WCN at Neat and Cool

Friday was a the short and wet day (I like to allow 3 days for a Squamish weekend, since during the ‘dry’ season (July through September) it rains an average of 30% of the time). Most of us went for the ever popular rainy day activity of hiking the Chief trail, but this time a few of us switched it up and went to go poke Cobra Crack (yes, it looks hard, and is steep enough that we could have a picnic in the dry spot under it) instead of going to the top. The rain did stop and we did some roadside cragging at Burgers and Fries. The quick-drying rock at Squish almost makes up for the rain.

• Burgers and Fries, Movin on Over, 5.9 trad (lead)
• Burgers and Fries, Wise Crack, 5.7 trad (TR)
• Burgers and Fries, Burgers and Fries, 5.7 trad (lead) I had a little slab problem at the end of this (standing there forever, making a move, downclimbing, standing there forever some more, etc…)
• Burgers and Fries, Peaches and Cream, 5.10b trad (TR)

The weather forecast was not amazing for Saturday, but we got in a full day of cragging at Neat and Cool. There were a few guided groups, including one guide herding 20 kids (it may have been more like 6 but they were running around and looked bigger) but we were mostly going for different routes (and one large group was just sitting there looking at gear placements), so hopefully we didn’t get in each other’s way. I guess the weather was too “bad” for everyone else.

• Neat and Cool, Corner Crack, 5.7 trad (lead)
• Neat and Cool, Flying Circus, 5.10a trad (lead)
• Neat and Cool, Neat and Cool, 5.10a trad (lead 2x, TR 1x) on first attempt, fell, popped a marginal TCU, fell on the one below it, and crashed into a bush. Much better after McKinley gave me the gear beta (use the good crack not the crappy one). fuuun route
• Neat and Cool, Layback Flake, 5.9R trad (TR)

On the last day, I got to introduce Paulina and Leah to the tree pitches. The tree pitches are two pitches of full on tree, dirt, and root climbing (oh, and the occasional short, wet hand crack) that are currently the standard approach to Baseline Ledge, where the classics Calculus, South Arête, Vector, and St Vitus start. I, personally, like this sort of thing and think it is part of the Squamish experience, but I guess most people (possibly including Leah and Paulina), do not. There is a recently cleaned 5.9 no-trees start so this may fall out of favor soon. Fortunately Leah and Paulina enjoyed the three 5.9 crux pitches (before I introduced them to the “classic” Broadway Ledge descent).

• St Vitus Dance, 5.9 6p (lead)

• We Did Rock, Some Drugs, 5.9 sport (lead)
• We Did Rock, Absolutely Nothing, 5.9 sport (lead)
• We Did Rock, Unnamed, 5.10b sport (lead)I think this is the best route at We Did. I just went and voted it up on MountainProject (I think this is the one listed as Project, 5.10+ in the book? Well, it’s for sure not a project, everyone has done it)
• We Did Rock, Sobriety, 5.9 sport (lead) This thing is getting polished. Reminds me of the slate quarries, except on the slate there would be maybe one bolt on the thing

There's supposed to be a 30m high wall somewhere here...

• walking past the “stump” marking the side trail to Valley View West (wouldn’t they put this “Great Wall TR” sign in the book)
• ending up at the top of VVW instead of the bottom (hey, there’s chains down there)
• not looking behind a tree when looking for the easiest rightmost line on Chainsaw Wall (shouldn’t the holds be bigger on a 5.8 roof?)
• almost walking past the side trail to VVW again (hey, who put this pile of rocks in the middle of the trail? oh, us, a hour ago)

and chickening out on most of the routes at Valley View West (Stairway to Heavin’ turned out to be one of those “you must be this tall to reach the first bolt” routes. Ataxi Crack, the 4 star trad line, was seeping [convenient excuse, it looked hard anyway]), we still got to try the 3 star trad route, Cascadian Crack.

