I scramble up an easy sandy crack, finishing the first pitch of Diedre. I clip in, call off belay and look out at the view. Now above the treeline, I can see the Howe Sound, the town of Squamish and down to the parking lot. There's our truck, still the only car in the lot.

Holy CRAP! The passenger door is wide open! This is of special concern as we consider Squamish to be a den of ravenous thieves after getting our three backpacks stolen from the base of a climb two days ago.

I yell the news down to Dave and Martin. As I wait for a reply, a large white van pulls into the lot. Half a dozen people, probably a guided group, pile out. Figuring Dave and Martin must not have heard me over the roar of Highway 99, I yell down again. Their reply is quick and angry, "WE'RE WORKING ON IT OK!!!" Oops, guess they heard me the first time.  I watch helplessy as several of the new arrivals to the parking lot look at the open door, then go about their business. Finally, one person looks at the open door, and then looks up to see me. He points to the door. I wave my arms frantically. He closes the door! Back to the climb.

Our goal for the day is to get rid of the bad taste of the SmokeBluffs gang ropers and gear thieves by ascending the Chief via Diedre--> Squamish Buttress.We're somewhat handicapped by the loss of much of our gear and the fact that we have no topo for Diedre. The night before as we pieced together a hodgepodge of leftover gear, clothes and waterbottles, my wife made a foray downstairs into the bar to try to get us some basic info on Diedre. She approached a guy who looked like a climber, and since she had lost her voice from a nagging cold, whispered, "Are you a climber?" A bit baffled by the secrecy, he whispered back, "I'm a guide."

After our initial scare with the car door, Diedre is a cruise. It's one pitch of slab and 4 pitches of beautiful, if somewhat monotonous, 5.7 corner. The speed and comfort of our three-person team are greatly assisted by the large double-bolt chain anchors at each belay.We handily beat our midpoint turnaround time, reaching the ledges in about 2.5 hours, and focus our attention on the Squamish Buttress.

My hazy memories of internet beta on this climb tell me we need to find "Broomstick Crack, 5.4", or was it 5.7? I walk down the Diedre descent right to peer around the headwall above. I see nothing but slabs, thus figure the Broomstick Crack is to the left (I guess I was wrong? I still haven't found a guide to figure it out). Up and leftover easy terrain leads to a remarkably-level forested terrace. Above the near edge of the terrace is a small licheny arete with a bolt about 7m up. Dave takes the lead. He lets us know that it is NOT 5.4. And though I could make a feeble case for it looking like a broom, it is definitely not a crack. After a bit of toying with freeing a licheny steep section Dave yards on the bolt in the interest of speed. He calls off belay and brings us up a mossy slab to a jungle belay. I lead out on the next "pitch" weaving my way through trees until I'm stopped dead by the rope. I figure I've reached the end so set up the next belay and start hauling up rope. It's strenuous work, fighting a lot of drag. About the time I pull up the rope to the halfway point, I hear a faint "climbing". Apparently I was completely stopped by the drag. Dave reaches me and I yard on the rope from Martin while Dave belays.

From this point we are able to follow a nice trail to the base of the next steep rock section. We verify that an obvious clean section above is indeed the route by spotting a bolt about 10m up. Four pitches (three if we were smarter) of 5.7-8 face climbing and short cracks bring us to a huge ledge below the crux (10c) headwall.

It's a steep (vertical?) wall about 30m high with a number of possible crack lines. Once again the obvious, most clean, line is the route.  I head up on lead, spending a lot of time placing gear every 1-2 meters. It keeps appearing that "this FOR SURE is going to be my last nice stance" only to find another rest two moves later. After fighting off my desire to camp at a nice big horn for the rest of the day, I finally make some speedy upward progress as the nice rests truely do end. A couple of strenuous moves on small finger locks, stem against a seam, slot yellow alien, don't bother with a draw, continue up more small locks. A few more moves gets me to the final steeper (more than vertical?) section. To my surprise, it can be chimneyed with half my back on one wall and heel-to-toe feet on an opposing thin lip. Clip a fixed pin (find I can use both hands), a few more chimney moves and reach over the top to slot a hand jam.

One more zig-zagging pitch reaches the flats near the summit. We top out with a final bit of excitement by soloing a short friction slab with a couple of 5.8 moves near the bottom.

Five p.m. at the summit. We hang out in the sun, soak in the panoramic view and partake in post-climb festivities. Then it's down the tourist trail and back to the car in my rock shoes (gear thieves stole my lightweight running shoes). We're back to the hotel by 7:30, in time to play with the kids on our "Canada Vacation".

An excellent day! Though it didn't retrieve hundreds of dollars of stolen gear, it went a long way toward salvaging a successful trip to Squamish.