Making time for Climbing

I've been pretty busy recently, but I've managed to make time for climbing. The past couple of weekends I've managed to squeeze in some time. Last weekend I finished all my school work on Saturday, so headed out that night and met up with friends at Vantage for a good campfire and a fun day of climbing. It was still pretty hot out there to try anything hard, but that didn't stop Laura from onsighting an 11a.

Sierra trying an 11a on a sunny day at Vantage

This weekend, after getting my work done Saturday, I headed out to Leavenworth late that night with Tony, slept in the car and got some awesome trad pitches in on Castle Rock the next day. A few weeks ago when I was in Leavenworth, I looked up at Castle Rock and thought wouldn't it be fun to be up there on those routes, so that's what I did. This crag is awesome, my kind of approach (short), and really good varied rock climbing. I like trad routes that aren't just boring cracks, I like lots of features and holds, with good gear, Castle Rock delivered. First I warmed up on a really fun 5.8+ the South Face of Jello Tower. Then did Angel Crack, a short 10b glassy finger crack, which was pretty good. Then we headed up Canary a 3 pitch 5.8 route to the summit. It was great, good rock, nice exposure, not too hard. This was exactly was I was hoping for. We got back down and made it back to Olympia by 9. It was fun to climb with Tony again after a while not seeing him. He is a great climbing partner that inspires confidence in me, I'm looking forward to the next time we get out together again.


Tony heading up the excellent first pitch of Canary



Me about to do the exposed 'scary canary' move at the start of the second pitch.



Phew, that wasn't so bad!