Nicolette Hoogstra is helping build the Fraser Valley’s climbing scene 

A sneak peak at a new crag and why you should come bouldering at Squatch on the Rocks this June

Written by Cam Fenton. Photos by Becca Manners.

Nicolette Hoogstra didn’t expect to end up in the Fraser Valley when she packed up her car and started driving west.

“Chilliwack was not the intention,” she said. “We fully intended to come out here with no jobs, sleep in the Subaru for a few months, and hang out in Squamish or Skaha”. 

But then her partner, Shawn Hoogstra, got offered a job in Agassiz. It was a chance to leave Ontario and move west. They looked at a map and decided to make Chilliwack their home base.

“I had no idea coming into Chilliwack what it even looked like,” Nicolette, who also works as the assistant manager of Mount Waddington Outdoors in Chilliwack explained. “We’d spent like three hours here, maybe.”

Shawn immediately went into research mode. He dug up PDF guides to local climbing areas and, when the first edition of the Fraser Valley Climbing Guide was published, ordered a copy. She remembers him telling her that there was at least some local climbing and that they were “only two hours driving to Squamish, which is what we were doing to go to subpar climbs in Ontario”. 

Nicolette had discovered climbing a few years earlier at a gym in London, Ontario. Before long, she was working there, eventually becoming a route setter. It’s also where she met a crew of climbers to start heading outside with.

“A couple of folks that I worked with were keen to get outside and were knowledgeable enough that they felt comfortable taking people,” she said. “So five or six of us piled into one SUV [and headed] to Mount Nemo”. 

That’s also around the same time she met and started climbing with Shawn. 

“It was a slow build-up of trying to go once a week at first and then driving an hour, or driving an hour and a half four times a week to go climb outside for four hours, and then go back to work in the afternoon,” she explained. 

Most of that climbing was single-pitch sport routes on the limestone crags littered around southern Ontario. 

“Bruce Peninsula has really good climbing, Lions Head is fantastic, and it's beautiful, but it's mostly try-hard single pitch,” she said. “I don't think I did a single multi-pitch in Ontario.” 

When she and Shawn arrived in Chilliwack, they started looking for hard sport climbing areas. First on the agenda was Slesse Creek. 

“Yeah, it kind of sucked,” Nicolette admitted. “The climbs weren't bad, but it seemed like nobody had climbed there lately, so everything was really sandy, and my feet kept slipping off. I thought, ‘I hope it gets better than this.” 

And it did. Not long after that first outing, they hiked a bit further into the Reggae Wall, a section of the Slesse Crag littered with 5.10 and harder sport routes that Mountain Project describes as “steep, tall, overhanging limestone wall with amazing rock quality. Excellent climbing.”

“It was super rad, taller, a little bit more stylistically what I like,” Nicolette explained. 

It didn’t take long for Nicolette to start getting more involved in the local climbing community. She was working at Land Cafe at the time and was starting to miss route setting. Project Climbing had opened up its Chilliwack location a few years earlier, and she was climbing there regularly. She went over to talk to the owner, Brock, to see if he was looking for any new route setters. 

“I guess he and Nick, who was the head setter at the time, started scheming to get me to be Nick's replacement to be the head setter,” she said. “So that was my first step back into setting, and then head setting.” 

Nicolette says that’s also around the time that Shawn learned about the Fraser Valley Climbing Society and brought her out to an annual general meeting. 

“That was my first foot in the door, being part of anything bigger than just going to a crag and climbing myself,” she said. “It was interesting to see just how small the climbing community was. People were passionate about it, but there just was not a ton of growth happening, so it was a little bit of a push to go find something to help grow the community.” 

That sparked an idea. She and Shawn started searching for a place where they could develop a new crag. One that would, ideally, be the kind of hard sport climbing they both loved. 

“Shawn started looking at Google Earth for areas that had potential to have drastic elevation changes,” she said. “Then he started going out and bushwhacking…when he would find something, he would drag me out there. He's the one who found all the potential areas…I’m glad he did, because, yeah, honestly, I'm really psyched with what he found.”

Nicolette describes the crag as a series of cliffs in a canyon that “screams Jurassic Park”. 

“One side of this canyon is overhung, probably a 10-degree overhang on average, and then the other side is slabbed out,” she explained. “Look at one side, and it's moss and trees, and it's beautifully green. Look at the other side, and it's just this 50-meter slightly overhung wall that just keeps going. You just look up the mountain, and it is just so beautiful, full of evergreens and mist.” 

They’ve been developing the crag on evenings, weekends and days off for three seasons. And while it’s not quite ready to share with the public, they hope to start making beta available later this year. 

In the meantime, both Nicolette and Shawn are staying involved with the Fraser Valley Climbing Society, helping to organize the upcoming Squatch on the Rocks Bouldering Festival on June 13. Sponsored by Hope Cascades & Canyons, a local tourism authority, the event aims to bring together local climbers and draw people from other parts of the province. 

“You hear a lot of people in the gym saying they want to go outside, but they don't know where to go, or they don't want to buy bouldering pads,” Nicolette said. “They're just not sure how to start.” 

This event wants to change that by having ample crash pads available and local climbers who know the area, a bouldering zone called The Stacks, there to offer direction and support. 

“It's just a day where you're going out to boulder and have somebody who's familiar with the area tell you what that route is,” she said. “We’ll have those spotters that you wouldn't necessarily have if you go out with one friend who's never bouldered before. It's just that community piece, kind of that big brother or sister holding your hand and bringing you to the crag.” 

Details about Squatch on the Rocks can be found here on the Fraser Valley Climbing Society website. Organizers are asking attendees to fill out this form. There’s also a film night happening after the bouldering at the Hope Cinema, with tickets available here. As always, our staff - including Nicolette - are available to answer any of your climbing questions, whether they’re about gear, guidebooks or just where to go.