Mileage

Last weekend I went climbing at Tieton and Vantage, putting a lot of miles on my car driving solo. I've added 15k to my car since getting it in August. The climbing trips have been worth it, but at current gas prices I'll need to carpool more. On Friday I drove down to Tieton and met up with a couple of Olympia old-timers Doug and Duke. It was a lot of fun climbing with them, and we got a lot of routes done for climbing in a threesome. They showed me Moon Rocks and The Chunkyard, both nice little crags which are definitely worth a return trip. I cruised a fun 10a trad route at The Cave, and sent another 10a crack at Moon Rocks with a lot more effort. I’m loving trad climbing right now, but its nice to mix it up with sport routes as well, which seem so much easier in comparison. Having said that I did fall off of an 11b at The Cave called Casting Stones. I don't normally fall off routes this grade but this one was pretty tricky, I had to do a full-reach deadpoint to a mono at the crux. Felt at least 11d to me, but it was nice being challenged and good for me to clean it up on my second go. Friday night a group of Olympia folks were headed over to Vantage, and the weather was looking a lot more promising there. So I said bye to the guys and drove the hour and a half up the road to meet everyone.

A few moments before falling off of Casting Stones, 11b

A 60m isn't quite enought to toprope Moonstruck (10a trad) so I had to belay from this tree. The jacket is Duke's.

At Vantage on Saturday we climbed at Fat Man Wall and M&M wall which were not nearly as crowded as some other areas. It was me, Sierra, Melody, Laura, Gretchen, then Shannon and a couple of her friends joined us out there, then Micah and Steph met up with us later that night. Despite waking up with a bit of a cold, I got a lot of routes in. Some of my favorites were The Pod, Cold Cut Combo, and Ridin' Sidesaddle. Although a lot of the routes at M&M seemed pretty tough for the grade. I finished up the day with a smooth send of Snake Crack a fun short 10c layback crack. 

Sierra, Me and Gretchen having a good time at M&M wall.

Sunday we weren’t sure what the weather was going to do so we headed over to Zig-Zag Wall in case we had to make a hasty retreat, but the weather turned out to be perfect all day. Zig Zag doesn’t have the most solid rock at Vantage, but despite this there are a few worthwhile routes. I got 10 routes in that day including all the bolted routes at the crag that were in my guide, and one that wasn’t. Nothing hard, but it was nice to get a lot of mileage in. Special mention should go to Micah who managed to get up quite a few routes, despite having to climb in a hefty boot because of his injury. It was a fun first big group trip of the year, I’m looking forward to more to come. This weekend I had to stay home and get school work, but I’m hoping if I pull 12 hour days this week I should be able to get out next weekend. Its only 7 weeks til I graduate, then I’ll have a lot more time to climb. I’m feeling pretty strong right now, which can only mean good things for the rest of the season.

The obligatory group shot

Trad is Rad!

Yesterday I brushed off the cobwebs on my trad gear and placed some pro for the first time in a long time. The last time I climbed trad routes was up in Squamish in the summer of 07. But even then I only led a handful of routes, in fact since I came to US 3 years ago, I can probably count all the trad routes I've done on both my hands. Which is weird because I used to be a big tradder. When I started out climbing in 2001 I bought a very minimal rack (just a few nuts and slings, which I still use today) and got out climbing on the sea cliffs and crags around where I lived in Scotland, I was climbing easy trad and I loved it. The next year I worked in a climbing shop, so built up a respectable rack and was able to push my grades a little. For the first 5 years of my climbing I nearly only did trad routes, since there was very little sport routes to climb in Scotland. Since I moved to the states I got hooked on sport climbing and seemed to forget about my trad roots. But yesterday I got out to Index with Doug and Zach, for my first time, and it all came back to me.

I forgot how much a rack weighs me down

I love trad climbing, I'd forgotten how much fun it is to plug a bomber nut in a crack and run it out til the next good stance. The first route we got on was Aries a popular 4 pitch (5.8, 5.8, 5.6?, 5.8) route at the Great Northern Slab area. I got a bit nervous at the start since there was a mandatory 15ft or so of hand jamming which I'm terrible at, I stuck my hands and feet in the crack, and they seemed to stick so I made a few moves and I was on a ledge before I knew it. The next pitch was a great friendly finger crack up a corner. It felt great to place pro and feel confident climbing past it. I was really pleased at how smooth I seemed to be climbing and I was really happy with my gear placements. It was really fun setting up a gear anchor, it had been a while, since all the stuff I did Squamish had bolted anchors, but it came back to me really easily. For some reason I got a lot pride setting up a bomber equalised anchor. Doug and Zach let me to lead all the pitches, with them following and cleaning. The last pitch was an awesome exposed pitch climbing around a roof, I was really grateful for being able to use Doug's big cams, otherwise it would have been a very scary and run out pitch. We made pretty good time for climbing in a threesome and rappelled down to see what was next.

Me climbing up the tricky moves at the start of Japanese Gardens P1 (10a)

We checked out more of the Lower Wall, which is very impressive and intimidating. I spotted a cool looking pitch that had a bit of everything, slab, finger crack, and wide laybacking flake. I got on it and did pretty well, the top part laybacking the wide flake was a little nervy since it was insecure and was pretty much placing the cams blindly. There was one bolt mid way up the route, but I opted to skip it since there was good gear placements not too far away. I clipped the anchors and got lowered off for Doug and Zach to toprope it. It turns out that the climb I did was the first pitch of Japanese Gardens which goes at 10a, which felt about right. I was a little scared on it, especially on the wide crack section, but I feel like I could climb harder trad if I stuck to smaller cracks which I feel more secure on.