Cascadian Crack

In theory we now know how to get there so we can go back when it’s dry and try more of the routes at VVW.  Ataxi does look prettty…

• Chainsaw Wall, Texas Chainsaw Cheerleaders, 5.10b sport (lead) this is not the rightmost 5.8. The rightmost 5.8 is behind a tree. This route was fun after I stopped expecting it to be easy
• Chainsaw Wall, Stihl Fingers, 5.12a sport (TR) crux is pretty short if you don’t fall off it 6 times like I did
• Chainsaw Wall, Crack One With Me, 5.7 trad (TR) Tony’s lead
• Valley View West, Cascadian Crack, 5.11a trad (lead w/falls) yeah that was worth hauling the rack up 2000 ft at a sport crag!

Despite the number of cars in the parking lot, we strolled up to Godzilla and found it empty. This never happens! Score! Sherri kindly let me have the first lead. It’s been seven long months since I’ve climbed at Index, but it only took less than seven feet of Godzilla to remember why I love it. Ledges, (solid) sharp flakes, splitter cracks, granite friction, finger cracks that swallow nuts, hand traverses, 35 meter topropable routes, climbing above the trees to a great view of the peaks across the river…

Leah took on the direct start to Godzilla with some impressive laybacking when it was her turn to toprope it.

Next up was a new-to-me route. I’d had Breakfast of Champions recommended to me by Jay (a former Washingtonian now living in Michigan who I met in North Wales — small/convoluted world!). It starts a pitch (or two, depending on how you count it) off the ground, so Sherri got us all up there via Roger’s Corner, and let me have the first lead on Breakfast (she’s already done it). It was fun, but I wish it was longer! I wonder if Roger’s Corner can be linked up with Breakfast of Champions for one giant pitch?

As we were rappelling, Sherri’s internet-hookup-new-climbing-partner Diana showed up. So she cruised the first pitch of Roger’s Corner while the rope was still there. And I mean cruised! There’s another 5.10+ route called Sugar Bear that can be toproped from the same anchor so we shifted over there. It took a while to do Roger/Breakfast as a party of three, and I’d taken forever on Sugar Bear (finally pulling out my nut tool to aid past the crux — the other members of our party had no need of such shenanigans) so we only had time for one more route. While Sherri and Diane stayed at Sugar Bear, Leah and I walked down the wall to see if we could find something else to do.

Japanese Gardens and Tatoosh were occupied, “time for one more route” was not enough time to be messing with Sagittarius (a handy excuse…), so the most likely candidate was Thin Fingers. I had no problem with that since it’s one of my favorites (well, one problem, we ended up with the 60m rope instead of the 70). Of course I haven’t figured out the actual 11a crux part (the rest of the route is easy 5.9-.10-) so I’ve always aided past it, including this time, to get to the nice second half pitch. One great thing about Index is that nobody seems to mind such cheating tactics. Astonishingly, Leah, Sherri, and Diana weren’t into trying the second half enough to deal with the complexities of toproping with a slightly short rope (I probably took too long and made it look harder than it is, too).

Index is one of my favorite summer cragging areas, especially since the relatively short drive from Seattle (an hour in my head, about an hour and half in real life including carpooling transitions, sorry I was late..) keeps it in range for a day trip. I only regret that it took me so long to actually go climb there, partly because everyone told me it was soooo hard (one of my pet rants…). It’s glad to be back!

• Lower Town Wall, Godzilla, 5.9 trad (lead) I have done this one before but apparently I have a bad memory and completely forgot the crux so it’s just as fun the second time
• Lower Town Wall, Roger’s Corner, 5.9 trad (follow) cool moves
• Lower Town Wall, Breakfast of Champions, 5.10a trad (lead) so fun, too bad it’s so short
• Lower Town Wall, Sugar Bear, 5.10c/d trad (TR) you may laugh at my sit-on-the-ledge backwards beta, but it works. required one point of aid, a torqued nut tool…
• Lower Town Wall, Thin Fingers, 5.11a trad (lead, the 5.10/A1 way) I have fantasies of getting there and suddenly knowing what to do, but it never quite works out that way.

