St Alban, dry tooling in Québec, Canada

Located about 80km from Québec, St Alban was established many years ago by the highly motivated local climbers Guy Tremblay, Benoît Dubois and many other hardcore climbers such as Ben Marion and crew. This crag hosts many grottos and was already well-known by speleologists who used it to practice their ascent and rappel techniques. When climbers discovered the area's potential they started bolting the lines to create what would soon become some of the hardest dry tooling routes in Quebec, possibly even along the entire east coast.

The face is about 20m high and extremely overhanging, more than 7m on certain climbs... with quality routes such as Guignolée M5+, Syndicat de Boutique M6+, Don d'orgasme M8+, Hystérie M9-, Petit Victor M10 and Histoire de cœur M10, St Alban is an excellent training ground for the higher mountains. Interestingly, in summer it is a popular sport climbing crag and since dry tooling came first and winter is long here in Canada, these two activities co-exist peacefully. Something that isn't the case everywhere!

For a topo to climbing at St Alban check out alpha.drtopo.com

by Jean-François Girard