PHOTOS BY DREW LEITERMAN

Two Cranbrook rock climbers were back in the Daniels Valley this summer, after last year doing a first ascent on one of North America’s largest walls.

This year, Travis Foster (whose mom Maureen lives here) and Drew Leiterman tackled a new 1,020-metre vertical route on the northeast face of a wall dubbed Super Unknown. They were on the wall from August 7 to 13.

It was their second attempt on the wall. In July, they ran into storms and dwindling food supplies when they were two-thirds of the way up the wall and had to rappel down.

Last summer, they climbed a 1,500-metre near-vertical wall they dubbed “Red Alert Wall,” and vaulted the Daniels Valley into rock climbing fame.

To get to the Daniels Valley, climbers have to travel up Powell Lake, then travel 13 kilometres on logging roads before hiking another 10 kilometres to where they make base camp. That requires multiple trips for food and camping gear, plus the equipment for multi-day climbs.

The new route on Super Unknown was named the “Vercoe-McMahon Memorial Route” after friends who attempted to climb the route with them earlier this spring but didn’t make it due to poor weather.

There are lots of first ascents left to be done in the Daniels Valley, says Drew.

On one wall “there’s close to 450m of dead vertical, in your face climbing with endless potential for free climbing if you want to put in the time to clean out the cracks.”

For more photos from the climb, follow @drewmagoo66 on Instagram.