Zach toproping Japanese Gardens

With that in mind we headed back to the Northern Slab area, where I got on a cool finger crack up a dihedral that I had spotted earlier. Its listed in the guidebook as a 10c alternative start to the Great Northern Slab, but its really short, I only placed two pieces of gear in the crack. I finished the route by cruising up Great Northern Slab which get 5.7 here but it felt way easier than the other routes we had done. After we had all done this route, we rapped down and headed back since it was getting late and we were getting hungry. We stopped en route in Seattle for a great dinner (thanks Doug!) before getting back to Olympia pretty late. I would definitely go back to Index, I just wish it didn't take so long to get there from Olympia. Theres a ton of routes to do there, we barely scratched the surface. Most of the stuff there is a lot harder though, so I'll have to step up my game for next time. It has definitely re-ignited my enthusiasm for trad climbing though, so hopefully this summer I'll have more opportunity to get my gear out more often.

Fossil Rock

Yesterday Laura and I got out climbing with Doug. We went to Fossil Rock for our first time. Although Fossil is relatively close we had never visited it because of reports it's a big choss pile. I can see now why people would write it off as that because of its appearance, but there are actually some great solid routes which are really fun to climb. Doug had been there several times so was able to show us around. After the half hour bike in we started out at Boyal Bobbins Wall where we did a few 5.8's and 5.9's. The rock here looked very suspect, but Doug assured me it was totally solid and had never seen a hold pop. Only a few moves into my first route though I popped off a golfball sized foothold, thankfully this was the only hold popping incident of the day.

Laura starting up a route on the Boyal Bobbins Wall

It seemed to me the harder the route the more solid the holds were and the better the climbing was. We did a fun 10a then moved on to the classic of the crag 'Battle of the Bulge' an 11a. I got the onsight, despite messing up the crux sequence and getting pumped. Laura and Doug both managed it clean on toprope, so Laura figured why not go for the lead since she knew she could do the moves and the clips were ok. It was a real battle for her going through the fingery and powerful bulge, but she managed to stick the moves and pulled through to complete one of her hardest routes yet. It was her first 11a in almost a year, since last summer in Europe, and almost certainly her hardest lead in N. America. I could see it coming from the way she has been climbing in the gym. I'm sure this will be the first of many hard climbs for her this summer.

Me on Battle of the Bulge a great 11a

After that we headed around the corner where we all did a 5.9. Then I tried Sketchmaster 5.12a as the last route of the day. It didn't look too bad from the ground, but once on the route it was very thin, balancy and surprisingly pumpy. I came close to coming off a few times, but held it together and clipped the chains for the onsight. It was a great route to finish off a great day on. I certainly changed my perception of Fossil Rock and will for sure be back there again soon.

Summer Has Arrived!

I got out to The Quarry (aka, Hercules #2 Quarry in Tenino) yesterday for the first dry Wednesday evening session at the Quarry this year. It can only mean one thing: Summer Has Arrived! It is a later start to the Quarry season than normal because of persistent rain, and bad timing. But last night was prime Quarry conditions, all the routes on the right hand side were completely dry, the wet streaks by The Bolted Flake and Dead Low Tide are still soaking, but apart from that everything else was pretty much dry and the friction was good. It had been a while since my last visit to the quarry, about 16 months, since last year we spent pretty much the whole summer on our Europe Trip. But it was great to be back with all the regulars there; Ed, Duke, Jimmy, Lisa, Doug and Off stopped by. There was even one newbie, Sierra who got in a few routes at the end of the night, for her first visit, I think she was impressed.

Duke belays while Ed gets spat off of Virgins (11b)

For those of you who don't know, The Quarry is Olympia's best and only local crag, a mere 25 minutes drive from downtown, there's about 30 or so bolted routes between 5.9 - 12c, most are hard 10's and 11's. The crag is on private property, but luckily for us its owned by a fellow climber Off White who invites local climbers to come climb every Wednesday and other times by appointment. If you want to climb there you'll have to contact Off and sign a waiver first. The routes there are a ton of fun, but require a lot of technique and mental strength, (aka they're sandbagged) so don't expect to climb your hardest on your first visits.

Jimmy working his project Legends (12c), he's going for the lead next week

Last night I got a lot of routes done, 10 pitches in just a few hours by my count. I mostly climbed with Doug, it was great to reconnect with him. Doug first introduced me to the Quarry when I first arrived here in 06 and took me and Laura out to a lot of the crags in the area. I haven't managed to get out with him much recently, but hopefully that'll change this summer. We got on all the crag classics like Hercules, The Governor, Calvin and Hobbes, and The Manly Wham. I did one new route that I hadn't led before; Rubber Boa which goes at 11c. It was crimpy, smeary, balancy and pumpy all at the same time, so pretty much like every other route here. Jimmy sprayed me down with move by move beta which made it a whole lot easier. All in all it was a great night to be back at the Quarry, the weather is looking good this week, so hopefully next Wednesday we'll all be back again.