North Bend Weekend

We spent this past weekend up in Seattle it was a lot of fun and we made the most of our proximity to North Bend by getting out to Exit 38 on Friday and Exit 32 (Little Si) on Monday. On Friday we went back to Interstate Park on the Far Side since there was still a lot there we wanted to do. Micah met us out there and we got quite a few routes done, despite spending half the day getting lost trying to find Winter Block. We did check out some of the smaller crags like Off-Ramp and Squishy Bell, which were surprisingly fun. In total I think I led 9 new routes from 5.8 to 10c so it was a pretty good day.

Micah trying hard on the 5.8 at Squishy Bell

On Monday Laura and I met Micah again this time at Little Si. There were hoards of people on the trail to Little Si since it was Memorial Day, but luckily for us the crag wasn't too busy. I was surprised to see a Ryan a friend from Portland out there, he kept telling us how lucky we are to have such a great crag close by, so I think he liked it. I got in quite a few routes including some I haven't done in a while like Voodoo Guru (not as good as I remembered) and Megatherion and End of the World (better than I remembered). I got on Slug Lover a 12c I'd never tried before. There was a bail biner at the 4th (?) clip so I figured even if I couldn't complete it I wouldn't have to leave a biner. I got past the bail biner with ease since the start is surprisingly easy, only to get shut down on a very bouldery section a couple of bolts up. It didn't look too hard after that though, so I'll probably get back on it sometime soon and hopefully work out some kind of sequence for the crux. We left around 6ish, after getting in 7 long pitches of 11b and up, I was feeling pretty worked, but it can only improve my route fitness for later in the summer when I start work on some of my 5.12 and 13 projects here.