Summer Has Arrived!

I got out to The Quarry (aka, Hercules #2 Quarry in Tenino) yesterday for the first dry Wednesday evening session at the Quarry this year. It can only mean one thing: Summer Has Arrived! It is a later start to the Quarry season than normal because of persistent rain, and bad timing. But last night was prime Quarry conditions, all the routes on the right hand side were completely dry, the wet streaks by The Bolted Flake and Dead Low Tide are still soaking, but apart from that everything else was pretty much dry and the friction was good. It had been a while since my last visit to the quarry, about 16 months, since last year we spent pretty much the whole summer on our Europe Trip. But it was great to be back with all the regulars there; Ed, Duke, Jimmy, Lisa, Doug and Off stopped by. There was even one newbie, Sierra who got in a few routes at the end of the night, for her first visit, I think she was impressed.

Duke belays while Ed gets spat off of Virgins (11b)

For those of you who don't know, The Quarry is Olympia's best and only local crag, a mere 25 minutes drive from downtown, there's about 30 or so bolted routes between 5.9 - 12c, most are hard 10's and 11's. The crag is on private property, but luckily for us its owned by a fellow climber Off White who invites local climbers to come climb every Wednesday and other times by appointment. If you want to climb there you'll have to contact Off and sign a waiver first. The routes there are a ton of fun, but require a lot of technique and mental strength, (aka they're sandbagged) so don't expect to climb your hardest on your first visits.

Jimmy working his project Legends (12c), he's going for the lead next week

Last night I got a lot of routes done, 10 pitches in just a few hours by my count. I mostly climbed with Doug, it was great to reconnect with him. Doug first introduced me to the Quarry when I first arrived here in 06 and took me and Laura out to a lot of the crags in the area. I haven't managed to get out with him much recently, but hopefully that'll change this summer. We got on all the crag classics like Hercules, The Governor, Calvin and Hobbes, and The Manly Wham. I did one new route that I hadn't led before; Rubber Boa which goes at 11c. It was crimpy, smeary, balancy and pumpy all at the same time, so pretty much like every other route here. Jimmy sprayed me down with move by move beta which made it a whole lot easier. All in all it was a great night to be back at the Quarry, the weather is looking good this week, so hopefully next Wednesday we'll all be back again.