WCN Leavenworth September 11-13

This was supposed to be the second annual WCN Leavenworth trip I’ve organized. This year it turned out to be only 4 people, so we rattled around a bit in the group campground.

Laura and I got to the Icicle Friday afternoon, after stopping at Leavenworth Mountain Sports in town to pick up a guidebook (note: if you ever misplace your guidebook (or two of your guidebooks), you can borrow the shop copies for $2 a day). We decided to take advantage of the lack of weekend crowds to get on the moderate, multi-pitch, multi-starred Givler’s Crack. It is as delightful as it looks, even with the awkward semi-hanging belay I managed to get in there.

There are quite a few moderate multipitch routes in the area, so when we were done we went looking for another one. As usual for the Leavenworth book, finding stuff is not quite as obvious as the nice black and white line drawings (it would be overstating things to call them maps) make it seem. We ended up finding Fit and Trim. It’s very different from Givler’s — it’s all friction slab with knobs — but also a lot of fun. The start seems a little height dependent, but Laura figured out some sort of flying leap to an undercling. From there it was mostly knobs to the top.

The sun was setting as we got to said top, so we got to descend in twilight. We got back to our gear while it was still plenty of light, but soon we were looking for gray cairns on gray dirt with rapidly darkening gray light and one headlamp. The only way out is down, and all ways down lead to the road, so we couldn’t have actually gotten lost, but we lost the trail, found another, got cliffed out, followed a clump of trees, found another trail, and finally found ourselves pushing our way through a grove of white barked aspens and ended up on the road 20 yards from the car.

• Givler’s Crack, 5.7+ (I led p1 and p2, Laura led p2.5) I think p2 is leadable in one 70m rope length, but the crack eats gear and I only have a single rack so I got to practice building a 3 piece equalized gear anchor without a cordelette.
• Fit and Trim, 5.8 (Laura led p1, I led p2) Fun route, exciting start.

Saturday was the big day in the shade at Pearly Gates. Pearly Gates is one of the rare shady crags at Leavenworth — in both Tumwater and Icicle Creek canyons, most of the walls are on the north side, which means they’re south facing. The packed Snow Lakes trailhead parking lot is not immediately a bad sign, since it’s mostly used by backpackers and day hikers getting in to the Enchantments, but we did see quite a few people unloading rope bags and trad gear. However, once we did the always-more-exciting-than-I-remember stream crossing, we didn’t see anyone else on the trail, and when we got to the always-farther-away-than-I-remember wall, we found it empty, except for a group of shaggy free soloists.

Goat watching us climb

Laura and I were still the only ones there, so we started out taking turns leading/cleaning the moderate cracks on the left side. It was really nice to climb with someone with about the same skill level and objectives, especially at Pearly Gates which is a 5.8-10 paradise. Soon, Clare and Michelle showed up (accompanied by a couple more goats). Right around when the afternoon sun went around the ridge and started baking the granite, we ended the day on the right side. Clare and Michelle did the full Dog Ate My Topo (including Clare’s first real lead fall), and Laura and I did p1 of Milky Way — all four of us and a baby goat met at the shared belay ledge.

• Pearly Gates, Cell Phone Posse, 5.7 (lead) short, just ok, but you can TR and/or take a look at Celestial Groove from it
• Pearly Gates, No Room For Squares, 5.8 (follow)
• Pearly Gates, Celestial Groove, 5.9+ (lead) took a few tries to get the first few moves without some aid falling
• Pearly Gates, Milky Way, 5.10- (lead p1) easy but exposed traverse along the lip, then some real friction slab

It was still only 4 of us in the campground, but we had the usual (over-)abundant WCN potluck dinner.

Sunday was just as hot as Saturday. Conveniently, the only shady north facing crags, Snow Creek and Pearly Gates, are also some of the longest hikes, so we thought we’d give some of the sunny south facing stuff close to the road a try. Also I wanted a rematch with Dogleg. We said goodbye to Laura, who had to get back to Seattle early, rearranged gear into Clare’s little car, and headed to Dogleg. Breakfast and rearranging had taken some time, so by the time we got to Alphabet Rock, the only shade to be had was behind small rocks and scraggly bushes at the base. I deposited my pack there and started racking up so I could get it done before the rubber on my shoes started to melt.

Dogleg Crack

Fortunately it is not a terribly long route, and I managed to beat the heat and finish the climb. The heat did catch up to us while we were TR’ing Dogleg and the face climb variation next to it. I had to sit down to belay because the ground got too hot to stand on with bare feet, and I actually dropped one of my cams while putting it in my pack because it was too hot to touch. Climbing more that day, at least in the sun, was pretty much out of the question.

The only upside of 100 degree weather in Leavenworth is that you can actually swim in the Icicle River (as opposed to putting one toe in and going “Eeeee, cold!”). Conveniently, one of the nicest sandy swimming holes on the Icicle is right across the road from Alphabet Rock, so we traded harnesses for bikinis and spent a pleasant half hour or so swimming (or rather mermaid Michelle was swimming and Clare and I were more like wading and sunbathing on rocks).

• Alphabet Rock, Dogleg Crack, 5.8+
• Alphabet Rock, bolted route next to Dogleg, 5.10