28 days dry

Nick warming up on Iguanarama 10a at Amazonia (Exit 38)

I think I heard on the radio that today was the 28th day straight without rain in Olympia. With this kind of weather its hard to not get out climbing, plus Nick is back in town and more psyched than ever to get out climbing. So on Friday the three of us Nick, Laura and I made our way out to Exit 38, we were planning on climbing up at Bob's Area but we got sidetracked at Amazonia and The Actual Cave, so decided to save Bob's Area for another day. Amazonia looked as chossy as I remembered but the routes climb well. We warmed up on Iguanarama a really good 10a, and an 11a then headed up to The Actual Cave. I had never climbed there before, I had always just walked past it on my way to Bob's Area, but now having climbed there I can report back that The Actual Cave is actually AWESOME! The crag classic Giant is one of the best sport routes I've ever done. If you can climb 5.11 and can do 10 pulls-ups you have to get on Giant. It goes at 11c but it essentially climbs one big jug the whole way to the chains. It starts on the right hand side of the cave, you climb up easily to the roof of the cave then you start traversing along a jug rail on the lip of the cave through 5 clips of horizontal jug shuffling, its so much fun. I made it to the chains no problem, so decided to go for the extension Mr. Big 12a, its only one more bolt then the chains, but since there were hanging draws on all the bolts I didn't bring up any more draws and I needed something to clip the chains of Mr Big. So Nick and Laura threw some up to me while I was hanging on to a jug, after a few missed throws I eventually caught a couple and made it to the chains, Mr. Big was really good, not too hard just a little pumpy, but that may be due to the hanging off the jug trying to catch draws. Nick sent Mr. Big right after me as well, he was pleased because he had tried this route a couple of years ago and couldn't do it then.
A couple of photos of Me and Nick on the awesome roof climb Cyanide (12b), so much fun!

After that I decided to give Cyanide a shot since it had hanging draws on it as well. Cyanide is an unlikely looking climb. It climbs straight through the roof with 5 clips of 180 degree climbing, and it gets the fairly amenable grade of 12b, you don't get many climbs like this. On the onsight I found that the holds in the roof were better than I had imagined, I made a few hard moves to get to the third clip, where there was a good looking V-notch, I tried jamming my hand in pinkie first, but it didn't quite sit right, I pulled on it and was off, damn! I reached back up to same hold this time with my hand the other way so I was holding it as a ring lock and it was a jug! I pulled back on and managed the rest of the moves through the roof no problem, Oh man, I was so close to the onsight. I managed to fire it off second go using the right beta, its such a good climb, but it was hard to enjoy it knowing that I should have onsighted it. Nick also managed to send it second go, which he was really proud of since he struggled a lot more with the sequence than I did, probably due to his height. With those two big sends done we were feeling pretty pumped so finished off the day with an easy route at Club Paradiso (not recommended) before heading back down to the car.

Scott on a really nice thin 5.9 slab and crack at the Repo I (Little Si)

The next day I headed out climbing with Scott and Nick. It was good to climb with Scott again, I hadn't seen him since the Smith trip back in March. We headed back to North Bend, with the plan to do both the exits in a day. First stop was the Repo crags at 32 where Nick wanted to lead Mambo Jambo (the route I sketched out on last week) in the same style as I did, skipping the top bolts. I climbed up on top of the crag across it to get some cool photos and a video (which nick will hopefully put online soon) while Nick cruised it. He made it look like a 10b climb which it is instead of how I climbed it, making it look like a 12b.

Nick negotiating the jamming crux of Mambo Jambo (10b trad).

Nick on the top crux of Mambo Jambo, skipping the bolts in favor of gear placements.

Me on the steep wall of PC7 my broken project on WWI at Little Si

We then headed up the hill to WWI where I wanted to get back on PC7 the climb I had come really close on a few days earlier. I had been thinking about it a lot in those few days. I got through the first crux feeling super strong, it didn't feel hard at all, I got to the hard part above the third clip on the headwall, crimp, undercling, crimp with the right then reached up to the crimp that Micah had broken off, wait where is it? There was barely anything there, it was way worse than I thought it was going to be, it was barely possible to hang off it let alone pull way past it, NOOO! I hung there and tried to figure out some other sequence, but switching hands and moving right from the crimp below wasn't an option. I tried the broken crimp again, thinking there must be some other way to hold it, but there wasn't. I was pretty gutted, I was so close to getting this route done, but now its way out of my range. Its probably a 5.13 now, so I'll just have to move onto other projects and come back to this when I'm stronger. I can't really blame Micah, maybe he saved me from pulling off the crimp myself. I was kinda bummed out, and I apologise Nick and Scott if I ruined the vibe of the day. Nick managed to lighten the mood, with his impressive send of Bust the Rhythm 12c. This is a climb that Micah and I had done a couple of years ago, Nick had tried this quite a bit in the past but couldn't link the hard crux, on Saturday though he got it first go, and made it look easy. With Nick's project sent we headed back down the hill and to the Far Side at Exit 38, where Scott really wanted to try Endless Bliss, a monster 18-clip 10a slab. Scott and Nick had looked for this climb before but with no success, but I knew where it was so I took them there, where we all led it. Scott cruised it on lead, he has no problem on slabs like these. I also scoped out potential for a couple new routes on a hard technical section of rock to the right of Endless Bliss. They would be really hard and technical, but I think they would go, I would totally bolt them if I had a drill. We ended the day with the 5.9? to the left of endless Bliss, where Scott took a fall and hurt his shin, which was a bit of a bummer on an otherwise great day. I'm looking forward to climbing more with Scott and Nick this summer.

Nick finishing a great day off with a great climb, Endless Bliss 120ft of amazing slab climbing.