Middle Fork Bouldering

Throughout the summer a group of boulderers from Olympia have been developing a new bouldering area near north bend. I finally checked it out yesterday with my roommate Jeremy who has done a lot of the fa's there, and Boon. I was impressed, the rock quality is great, and it is in a beautiful setting.

The majority of the developed problems are easy to moderate, which is great for me since I'm not in the best bouldering shape right now. Jeremy toured us around the rat-trap boulders, the cave area boulders, bean slug boulder, roadside boulder and other boulders that I forget the name of. Given its proximity to Seattle, and the quality of the problems, I can see this area getting pretty popular once the word gets out. Chase, one of the main developers put the blog www.northbendbouldering.blogspot.com together which has a lot of photos and gives a bit of the background of the development.

Another couple of days in Tieton

I got back out to Tieton with Tyler, Laura, Rachel and Esteban on Sunday and Monday. It was looking like the best bet for weather. We met up with Boon at Lava Point, I've done all the routes on that wall already, but it is such a fun place to climb. There was actually one new route bolted just to the left of Saint of Circumstance which I climbed. It is a really fun addition to the wall, a bit balancy and technical, I thought it felt around 10d or so.

The gang (minus Rachel) at Lava Wall

After Lava Point we stopped for lunch then climbed a few routes at The Oasis. I got on a few routes I hadn't done there before including a couple of fun mixed climbs. The next day we headed straight to South Fork, I had climbed there a couple of years ago, and was really impressed with it. We spent most of the day climbing the routes on the hexagonal satellites, which are really fun and really unique looking.

I did a 150ft (or so) 11a on Astral Wall, that was simply incredible. Overhanging jugs the whole way. I've got to say Astral Wall is in my opinion the best moderate sport crag in the state, and the most under-rated. I will definitely be back there a lot this summer. Here are some photos from my camera, Rachel's and Tyler's.



Rachel enjoying the beautiful views from the crag.

Elbow deep hand jam on the 5.8 trad route at The Hexagonal Satellites.

The rock here is so cool.

It looks like there are tons of holds, but there really aren't.

Laura warming up on a fun 5.8

Rachel keeping her cool on a run out.

 

Getting ready to start a whole lot of climbing.

Its hard to photo the whole of Astral Wall, but this photo gives you a bit of perspective.



The view from below. Tyler is only about half way up.

Mind Games

I had a great time in Leavenworth this past weekend. The company was fun and I had a couple of sends that I’m particularly proud of. I drove over with Laura, Boon and Esteban in my car. And we met Micah, James, Melody and Gretchen out there. Friday night Micah got us a prime camping spot at the free campsite and plenty of wood keep us warm until the Rainier put me to sleep. Saturday, we headed to Castle Rock to climb some trad routes, along with Ian, a visiting climber from Salt Lake who we met the day before. I warmed up on a 5.6 and a couple of 5.8’s then Ian and I decided to try some harder climbs. I went for the onsight of The Nose, a classic 10d trad route. It wasn’t pretty to watch, I was probably up on the route for 45 minutes, climbing up and down, but I managed the onsight. Thinking back on it now, it was one of my funnest and most memorable sends of the year, but while I was on it, it was anything but fun. I was sketching out, pumped and not-confident. My gear was actually really good, but I couldn’t get the image of me falling and stripping my gear out of my mind. I have a love hate relationship with hard trad climbing, I really want to climb more and push myself harder. But when I’m actually on hard trad routes I scare myself silly. Ian gave it a shot after me, for an 11+ trad leader he was pretty sketched out on it as well which made me feel better for struggling a bit. Although it was almost as scary belaying him on it as it was leading it. Saturday night we had a good fire going but I guess I’m getting old cause I couldn’t stay up as late as some others in our group.


On Sunday we headed out to the boulders, I felt a lot stronger than I normally do on my second day climbing, I guess combining trad and bouldering works pretty well. After warming up on a few easy classics, we met up with Nathan who was in Leavenworth that weekend as well and we projected The Jib (V8) together. I say project, but really he flashed it while I worked on it. Last time I bouldered out here, I flashed the first move, but couldn’t do the rest. This time the end felt pretty straight forward but I struggled on committing to the first move. Another guy pulled over his mat as well, and he tried it, he soon decided he didn’t like it so was about to take his mat away, I knew I just had one chance before there wasn’t enough pads for me to feel comfortable on it. I committed to the move and dispatched it easily. It’s funny how something that you project, can feel so easy when you actually send it. It’s cool to have sent two V8’s this year, but apart from those two my next hardest is a V4. What’s up with that? I’m not too concerned though, I’m just glad I’m starting to get my boulder strength back, just in time for the South Sound Pull Down!

Me onsighting The Nose 10d Trad at Caste Rock, Leavenworth

Nathan on the sit start to Spongebob Squarepad (V5)



Boon on an awesome V2 at Mad Meadows