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.

28 days dry

Nick warming up on Iguanarama 10a at Amazonia (Exit 38)

I think I heard on the radio that today was the 28th day straight without rain in Olympia. With this kind of weather its hard to not get out climbing, plus Nick is back in town and more psyched than ever to get out climbing. So on Friday the three of us Nick, Laura and I made our way out to Exit 38, we were planning on climbing up at Bob's Area but we got sidetracked at Amazonia and The Actual Cave, so decided to save Bob's Area for another day. Amazonia looked as chossy as I remembered but the routes climb well. We warmed up on Iguanarama a really good 10a, and an 11a then headed up to The Actual Cave. I had never climbed there before, I had always just walked past it on my way to Bob's Area, but now having climbed there I can report back that The Actual Cave is actually AWESOME! The crag classic Giant is one of the best sport routes I've ever done. If you can climb 5.11 and can do 10 pulls-ups you have to get on Giant. It goes at 11c but it essentially climbs one big jug the whole way to the chains. It starts on the right hand side of the cave, you climb up easily to the roof of the cave then you start traversing along a jug rail on the lip of the cave through 5 clips of horizontal jug shuffling, its so much fun. I made it to the chains no problem, so decided to go for the extension Mr. Big 12a, its only one more bolt then the chains, but since there were hanging draws on all the bolts I didn't bring up any more draws and I needed something to clip the chains of Mr Big. So Nick and Laura threw some up to me while I was hanging on to a jug, after a few missed throws I eventually caught a couple and made it to the chains, Mr. Big was really good, not too hard just a little pumpy, but that may be due to the hanging off the jug trying to catch draws. Nick sent Mr. Big right after me as well, he was pleased because he had tried this route a couple of years ago and couldn't do it then.
A couple of photos of Me and Nick on the awesome roof climb Cyanide (12b), so much fun!

After that I decided to give Cyanide a shot since it had hanging draws on it as well. Cyanide is an unlikely looking climb. It climbs straight through the roof with 5 clips of 180 degree climbing, and it gets the fairly amenable grade of 12b, you don't get many climbs like this. On the onsight I found that the holds in the roof were better than I had imagined, I made a few hard moves to get to the third clip, where there was a good looking V-notch, I tried jamming my hand in pinkie first, but it didn't quite sit right, I pulled on it and was off, damn! I reached back up to same hold this time with my hand the other way so I was holding it as a ring lock and it was a jug! I pulled back on and managed the rest of the moves through the roof no problem, Oh man, I was so close to the onsight. I managed to fire it off second go using the right beta, its such a good climb, but it was hard to enjoy it knowing that I should have onsighted it. Nick also managed to send it second go, which he was really proud of since he struggled a lot more with the sequence than I did, probably due to his height. With those two big sends done we were feeling pretty pumped so finished off the day with an easy route at Club Paradiso (not recommended) before heading back down to the car.

Scott on a really nice thin 5.9 slab and crack at the Repo I (Little Si)

The next day I headed out climbing with Scott and Nick. It was good to climb with Scott again, I hadn't seen him since the Smith trip back in March. We headed back to North Bend, with the plan to do both the exits in a day. First stop was the Repo crags at 32 where Nick wanted to lead Mambo Jambo (the route I sketched out on last week) in the same style as I did, skipping the top bolts. I climbed up on top of the crag across it to get some cool photos and a video (which nick will hopefully put online soon) while Nick cruised it. He made it look like a 10b climb which it is instead of how I climbed it, making it look like a 12b.

Nick negotiating the jamming crux of Mambo Jambo (10b trad).

Nick on the top crux of Mambo Jambo, skipping the bolts in favor of gear placements.

Me on the steep wall of PC7 my broken project on WWI at Little Si

We then headed up the hill to WWI where I wanted to get back on PC7 the climb I had come really close on a few days earlier. I had been thinking about it a lot in those few days. I got through the first crux feeling super strong, it didn't feel hard at all, I got to the hard part above the third clip on the headwall, crimp, undercling, crimp with the right then reached up to the crimp that Micah had broken off, wait where is it? There was barely anything there, it was way worse than I thought it was going to be, it was barely possible to hang off it let alone pull way past it, NOOO! I hung there and tried to figure out some other sequence, but switching hands and moving right from the crimp below wasn't an option. I tried the broken crimp again, thinking there must be some other way to hold it, but there wasn't. I was pretty gutted, I was so close to getting this route done, but now its way out of my range. Its probably a 5.13 now, so I'll just have to move onto other projects and come back to this when I'm stronger. I can't really blame Micah, maybe he saved me from pulling off the crimp myself. I was kinda bummed out, and I apologise Nick and Scott if I ruined the vibe of the day. Nick managed to lighten the mood, with his impressive send of Bust the Rhythm 12c. This is a climb that Micah and I had done a couple of years ago, Nick had tried this quite a bit in the past but couldn't link the hard crux, on Saturday though he got it first go, and made it look easy. With Nick's project sent we headed back down the hill and to the Far Side at Exit 38, where Scott really wanted to try Endless Bliss, a monster 18-clip 10a slab. Scott and Nick had looked for this climb before but with no success, but I knew where it was so I took them there, where we all led it. Scott cruised it on lead, he has no problem on slabs like these. I also scoped out potential for a couple new routes on a hard technical section of rock to the right of Endless Bliss. They would be really hard and technical, but I think they would go, I would totally bolt them if I had a drill. We ended the day with the 5.9? to the left of endless Bliss, where Scott took a fall and hurt his shin, which was a bit of a bummer on an otherwise great day. I'm looking forward to climbing more with Scott and Nick this summer.

