We started out the day at Royal Columns, on some relatively easy trad routes. The first few we did were pretty uneventful, but the last climb ruined my day. The climb itself was sort of challenging for me, but that wasn’t the problem. Several of the routes at Royal Columns, including this one, don’t have bolted anchors at the top (incidentally, these are very easy to identify because the guidebook marks anchor bolts when they are there). I only had one cam left, which was not ideal, but I had only placed one hex on the route so I had plenty of options for a gear anchor, and the belay stance was mellow enough that I could sit there as long as I needed to fuss with them. I topped out on one of the pillars and started looking around.

Unfortunately, my belayer didn’t trust me to build an anchor to bring him up. He yelled up to find the chains and belay from there.

Belaying from the chains would have been a terrible idea (which my partner reluctantly admitted to me later). The closest bolted anchor was on a 5.11 face climb to the right and below where I topped out. The intended rap anchor was a few columns over, maybe 30 feet in a straight line, but the easiest obvious way there involved climbing up to the top, wandering around some possibly loose blocks, gravel, and trees, then climbing down. And then once I got there, the rope would be running over the column tops and between cracks. Even if it didn’t get stuck or wrapped around anything, it wouldn’t be easy to pull. So obviously the normal way of getting off this thing was to belay the second up and then scramble over to the rap anchor. I tried to tell my belayer what I was doing, but every time I told him something he just repeated his commands to belay from the chains. After all that yelling, I was certainly doubting and second guessing myself. I looked at the 5.11 downclimb/traverse. I considered pulling the rope up and rappelling from the anchor (leaving all the gear on the route, which would mean that someone would have to lead it again to retrieve it and then do exactly what I was being told not to do). I even thought of letting the rope back down so he would have to lead up to where I was. Fortunately another climber was on the pillar top, noticed that there was an epic going on, and helped me set up a belay anchor with two solid big hexes and the remaining cam.

Now, I could understand why someone would not trust me to build an anchor. I’ve only been leading trad for about a year, and I took several months off climbing completely when I broke my ankle, (which was climbing related, but it was indoor bouldering, so not at all related to rock, or ropes, or gear or anything like that). But you’d think that the time to tell me this would be before we tied in, not when I’m at the top of a pitch and needing to get down.

Needless to say my partner was quite pissed when he got up there, and that was definitely my last climb of the day.

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