Sun, Scenery and Slopers

Since Laura and I have been back in Seattle we've had a busy schedule looking for a place in Olympia etc. So we were very excited when Micah suggested a 4 day trip to Leavenworth. We headed out in Micah's new Forester, with a triple pad strapped to the roof and 2 more inside plus all our camping gear it was still very spacious and comfortable. It was a welcome change from trying to squeeze all our stuff in our accord. 3 hours after leaving Seattle we were pulling into Icicle canyon, I had forgotten how beautiful this part of the state was, I can't think of a better place to go climbing. First thing we did was to claim ourselves a campsite at eightmile campground, we knew on the Thursday before Labour Day weekend they would go pretty fast. And the last two times we camped in Icicle we ended up having to share with RVers, not because we turned up late, but because they decided since we were just 'tent camping' there would be plenty of room to share.

With that taken care of we headed to the Forestland boulders where we all had some unfinished business to take care of. I got shut down on The Shield (V7), but Micah showed how his training had paid off with quick sends of Backdoor Ass Attack (V7), and The Drill Sergeant (V8), and Laura also showed her improvement with a fine send of Lovage an excellent V3 that had spat her off in the past. We returned that night to an empty campsite (score!), Laura proceeded to cook us up some fine burritos, Micah provided the beer and I started a campfire to be proud of. There's nothing quite like sitting around a good fire, beer in hand talking climbing. Usually around the fifth beer comes the sweeping generalisations, like Micah claiming that Washington State has the best bouldering in the whole US (despite him only having bouldered at one other place in the US - Bishop). We awoke the next morning a bit later than planned, but hey were on holiday. We switched on the radio to hear McCain introduce a woman as his VP running mate, was I still dreaming? I guess not, but with that in mind we headed to the boulders thinking maybe anything was possible, but grades don't lie and having not trained in months I was finding everything pretty hard. Over the next couple of days we checked out some new areas, The Hueco Crimper, and Machine Gun boulders really good, The Labyrinth boulders not do good. Micah continued his good form with a send of The Cattleguard Arete (V8), and Saturday as dusk approached we returned to The Hueco Crimper (V6) so I could work it some more, and Micah could work the low start that goes at V9. Micah's powerful heel-hook beta wasn't working for me so I figured out a toe-jam and bumped through intermediates to get past the big sloper, it was a very impressive send and one of the coolest boulder problems I've witnessed. With that we headed straight to Gustav's in Leavenworth to celebrate with some fine eating and some local ales (they didn't have PBR).

On Sunday our final day we were all feeling a bit sore and our skin was raw, but nevertheless we headed to Mad Meadows where we met up with Jimmy who had made the day trip out here from Olympia. He was obviously climbing very strong and psyched as he made an impressive flash of The Jib (V8), a one-mover above a terrible landing. I managed to find a problem that didn't hurt my fingers, it just hurt my whole hand instead, a hand jamming roof crack called No Pain No Grain (V5). It was actually really fun, a very unique problem, I'm glad I did it. And Micah finished up Crimpsqueek (V7) and WAS (V8) to cap off a great trip for him. He's done 15 problems V8 and harder in the last 6 months which is an amazing feat. I managed one more V5 The Footless Traverse at Swiftwater before we grabbed some cheeseburgers at The Hiedelburger and said goodbye to Leavenworth. It was another great trip, we all had a blast, I'd be surprised if its our last time here before the end of the year.

For photos check out Micahs blog.