to the right profile.
  All the stuff that needs doing and then some without actually even knowing what form our adventure will take
   Finally in the fall our plans are finalized the truck is packed and we both cut our hair and headed out. his mohawk suits him but the twin hawk i cut just feels ridiculous on me, to distract i tie a canadian flag cape on and start rolling.
   Our approach takes us to tumbler an hour away to the west. about 100 kms. the next 70 to the south on bulley creek forest service road takes 2 full hours and carries us steadily uphill.  By the time we reach the end of the road, or at least where the logging road was deactivated we are within 40km. of the great divide, or high point where the watersheds change dirrection. our side flows north and east to hudsons bay and the north atlantic while the other flows west to the pacific. 
   A boulder marks the end of the road and on the other side a creek with no bridge any more, thats what deactivated means i guess. Every culvert and bridge pulled and erosion bars dug into steep hillsides, Bulley peak rising in front of us to the south, and cloads gathering. we shoulder our packs, grin, burn one. and head out.
   The first 10 kms. are on this dead logging road weaving thru replanted leases carving up the sides of the valley, we pass piles of waste wood with trees in them 60 feet long looking for all the world like jumbled piles of straws.
Enough wood to keep or mill cutting for weeks.
   The gathering cloads bring some rain and we can hear lightning booming down the valley behind us. with bulley looming over head and a stream crossing the road at a high point on the valley side we decide to set up camp and call it an early night.
   camp consists of a tarp and our bag setups so it takes no time and once we have fire and food in us the storm hits in earnest. Darkness falls early and we retire to our sacks under our tarp inbetween 2 logs pulling ourselves p topside to watch the lightning and burn one we hoot and holler into the storm till one bolt hits close enough to blind and deafen us. humility and the safety of our tarp call us to bed.
   the next day we push to the end of the logging site round the southeast side of the mountain then we turn west and follow the creek up the valley behind the mountain. eventually after much heanous bushwacking we reach the head of the valley.
  Glacial moraine and thin stunted trees, a massive headwall cut with an equally masive waterfall up the middle and a thin trickle just left of it has us talking about future ice climbs  out here while the lack of fuel forces us to follow the stream back down the valley till we can gather enough wood to cook with.
   Round a corner into a sheltered mini valley that looks suprisingly homey for the middle of nowhere, A massive grizzly doing his thing on the other side of the creek! We thought of this of course but the whistles we bought just seem to get him curious. "Jarret find the dam bear banger man." hes fumbling and saying how hes trying dammit.

   "Fooosh. BANG!" and griz is tails and gone. That was suuper scary and the signs all point to this being his home not ours. rocks over turned claw marks way up in trees. Poop all over. Eek! we had been roaring and joking about being bears mainly because of the local radio station that claims to be a bear but now.... not so funny. ROOOOAR! im not a bear at all.
  So thats where we set up! made a big fire and shot of a couple more bangers then started looking at the walls. We came to climb and right now it seems safer up there. tommorow we go up there! excited much and kinda nervous we make camp again and begin seriously looking for our line. a walk up to the falls after a dinner of spaghetti with jarrets homemade sauce that he dehydrated for the trip and we begin to form a plan.
We intend to climb between the glacier and the mountain peak through the saddle and from there decide which summit to go for or if neither we can beeline up the valley on the other side of bulley.

