Tieton Climbing, August 9-10, 2008

It was forecast to be another rainy weekend in town and in the mountains, so we decided to run for the sun. Ritchie had a brand new guidebook for Tieton, filled with juicy looking unfamiliar routes, and I’d only been there once last fall. There were so many good looking options in the book that we decided not to decide where to go until we got there.

Saturday we got up early to a pale sunrise and the sound of rain, ideal weather to be leaving the hungover city and heading south on 5. We took the meandering many-numbered route through Enumclaw (attempts to find a breakfast spot in the Main Street-ish area failed miserably, but the Starbucks next to QFC was hopping) around the east side of Mt Rainier. Sure enough at Cayuse Pass the rain turned into a thick fog, and at White Pass the skies opened up to reveal the reliable Eastern Washington sun. Tieton is only 130-ish miles away, but it took us about five hours to get to Royal Columns including coffee in Enumclaw, a side trip down the Sunrise road, breakfast at Trout Lodge (thought it was only ok, but probably the best option between White Pass and Yakima).

Royal Columns is like Sunshine Wall at Vantage, but with a lot fewer people and more easy gear routes. The anchor situation is a little less obvious than at Vantage — lots of routes share anchors so some are in odd places, some have a pair of bolts to set up an anchor but nothing to rap off of, etc. It didn’t seem like we were there very long, but we did quite a few routes and were there almost until dark.
 

• Royal Columns, Entrance Exam 5.7 (TR) the “fun chimney” was kind of silly, slightly less ridiculous than the one on Prusik, nobody got stuck or wrapped the rope around a chockstone
• Royal Columns, Stress Management 5.10a (TR) set up toprope from Entrance Exam
• Royal Columns, Rough Boys 5.5 (lead) had a moment when I thought I would run out of 1.5-2in cams, so I stood on a pillar and built an anchor with smaller gear in the crack next to it, lowered down and grabbed some more stuff
• Royal Columns, Dancing Madly Backwards 5.11a (TR) from Rough Boys/Western Front anchor, fun thin slabby section and then a frustrating roof
• Royal Columns, Mush Maker 5.7 (lead) longest and highest grade gear lead I’ve finished before, near the top I had only weird sized cams left and I was tired of standing on my feet wedged in cracks so I was happy to get to the 15 ft unprotected easy slab
• Royal Columns, Cross-eyed and Painless 5.9 (TR) Ritchie lead, this was supposed to be the last route of the day but on the way out Ritchie noticed that we left gear on Dancing Madly Backwards, so he had to climb Western Front to go get it)

We drove into Yakima (more than 20 miles so a little out of the way, but there’s not much else for food in the area after 9 PM) for Mexican food at Villasenor’s. I had some pretty good nopalitos, huevos, y chorizo (more than enough for dinner and breakfast). By the time we were done with dinner it was dark and we didn’t want to mess around with campgrounds, so we just parked by the side of the road and pitched the tent on a grassy spot by the Tieton River (it was a fine place to spend the night, but next time’s “secret” camping spot is going to be near Lava Point).

The next day we headed towards Lava Point (after browsing some roadside blackberries and finishing off our leftovers for breakfast). It’s really easy to get to, so it was surprising to not see anyone there (until someone else drove in right as we were leaving). Lava Wall and Dream Wall below it mostly sport routes on colorful and varied rock in the 9 to 11s (including lots of 3 and 4 star stuff in the 10c to 11a range), so pretty ideal for us. We didn’t spend much time there, so we’ve got plenty more for next time (maybe in the fall, before it snows).

• Lava Point, Screamin’ For Rope 5.9 (lead) a few awkward moves off the ground and then gets way easier
• Lava Point, B Weir the dead 5.10a (lead) fun route: stressful first clip, then some ledges to mantle on to with some gas pockets and thin cracks for assistance, ending up with an easy roof. took a look at the 11a next to it on the lower down, that one looks kind of impossible