Nick finishing a great day off with a great climb, Endless Bliss 120ft of amazing slab climbing.

Smith

This weekend we finally got out on a climbing trip down to Smith Rocks, Oregon. We were debating cancelling the trip when we heard the reports on some weather sites forecasting a 90% chance of precipitation on Saturday (FYI, when checking Smith weather, weather.gov is way more accurate than weather.com). But our faith was justified with dry and and at times sunny weather. Laura, Jimmy, Jeremy and I all crammed into our Honda with all our stuff on Friday after work. We were pleasantly surprised to wake up on Saturday morning to no rain, so we made the most of it and got out to the park early, we left Skull Hollows campsite before 8am, which is a new record for me I think. We met up with Nick and Scott at the parking lot, it was great to see them again they are always fun to climb with, it had been too long since we had last gotten together. We headed down to Picnic Lunch Wall which we had all to ourselves. We started out on a 10a and 10b that go up huecos and a slab, they were a lot of fun. Jimmy got tired of waiting for his turn to climb, so he hopped straight on Five Easy Pieces a 5.12a I had done previously and recommended to him. He proceeded to cruise it onsight, showing how much he had improved since last time he was here. Jeremy also made an impressive start to the trip, it was his first time at Smith and only his second time climbing routes outdoors, he got straight on the sharp end with an impressive flash on Teddy Bear's Picnic the 10b, which even I found a little scary. Scott toproped both the 10a and b clean for a good start to his trip. I tried a 12a to the right called Appian Way. It looked like a lot of fun, it had a bouldery start which you could protect by stick clipping the high first bolt, then it looked like easier ground to the top. It turned out to be a lot harder than I expected though, and I ended up dogging through the start. Its a great 12a to try if you like pinches and laybacks, and its very safe.

Walking into the park on Saturday morning

Jimmy onsighting Five Easy Pieces

Once we were done with that area, we decided to chase the sun so moved over to Morning Glory Wall. I repeated a few of the classics lines like nine gallon buckets (10c), cool ranch flavor (11b). Laura did really well on cool ranch flavor on TR, she did the crux with a lot more style than any of us guys could muster. I wasn't feeling the vibe to try anything hard really, I was just happy to be out on rock in the sun. We drifted over to the Dihedrals, where I decided to give Chain Reaction another try, I had tried it once before, but it just didn't click then. This time I hung and figured out the moves, with helpful beta from Nick and Ryan a local climber, it felt a whole lot more doable. I even figured out a different sequence after the lip, where I heelhooked the 'monkey bar' jug and rocked over to the finishing jug. Its really powerful though, so I didn't really have it in me to give it a good redpoint burn. But now that I know the beta I feel pretty confident for next time.

See it was sunny for a while

Nick on Chain Reaction

We finished off the day doing some fun moderates on the Pheonix Buttress, I really like the rock here, it is sharper with good holds, and some fun pocket pulling. I egged Nick and Jimmy to do a run-out 10d there, they both did it, but thought it was way scary. I then wished I hadn't recommended it when it came my turn to lead it, but I managed to keep my cool and finished it off, I think it was one of my favorite routes of the trip. All in all I got 9 and a half routes done that day, which I'm really happy about considering I was worried about not being able to climb cause of the rain. That night we returned to the Skull Hollows and finished off the day with a few cold PBR's around the campfire.

Laura on Bunnyface

Scott on the sharp end at the Pheonix Buttress

The next morning we rolled up to Smith and it felt a bit colder with a bit of a breeze, a local climber Teagan offered to show us around Northern Point, a smaller area with basalt sport routes that is sheltered from the wind . This crag has a totally different feel to the main areas at Smith, because of the different type of rock, and the style of the routes. It was a really beautiful place to climb, with tan and gray streaked rocks. It reminded me of the sport routes at Vantage, but of a much higher quality. I did a couple of 10c's and an 11a which were really fun before the drizzle started. Jimmy managed another 12a onsight right when it started raining. We decided to pack it up and head back up the road a bit earlier since it looked like everything was getting wet. But Northern Point is definitely somewhere I'd return to. We stopped off at a Mexican place in Madras before we started the long drive back. It was great to get back down to Smith. Although I didn't get to check out a lot of the areas I had hoped to, it was still great to be outside climbing with friends again. I'd really like to make it back to Smith at least once more before the summer heat comes. There's certainly enough stuff there for me to try now.

Me at Northern Point on Sunday