Tieton, August 6-8

Julia, Dakota (her new puppy), and I had been planning a long weekend at Squamish for a few weeks. When the weekend got closer the forecast for Squamish included this lovely icon: so after some indecision we reluctantly redirected our attentions to Tieton. I shouldn’t be so reluctant though — the climbing is so varied and I’ve loved almost every route I’ve done there (excluding the ones with stinging insects), the views are great, and there are so many places I haven’t explored.

The temperatures climbed into the 90’s as we descended from Snoqualmie Pass (2 hour delay, vehicle fire) Friday morning to the hot, dry side of the Cascades. As we passed the fruit stands and convenience stores of Naches and Tieton I started scanning the guidebook for somewhere cool. 5000 feet up and with promised 2PM shade, South Fork fit the bill. Julia’s truck made the zigzag up logging roads a lot more comfortable (if not in a high clearance vehicle, it’s mostly fine, just bumpy, but be careful dodging the washout low down, and consider parking at “turn left at the last fork” instead of driving the last 0.7 mi).

One unique feature of South Fork is that one of the walls there is composed of tiled hexagons. If you think of the usual vertically arranged hexagonal columns at Vantage, Tieton’s Royal Columns, or even Devil’s Tower, these are sideways and you climb on the column “tops”!

Hexagons!

I’ve eyed the hexagon walls in the guidebook for a while but have never made it to one (the other one is mostly 5.12s, so this is probably the more realistic one). We did two easy routes on the hexagons (there are also several more listed as “Project” that we didn’t try), but I was most impressed by the neighboring Astral Wall. It’s blocky, steep, surprisingly clean, and the 10a and 10b we did (the easiest routes on the wall) were really fun. It continues with an 11 and some intriguing overhanging projects with fixed draws (this forum post seems to have the most up to date information on new routes). We didn’t have time for me to fall my way up a 200 foot long 5.11 so I’ll have to leave those for next trip…

Astral Wall

• South Fork, Hexagonal Satellites, Hexavalent, 5.7 sport (lead) low angle, mossy, the climbing isn’t so amazing, but it’s cool looking rock
• South Fork, Hexagonal Satellites, Hexagonal Crack, 5.8 trad (lead) same as above, but trad
• South Fork, Astral Wall, West Arete, 5.10a sport (lead) long moderate overhanging sport route
• South Fork, Astral Wall, Thanks Andy, 5.10b sport (lead) similar to and not much harder than West Arete, maybe a bit more sustained

Saturday morning was cool and cloudy at our campsite on top of Lava Point, so when I failed to locate the “obvious rock cairn atop a stump” leading to Dream Wall in a timely manner, we went down to the Bend to enjoy some columns. We started on the left, with Julia leading a nice crack. Next I made a mockery of a slabby bolted route (clipped two bolts on it, decided I was not up for this slab stuff, went around back and climbed a dirty crack instead). I decided to stick to crack climbs for the rest of the day. The only other misadventure was throwing the rope into the wind and getting it stuck in a broken pillar about 6 routes over, necessitating 1 rap to an anchor halfway down, a tension traverse to another anchor 2 columns over, and finally a rap to the stuck rope (lesson for the day: no knots at the end of the rope when rappelling a half-rope-length route). The whole operation was definitely tedious. We were both at the top and had plenty of gear and plenty of cracks to put it in, so we weren’t that worried, but Dakota was — fortunately she was anchored in or she would have came up after us.

Cracks and more cracks at The Bend

Despite all the shenanigans we got quite a few good crack climbs in on lead and TR. The clouds made for nice temperatures all day, dramatic views across the valley, and even held off on precipitating until almost sunset.

• The Bend, People, Places, and Things, 5.8 trad (TR) led by Julia
• The Bend, Cherry Bomb, 5.10a sport (TR) tagging it TR even though I “led” it. Led it by corkscrewing around the whole column on easy cracks because it was too slabby for me. On TR it was fine, but it would have had some moments on lead…
• The Bend, Dancing Bear, 5.10b trad (lead) climb was fine, rap anchor is a little annoying to get to, descent was a little epic
• The Bend, Heartbreak of Psoriasis, 5.10c trad (TR) similar to above
• The Bend, Hallowed Ground, 5.9 trad (lead)
• The Bend, Reckoning, 5.10b trad (TR) may have been the best route of the day… should have led Pure Joy, a 10c that shares the same start, but it started raining

Sunday started out cool again, and we both had routes we wanted to get on at Royal Columns (Inca Road for Julia and Orange Sunshine for me), so we went to try our luck there. It turned out to be clear and sunny, so the conditions weren’t as great as Saturday, but we got there early enough that the wall was still shading itself. We got on Inca Road right away, then Little Known Wonder.

By the time we were done with this, Orange Sunshine had been baking in the direct sun and was hot to the touch. There was still a short window to find shade in cracks shaded by neighboring columns, but the sun was coming around fast so I had to pick one quick. We set up (including moving the puppy anchor to a nice shady cave) and I got on Jam Exam, a straightforward 5.9, which I kind of rushed through because I could feel the sun creeping up. It actually felt good to stop at each rest just long enough to place gear and not completely think through the whole route. I watched the sliver of shade disappear as Julia cleaned it, and by the time she was done the brick oven was in effect. We could have driven to a shaded area, but we bailed on that in favor of getting home at a reasonable hour and picking up some peaches on the way back.

• Royal Columns, Inca Road, 5.9 trad (lead)
• Royal Columns, Little Known Wonder, 5.7 trad (TR)
• Royal Columns, Jam Exam, 5.9 trad (lead) racing the sun

Dakota likes Miuras too

I always have fun climbing with Julia, especially since we share some favorite crack sizes. And, puppy!

One other highlight of the trip was sleeping in my new hammock. Though since it was not a fancy camping hammock with a rainfly my stuff got half wet while we were racing back in the rain on Saturday night. So I turned my pillow over and my sleeping bag inside out and joined Julia and Dakota in their tent (where Dakota thought it would be fun to chew on my hair).

Looking back on the trip, everything was very enjoyable, but I feel like I missed a few opportunities to do more challenging routes, even though I was trying mid 10’s (which I think of as my limit). I should probably be working on leading faster though, since there were a few fun routes that I did on TR instead of leading to save time. I secretly enjoyed getting the rope stuck and unstuck (not enough to do it on purpose of course!). I did discover two new favorite areas: South Fork which was brand new to me, and The Bend, where I’ve been once before (but never got to lead anything).

[all photos]