Season Opener at The Quarry

Last night was the first Wednesday climbing night of the year at The Quarry. The Tenino Quarry is Olympia's local climbing spot just 25 minutes drive from downtown. It's on private property, but luckily for us it is owned by a local climber Off White. He built his house right next to it, so he literally has a sport crag a stone's throw from his doorstep. Once you sign a waiver you're welcome to climb there if you call ahead, and every Wednesday evening a group of climbers from Olympia go down for some after work climbing. This is the 5th summer Laura and I have been climbing there, back when we started it was just the regulars; us, off, duke, ed, doug, and jimmy. But recently word has been getting out and more Olympia climbers are discovering it. I've done all the routes there, there's around 30 between 5.9 and 12c. I think I was the first to tick the crag about a week before jimmy last summer, but its still great to get out there regularly for training. Last night there were 12 of us out there climbing, it was a lovely evening, warm but not too sunny with good friction on the rock. There were a couple of new additions to the quarry, Off upgraded all the chains on the right side so they now have fixed biners to lower off from, which is really nice. And Off installed a little art piece up on the cliff, it adds a nice touch. I got in 7 pitches last night which takes my tally to over 100 in 2010 so far which is pretty good going. Laura continued her run of good form, with her second ever lead of the intimidating Hercules (10b) and finally figured out beta that worked for her on the top (V2?) crux of The Governor (10c) for her first lead of that, as well as toproping The Manly Wham and Confucius (11a and 11b) clean. Its just a matter of time before they go as well. There was a good vibe out there last night, I think this summer out at The Quarry will be a good one.
Here are a couple of photos from last night, they are not the best.

Off showing Kina the beta on The Manly Wham

Sierra and Chris at the top of their routes, with Off's new Lizard sculpture between them.