Quick Trip, Quick Send, The Quickening!

What was supposed to be a week-long spring break trip to Smith turned into just a 3 day trip, but despite the occasional hail storm I still managed to get a good amount of climbing in. I got down there Thursday morning and joined Nick, Andrew and Scott. It was pretty chilly so I warmed up on a route with lots of ledges to defrost numb hands, Middle Aged Vandals (11c). It’s a fun route that I’ve overlooked in the past, but its definitely worth jumping on. I then did a couple of nice easy routes with Scott to keep warm. Then within about an hour, we went from shivering in our down jackets to sweating in t-shirts when the sun came out while we were on Morning Glory wall. I wanted to try some harder routes out, so hoped on Churning and Taco Chips, both 13a, but I got shut down hard on them. Nick made really good links on Churning, and it was obvious that it would just come down to whether he would have enough time this trip to link it all.


Warming up on a fun 10b. There's still plenty of these left in the park for me to do.



Scott giving me a solid spot on the start of Taco Chips (Thanks Nick for the photos)

The hard route I really wanted to get on was The Quickening in Agro Gully. I got on it the next day, it is a really fun sport climb with two distinct cruxes. The first is pulling over a roof making dynamic moves off of 2 two-finger pockets. I love two-finger pockets so had no problem with this crux once I figured out the beta. The next crux comes midway up the head wall where you have to bust out left to a very small, but very good crimp, get your right foot up high in a pocket then lock-off and make a huge reach with your right hand to a slopey pocket. I couldn’t make the span, but I was able to reach a tiny triangle pinch just below it to lock of on and reach through to the pocket with. It was an unlikely looking move, but it worked for me. After that the route eases up and finishes on some fun 5.10 climbing on good holds. I had pretty much sussed out the all the beta, so got Nick to go for the flash attempt, unfortunately after a hard day of projecting he got spat off at the first crux, but dogged his way to the chains, and confirmed the quality of the route. I was psyched to give it a good 2nd go attempt, but a snow storm swept in so we made a hasty retreat to the campsite.

The start of the first crux of the Quickening

Setting up for the throw.

Latched it!

Ahh Jugs! (Photo sequence courtesy of Andrew)

Saturday was a beautiful sunny morning and I was psyched to get back on The Quickening, but had to warm up and wait for Andrew to get done stalking Paige Claassen (a hot 5.14 female climber) to get a belay. I felt really confident going for it, which is a nice feeling to have before a hard climb. I sailed through the first crux, got a bit of a shake, then nailed the second crux sticking to my beta. I was climbing great, then the flash pump hit me, my forearms were bulging, I couldn’t close my hands to chalk up, but I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I fell off the 5.10 jugs. I barely managed to clip one of the anchor draws before my hands opened up. Phew, I did it, just! I was stoked to have sent this Smith classic so quick, it gave me renewed confidence in my ability after a spell of not climbing outdoors. In my guide The Quickening gets 12d, but in the new one its 12c. And if I am being honest with myself there is no way I am in the kind of shape to be sending 12d so quick, so I’ll take the 12c grade. For the rest of the day I was content giving Andrew belays on his 12a project which he sent! I drove back up to Olympia that night with a huge grin on my face. You know it’s a great trip when you’re already planning out your next one.