Dakota vs. the Pink Flamingo

Sunday came up with pretty much perfect weather, clear sky, warm sun, no more wind. Some of the group started the morning at the Feathers. I am kind of on an anti-Feathers kick (especially when there are more people up there than routes), so Julia, Ingrid, and I waited at the campsite and played with Dakota the dog. I repeated my mantra for the weekend, “this is a social trip, not a climbing trip”, threw some desiccated tennis balls and a chewed up foam frisbee for Dakota and ran between the campsite and the Feathers a few times (I am not bugging you to go climbing, I am playing with the dog!). Eventually things organized themselves enough for a leisurely noon start to a leisurely climbing day, and Julia, Ingrid, and I set off over the mesa with Michelle and Clare joining us later. The plan was to walk along the Sunshine Wall until there was something open that we wanted to do. As Julia predicted there was nobody on Steel Grill. Not sure why, maybe there is too much crack climbing for the sport climbers and too many jugs for the crack purists. Sometimes I like things as complicated as possible and this is about as complicated as it gets for 5.9 single pitch cragging. Anyway, this section of Sunshine Wall has a good selection of routes that I like.

Dakota at the Sunshine Wall

It was a fun, relaxed trip. I know it’s the beginning of the season for most people but I have been climbing since January (even though apparently it’s been the coldest spring ever), so I am feeling a little antsy for a less relaxed trip…

• Sunshine Wall, Steel Grill, 5.9 trad (lead) one of my favorites. Maybe my favorite 5.9 anywhere.
• Sunshine Wall, Bob’s Your Uncle, 5.11a trad (lead, TR) I’ve TR’d this several times, I don’t think I’ve led this before. Kind of feels like cheating, it’s a one move wonder and the one move isn’t that hard with small fingers. I still almost messed it up with my typical stalling and placing too much gear.
• Sunshine Wall, Hakuna Matata, 5.10b sport (lead) I have been doing lots of trad over the winter season, need to remember how to sport climb. Expected to fall once or twice because I am not that good at the bolted aretes, but not this time.

Vantage Sky

• Sunshine Wall, Under Duress, 5.8 sport (TR)
• Sunshine Wall, The Manxome Foe, 5.10a sport (lead) oh wait there are two bolted lines going up from this belay?
• Sunshine Wall, Duress, 5.9 sport (lead) oh, I guess this one is the 9
• Sunshine Wall, Crackmaster Lambada, 5.10b trad (lead) new-to-me route for this time
• Sunshine Wall, Chossmaster, 5.7 sport (lead) I can see why they call this thing chossmaster!
• Sunshine Wall, Party in Your Pants, 5.8 trad (TR) there was a stuck #3 Camalot! and I couldn’t get it out, argh! (and then I got the rope stuck and had to walk around to the top to get it, argh some more!)

On Sunday, Tony and Mark wanted to practice some crack climbing to prepare for our trip to Indian Creek this spring, so we did some of the nice long trad routes like Crossing the Threshold, Pony Keg and Air Guitar. I like those routes but they get kind of old. I’ve done (well, attempted) most of the routes at the Sunshine Wall, so an obvious project to make things interesting is to try all of them. Sketchy owns a full set of Big Bros and an old #5 (new #6 sized) camalot — I asked him to bring these along because that’s exactly what I would need for the intriguing four star 10b offwidth Blue Autumn. I’d looked at it last time, but decided not to mess with it since on that trip I only had a single #4 and #5 for big gear. And of course after asking him to haul 10 pounds of aluminum to the crag for me I had to give it a try. I don’t know if I really did any actual offwidth climbing but there was opportunity for plenty of tricky and devious stuff, and I feel a little better about placing Big Bros (though I only placed two, being able to get away with slinging chockstones, placing big cams, and running it out). For some reason nobody wanted to follow after I was done.

