Leavenworth May 9-10 2009

We have a routine for a Leavenworth weekend trip: drive, climb, beer and sausage at Munchen Haus, gelato at Viadolce, car camp, breakfast at Renaissance Cafe, climb, Munchen Haus, gelato, drive.  So this was just another Leavenworth weekend.  But of course, we go for the endless permutations of granite.

We started at the Clem’s Holler area.  It’s a nice piece of rock with a good spread of mostly slabby routes with some interesting flakes, cracks, and roofs thrown in.  Wenatchee Outdoors has a detailed post about the area.  The first time I went there last year, we got on the wrong trail and bushwhacked around before randomly stumbling on the real trail. I marked up the map in my guidebook to avoid doing this in the future.

Trail is between deer sign and seatbelt sign.

We ran in to two other groups containing people I knew from Seattle there.  I think I run in to more people I know in Leavenworth than in Capitol Hill.

• Clem’s Holler, Nettlesome, 5.9 sport, lead: A little thin slab, a little slightly overhanging sidepull swinging.  I lead it 3 times without falling last year so it was disappointing to not be able to do it clean this time.  My climbing partners fell and complained about it to make me feel better
• Clem’s Holler, Honky’s Lament (1st pitch), 5.8 trad, lead: (Clem’s Holler) Fun and easy for a Leavenworth 5.8 (see also Classic Crack, Dogleg Crack, Canary…)
• Special Spot, Cracked and Peeled, 5.9 trad, followed: Surprisingly slabby for a trad route.  Sketchy lead it and didn’t like it much.  Looking at the guidebook again, I think he might not have liked it because he went past the first anchor, which meant he was on the 5.10a Special Olympics.  Which would also explain why we couldn’t rap to the ground from the anchors with a 70m rope even though Cracked and Peeled is only supposed to be 90 feet long.
• Retardant Rock, Seven Seas, 5.7 trad, lead: I wanted to get one more lead in before dark, but nothing too exciting.  This fit the bill perfectly, except for a slightly annoying wet slimy spot right before the crucial hand jam.

Sunday, we got up earlyish for breakfast in town, and an attempt at beating the rush to Castle Rock.  When we got there at about 8 AM, we saw two other cars in the lot, but as we were reorganizing gear and getting our packs on, two other cars and a van showed up and started disgorging climbers and gear.  Time to hit the trail… When we got there, Canary, the climb that Sketchy wanted to do, was open, but Denny and Carlos had to wait in line for Midway.  This is the second time I’ve been here and the second time someone next to me on the Sabre ledge has dropped a belay device (sorry for not catching it).  Sketchy and I had time to chat with a pair of bird watchers (peregrine falcons are nesting on Midnight/Noontime Rock, which is another long hike past Castle), walk back down to the base, play with a dog, and walk back while Carlos and Denny were waiting and climbing.  The Castle is not a great place for getting a lot of pitches in, but you can’t beat the view.

Denny and Carlos topping out Midway

There was plenty of time for more climbing, so we headed down the Icicle to X-Y Cracks.  The two easier X and Y shaped cracks here are a great place for beginner leading since the climbs are short and easy and the gear is obvious.  Carlos got in a mock lead on a 5.5 while I tried the partially bolted 5.10 next to it.  If the cracks are called X and Y I call the 5.10 WTF (as in WTF am I supposed to step on? or WTF, this crack is no good!).  I have a (possibly falsified) memory of doing it last year, even remembering placing a small cam in a horizontal crack, but I could get nowhere this time.  Soon it started to rain, giving me an excuse to give up on it and call a retreat to the Munchen Haus.

• Upper Castle, Canary (1st pitch), 5.8 trad, followed: Sketchy lead the first pitch of Canary. Very fun to follow, lots of interesting moves.  The pro is not the best, it seems that the pieces that protect the crux moves have to be placed right where you might step on them.  It gets an R rating in Weekend Rock (but no skull in the Leavenworth book).
• Upper Castle, Sabre (2nd pitch), 5.easy trad, lead: When it was my turn I didn’t want to try the “Scary Canary” step-across move, so I went up the second pitch of Sabre instead.  I would say it has two or three mid fifth moves in a wandering 5.0 gully.  Managed to avoid rope drag by running it out in the 4th class/5.0 sections.

Balsamroot Sunset