   Dawn in the mountains is capable of the most amazing light show and we roll out just in time for a doozy. breakfast of goatmeal and instant coffee. we decide to pack up and pull out completly. we plan to climb up to the right of the glacier on a steep crackline  that cuts the headwall. it looks from the bottom to be about a 100 metres of climbing maybe 3 or 4 pitches. then traverse further right and come up from there round the side of the glacier.
   The aproach is steep as hell, 65 maybe 70 degrees of heavily vegged talus and takes over an hour by the time we get under our line we are beginning to doubt our sanity. i win the rock paper scissor off and take first lead. Pack off harness and rack on away i go. as soon as i step around the corner into the cleft i remember that adventure can have a dirty side. mossy and dirty. my new hammer comes in handy right away as i use it to scrape away the moss and dig out the crack enough to find that its way to thin to put a clean piece in.
   bing bing BINGBING, PING ping ping higher and higher pitched the ring of cold steel into the rock as i pound my first piton with my first hammer in real fear. "dude, your only 20 feet in?" jarret is around a corner from me and seriously questioning my sanity. "you'll see" i mutter "clipping. and climbing."  not so bad now that ive got a piece pounded that i could drop a truck on under me and the crack opens up enough to get fingers and clean protection into.
  Even though jarrettt is only 10 feet away beside me round the corner its a long way down under me allready and a fall that far two days walk from the truck....2 days for healthy not crippled people...Its a serious game we play but as i climb it seems to get easier. cleaner for sure, i finally hear the half rope call and build my anchor. silence for the next half hour at least after except for the wind and occasional hawks wierd whistling scream. when he finally makes it to me i see he has his pack on and is sweating and shaky. now i have to go back for my pack. so he gets to relax and belay me for a bit.
   Jarrett lowers me to my pack and tie it onto the rope instead of me, i have to help it around the corner but after that its a straight haul up the face, steep as hell! i can tell jarrett is impressed with my lead by the lack of talk. serious times indeed.
his lead next and it looks like itèll be to the top thankfully, we rerack and take a minute to asess our surroundings. we can see across to the glacier and falls under it and the little lake just above where we spent the night in mr. bears house is as bright as the blue of the sky from the glacial mineral water. amazing, and surreal.  however times a wasting and we want of the wall and onto higher ground.
i get lots of time to sightsee as jarrett climbs and finaly after an eterity of paying rope out then nothing for even longer i hear him call secure. but then another call? lower me off is the call, and i dont understand. he comes down and explains how bad a position we have put ourselves in. after a hundred feet of rock the top is a 45 degree scree slope. unprotectable and hard to walk on with 60 lb. packs. Skunked.... still somewhat of a victory we have onsighted a semi serious short climb requiring some serious mountain skills.
  back to bear camp. food and sleep and a new plan. we will retreat down the valley to under the lowest part of the saddle. there is big timber reaching all the way to the saddle their and we can climb it for sure. from there we will decide whether to keep going up or traverse round the mountain back to the trail out.
  with 3 days food eaten out of our packs and some practice moving through the bush we know to avoid low ground and dense willow and make decent time then as we start into the steep ground we discover that blueberries on steep grow at face height. this slows us a little, ok a lot. grazing and moving we remember that bears are pretty smart and finally feel comfortable with our roaar we're a bear joke again. the saddle is reached and the alpine meadows prove much easier going than down in the valley. soon we are high enough to see both sides and the terrain grows more and more barren. as we start to descend the north end of the saddle has snow pack in it still and we feel like explorers again. its july and we are walking on snow!
then we come to the end! the valley ahead ends at the truck at least 15 k away but still! exciting, then we see rising above the spot where the truck must be! a pancake of flat grey rock sticking of the mountainside. not visible from the parking spot or anywhere down in the valley but plain as day from up here. solid climable rock! no scree slope under it to indicate rotten and plainly not vertical but just as plainly steep enough to bother looking into!
 on the side of the saddle to our west between us and the glacier is a black rotten miserable looking serrated knife edge ridge. to the east, the flank of bulley itself, steep scree and scary with our heavy packs. also no water up there. home it is, or the truck at least then maybe go looking for this new crag!
 we slog out to the road just before dark and startle an elk at the creek crossing. the full moon is rising so we decide to keep moving as the road is so much easier going than the bush and manage to make the truck just after midnight. a frantic munchy session and of to bed on the back deck of the death star.
day 5 and we have food for 3 more yet so we feast that morning and then set out without packs for the new crag. Across a logging cut block we see it rising as soon as the first hill is topped. it looks to be a kilometer long and very nearly half that tall.
3 hours later we are at the base of a slab of rotten sun baked mud looking slab. its the right color but theres something not jiving. we decide to keep climbing and at the top of this shit wall as we dub it is a drop into a little valley. across that our slab rises before us and our perseverance is rewarded. not shit! yay!

 kicking ourselves for not bringing gear we decide to explore a bit then try and find a quicker way back to the truck. all the way climbers left we reach the end and easy climbing through big blocks the higher we get the better the view of bulley and soon the glacier rising behind that. trly spectacular! this is worth the blisters is the decision, a trail in will be built and we will climb here! somewhere around here is where the story gets good. on the way out jarrett has an idea. more a brainfart really.
"you know what would be cool?" he asks. "A cabin out here, its so far out it wouldnt get found and we like the area. there are a lot of cool things to see and do and climb, and we would use it in the winter for a snowmobile destination too!" Wow jarrett, thats a pretty cool plan! We toss ideas around all the way back to the truck and in the morning we set out again with our racks and ropes and flagging tape determined to reduce our approach time and touch stone with our dirty, tired, calloused hands.
I honestly dont remember much from that day its all become a blur now i do know i took pictures of his shiny new ropes and slashed my ankle good on a stick. he fell of a log in the worst way possible. feet both ways!
we climbed 4 pitches made the top of the crag and ate there. saw the glacier and mountain under a perfect sky as well as both valleys we had travelled. our plans were growing at every belay and rest and it all looked and sounded doable.

jarrett had been hoarding building materials from jobs and by the time we were in the truck rolling home a dream had been dreamt out loud by both of us. The Cabin At The End Of  The Road was born that day.