Blue Autumn Rack

• Sunshine Wall, Crossing The Threshold, 5.7 trad (lead)
• Sunshine Wall, Pony Keg, 5.9 trad (lead)
• Sunshine Wall, Air Guitar, 5.10a trad (lead)
• Sunshine Wall, Clip ‘em or Skip ‘em, 5.8 sport (lead)
• Sunshine Wall, Peaceful Warrior, 5.6 sport (lead) it is possible that I haven’t done this before, since it’s only a 5.6 and usually there are enough people around who actually want to lead easy stuff. This time there was a bail draw on it (there must be a good story behind that one) so I went up and got it.
• Sunshine Wall, Blue Autumn, 5.10b trad (lead) new-to-me route for the day. It has multiple stars, which I think are deserved, but I think most people are discouraged by the “multiple 6in gear” in the description

On Monday I came back with Lace, Koko, and Erin. The wind was even stronger than the day before (blowing Fugs Falls backwards in a much more dramatic way), so we got to practice some high wind rope management. It was Lace’s birthday so she treated us to some leftover birthday cake (which also tried to blow away).

Koko's Rope Tricks

To continue the doing-routes-I-haven’t-done-yet project, I got on Welcome To Vantage, a typical varied Sunshine Wall crack with the full range of jamming, stemming, and face holds. I attempted another new-to-me-route, Mix It Up. At Vantage it seems most of the 5.11s are 90% 5.9 climbing with one or two crux moves (for example, Bob’s Your Uncle, Weep Holes on a Sill), so when my attempts to actually climb one of the face climbing cruxes failed I resorted to my usual merciless cheating, but only managed to get “stuck” in the adjacent crack, so I downclimbed/fell my way back down to retrieve my draws. Someone else started up it after me, and I was hoping I’d be able to ask for a run on his toprope, but he bailed off the 5th and final bolt (before turning into trad). I guess I’m saving that one for next time, especially if I can find someone interested in working on it with me.

• Sunshine Wall, Party in Your Pants, 5.8 trad (lead)
• Sunshine Wall, Easy Off, 5.10c sport (lead) one of my favorites, I think it’s easy for a 10c, but maybe only because the bolts are in line instead of way off to the side, which makes leading a lot easier since you have more choice of where to clip from
• Sunshine Wall, Welcome To Vantage, 5.10c trad (lead) my new route for the day. perfectly nice climb, only problem with it is that you have to scramble up a chossy pillar to start
• Sunshine Wall, Hakuna Matada, 5.10b sport (lead) I always fall off this one at the same place! and I always forget where!
• Sunshine Wall, Mix It Up, 5.11a sport/trad (bailed) bailed at second bolt. Next time…

Did I mention how sunny it was?

It was dark when Michael and Eileen picked me up from the airport Wednesday night, so other than a few glimpses of pointy vegetation and looming rock formations in headlights, my first real view of Joshua Tree was when I woke up under the pale dawn early Thursday morning. Nobody else had emerged from their tents yet, so I decided to see how far I could get up the rock formation next to our campsites. The rock was sticky and clean under my feet, rough and featured in my hands. I depended on the kindness of the path of least resistance and soon I was at the top looking down at the small tent city surrounding the pile. Beyond that was nothing but rock — domes, buttresses, cracks, slabs — and a network of roads and trails laid out in the scrubby desert between them.

So this is what climbing paradise looks like.

Ryan Campground

When I came back down, the sun had started warming the dusty camp, and new friends and old were emerging from tents, starting up stoves, piling things on the picnic table, yawning, making coffee, eating breakfast, flipping through guidebooks.

No, this is what climbing paradise looks like.

II. The first day

I had come open minded (read, unprepared), so Eileen played tour guide for me and the other early arrivals. When I saw the size of the guidebook(s!) I really appreciated her expertise in choosing areas for the group with enough routes of the appropriate difficulty to keep us all busy. We piled into cars to Hidden Valley, where the domes and walls were crowded together with barely enough sand between to allow easy passage.

Thin Wall

The first stop was Thin Wall, a grid of cracks, with convenient face holds scattered throughout. Not only that, but the rock is incredibly sticky, solid, and clean. I led a couple easy-ish routes and it seemed that the ratings weren’t as sandbagged as some people claimed. The phrase “climbing paradise” comes to mind again.

