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.

Broken Again

Another week has flown by, and summer feels very close now. It's set to be a beautiful weekend, but I don't think climbing is on the cards for me. Last weekend I sprained my ankle climbing at Vantage, it's not as bad a sprain as previous ones I've had this year, but its taking its time to heal. Last weekend I had made big plans to climb with Chris, who is always good fun to climb with. We were going to do two days at Vantage, including some classic trad routes, then we were going to do the super-classic Leavenworth multi-pitch Outer Space. However it didn't go as planned. On the first day of climbing I landed awkwardly after coming off a route and sprained my left ankle. I managed to get in a half dozen routes before I hurt myself, including what I'm ashamed to saw is my hardest grade of the year so far, a measly 11b. The next day I didn't want to be a party-pooper so I still got out climbing with everyone that was out there from Olympia. I managed to get up a few routes one-footed, including a tricky 10a face climb and a 5.8 trad crack, but my morale was pretty low because of my injury. I am a little concerned that because of this injury and general lack of fitness, I'm going to be starting out the summer climbing season a lot weaker than normal. But its just about having fun, right?

Esteban and Rachel have fallen in love with Vantage. They were both crushing!

 

When Laura has her helmet on you know she means business. Here she is leading a 5.8 crack, her hardest trad route yet!

Infinite Bliss

Yesterday Esteban, Micah, James and I climbed Infinite Bliss up Mt. Garfield, the longest sport climb in North America, it weighs in at 23 long pitches of 10c or less (mostly sub 5.9), 2,600 ft of climbing. I'm still tired and sore from climbing the route, too tired to really write the full blog post it deserves. It was a great experience but one that I am unlikely to do again. I loved the long granite sport pitches, but the 300 ft solo across a sea of choss was one of the scariest things I've had to do, and the fun climbing does not outweigh that fear I had doing it. All in all the 4 of us took 8 hours to climb it from base to summit. 17 hours from car to car, we started out pretty fast and simul-climbed up the first 10 pitches in good time. I was skipping a lot of the unnecessary bolts to save time and to be able to simul climb several pitches at a time. I found the bolting peculiar. Anything that was slightly hard was really well (over?) bolted to the point where I could have z-clipped on several occasions, but the easy pitches had very few if any bolts, I would have done it differently. What took the most time was rappelling back down, even though it was a Wednesday it was crowded with 10 people on the route, at one point we had 7 people at one anchor station. We had a couple of snafu's with caught ropes which slowed us down, but we made it back down eventually, even if we did have to bust out the headlamps. We were the first up and down, I don't envy the other climbers who were only half way down well after dark. Overall it was a good experience, but I look forward to some single pitch action this week. I whipped out my camera a few times during the climb, here are a few shots. Once again check Micah's blog for a much more in depth report.

James and Micah starting out pitch 1



We unroped and soloed this part since there were no bolts



Esteban keeps his cool while soloing

James seconds up the really fun crux 10c pitch

The view from the top of pitch 18. There are 7 climbers visible in this photo, can you spot them all?

James celebrates reaching the summit

Now time for 20 or so rappels to get back down

Micah and Esteban trying to dodge falling rock on the rap back down

Rappelling side by side was a big time saver