• Thin Wall, Count on Your Fingers, 5.9 trad (lead) first climb at JTree! This place is just like Pearly Gates!
• Thin Wall, Butterfingers Make Me Horny, 5.8 trad (lead)
• Thin Wall, Child’s Play / Congratulations 5.10c/d (TR) fun moves, trying it with my trad rack on was… unnecessary
• Sail Away, 5.8- trad (lead)
• Cyclops, Spaghetti and Chili, 5.7 trad (lead) for some reason I really like easy runout

III. Headstone

I had correctly pegged David and Bill as troublemakers so the next morning the three of us abandoned breakfast and wandered off to climb Headstone (conveniently within walking distance of the campground). We were without guidebook, but knowing that there was a 5.6 on one corner and a 5.8 on another corner and they were both bolted was beta enough. I got first lead on the 5.8, and made a mockery of the “sport” climb by placing half a set of TCUs in addition to the bolts. I got to enjoy the leader’s prerogative of choosing the line, and instead of beelining to the anchor, followed slightly overhanging jugs along the top edge of the formation as the sun crept up and caught me. We lingered longer than we intended, pulling the ropes and releading. As we were finishing up under another bluebird sky, Peter and Tiffany came to drag us off to Minotaur/Atlantis where the rest of the group was climbing (thanks for not abandoning us!).

• Headstone, Cryptic, 5.8 sport+ (lead) climbing at dawn!
• Headstone, SW Corner, 5.6 sport (lead)
• Minotaur Wall, Fantasy of Light, 5.10a trad (lead) cheater stone is on, right?
• Minotaur Wall, Minotaur, 5.7 trad (lead)
• Minotaur Wall, Wet Pigeon, 5.8 trad (lead) most of my cams seemed to be busy as anchors and directionals, good thing I had Mark’s tricams
• Atlantis Wall, Vorpal Sword, 5.9+ trad (lead) some of these walls are shorter and less steep than they look

IV. My love hate relationship with slab climbing

I have a project at home — actually, project is too strong a word, since instead of climbing it I have every time avoided the short slab crux with some aid to reach the perfect hand crack above — perhaps we should call it an aspiration. Anyway, on said aspiration I was standing there glaring at the crux (to add insult to potential for injury, the crux is a few feet above a ledge) when one of the Index regulars offered some beta, “Have you been to Joshua Tree? It’s a Joshua Tree power slab move.” At that time I had not been to Joshua Tree, and I had no idea what he meant, so I made some sort of attempt at standing on something microscopic, promptly slipped off of it, weighted the toprope, and tripped backwards over the ledge. So my first hazy impression of Joshua Tree slab climbing was that it would involve glaring at crystals and aid climbing.

My first priorities for the day at Echo Cove were Pope’s Crack and Touch and Go, a pair of 5.9 crack climbs that seemed made for me (or the other way around). It would have been easy to spend the whole trip climbing only cracks, but it just so happened that the rappel for Pope’s Crack is draped over British Airways, a 5.11 slab. Well, if you insist, and don’t mind dragging me up to clean the anchor if I can’t actually climb it… I usually prefer leading, so when I do something on toprope sometimes I like to take advantage of the lack of consequences by trying ridiculous things. To my surprise, quite a few of those things worked, I didn’t need (too much) hauling from my belayer and by the end I was actually enjoying myself.

Michael on British Airways

It turned out that the gracious Peter B (thanks for showing me those anchor tricks too) had also led Heart and Sole, a bolted route with a less exalted rating. It was getting late so I would have been holding up the group had I tried to lead it, so I had a good excuse to chicken out and do it on TR. The stickiness of the rock amazed me again, and I somehow got to the top without falling. I may have enjoyed leading it (though judging from the precarious spots I cleaned the draws from, there may have been a lot of sweating and muttering).

• Echo Cove, Touch and Go, 5.9 trad (lead) as aesthetic a line as you would like, with opportunities with some fun trickery
• Echo Cove, Pope’s Crack, 5.9 trad (lead) beautiful crack, but I had more fun on the no-hands slab traverse…
• Echo Cove, British Airways, 5.11 trad (TR) love this sticky rock. I can jam a flare like that? really? I can stem up those barely-there edges? (too bad I can’t actually slab climb and it’s way to runout for me to lead anyway)
• Echo Cove, Heart and Sole, 5.10a trad (TR) I could lead this one, but do I want to..

V. My love hate relationship with bouldering

When I climb, I care too much and I try too hard. When leading trad, I have an excuse. If I don’t get to the top, I lose my gear. If I don’t place gear well, I could hit the ground. If I get myself into something challenging (secretly, fun), I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Sometimes I even get to pretend I’m doing a service by putting up a route that others don’t want to lead. But really, I like caring too much and trying too hard.

With bouldering, there is no pretending. There is no commitment (at least not on a traverse never leaving 5 feet above the ground). There’s really no reason for me to get on the rock, and no reason to not step off at any point. Definitely no reason to get on it again after falling off. So why start? Why keep going? Why do I care? Why do I try? You could really ask these questions about anything I do. Why climb at all? Why go to Joshua Tree? And I know my wouldn’t be able to convince anyone else with any of my rationalizations. But my answer for myself is good enough for me: “same reason I do everything else”.

• Ryan Mountain thanks for inviting me along for another fun early morning, Dave, David, and Bill!
• Gunsmoke, V2 (attempt)

Sunset

Want the other side of the story? Other trip reports from:

• Eileen (@rockgrrl) photos
• Patrick (@patrickgensel) photos
• Teri (@dubid0) photos
• Aleya (@Blueskeyes207) including an awesome video
• Tiffany (@tiffanymroyal)
• Peter (@pwcarey) photos
• Bill (@billurbanski)
• Katie (@katiebeth)
• Michael (@ride395) photos
• David (@archweaver) photos

(if you blogged or posted your photos and I missed you, please let me know in comments or DM, if only so I can keep track of everyone else’s memories too, thanks!)

Soon enough we decided that it was “dry” and that we should “climb”. Nobody wanted to do “dry” slabs and “dry” chimneys or endure a “dry” pine-needle covered approach, so by process of elimination we ended up in the Classic Crack area. We threw a TR on Deception Crack and all did some slipping and sliding off it. The TR-setting party encountered an impassable slippery moss above the anchor for Classic Crack. Whatever, I wanted to lead it anyway, a little moisture doesn’t matter for hand and fist jams, does it? I made it look like so much fun that Mark led it on my gear and everyone else TR’d it.

Tony on Classic Crack

Classic Crack may not be the best route for showing that crack climbing is fun and easy. A better idea was going across the street to X-Y, a set of similar cracks at a much friendlier angle (if you have to rake leaves off it before climbing it can’t be that hard). Tony did his first trad lead here and Mark did a nice lead on the 10a slab climb next to it.

We still had a bit of daylight left after this. Just a bit — but the cool temperatures, fall colors, and the snow line creeping down the peaks across the valley were making the point that this could be the last Leavenworth trip of the year. We couldn’t just leave! The closest crag was J-Y and there would be time for just one more route for each of us. I picked Armed Forces, a nice (IMNSHO) thin crack to a not so nice (IMNSHO) slab, and Mark led Dirtbag Direct, a slab route that turned out to be better than I remembered. Armed Forces already needed a bit of nut-tool action to clean out the crack for gear, but there were two good surprises at the top — the slab wasn’t wet and there were shiny new chains instead of the webbing/rap ring set up that was there last year.

Winter and Autumn

I wasn’t quite ready for the trip (and the entire Leavenworth rock climbing season) to be over, but we had to pack up and hurry down in the fading light. I was glad to have concluded the season with Armed Forces, since I’d done it on TR a few times but had never gotten around to leading it.

• 8-Mile Rock, Deception Crack, 5.9 trad (TR) more difficult when wet
• 8-Mile Rock, Classic Crack, 5.8+ trad (lead) not too much more difficult when wet
• X-Y Cracks, X Crack, 5.7 trad (lead) recon so I could give Tony gear beta for his first trad lead (oops, I told him it was 5.5)
• X-Y Cracks, Unnamed Slab, 5.10a sport (TR) I have problems with slab climbing, good thing Mark does not
• J-Y Crag, Armed Forces Crack, 5.10b trad (lead) new chains at the top, nice surprise
• J-Y Crag, Dirtbag Direct, 5.9 trad (TR) this is the kind of slab I like

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]