A group of us (six total) from WSU/UI climbed a 95m WI2+ route Saturday opposite the Dayton WA high school baseball field and across the Touchet river. David Pogue who climbed it 10 years ago (see e-mail below) has been calling it the "Dayton Gully". Kurt posted a pic further down. Looked a lot steeper from the straight on vantage across the river. Still a fun day though with a couple people getting their first time on ice and a short multi-pitch. Can be soloed and then rapped only because downclimbing would eat into time at the pub.

There weren't any webbing remains up top and I had to clean all this lovely tenacious and thorny brush [stream bed blackberry I'm told, 1/4"+ thick) for the last 10+ meters to the top of the ice. Yet again I forgot to bring brush cutters but the adze did the trick by chopping the offending plants where they emerged from the ice (about 60 deg left side).

I've seen it before. Ask Kevin Pogue to see if he's done it. good to hear that it's in.

Yah, I shot him a line earlier. Will probably hear back on Monday morn. The ice was pretty hero,

Kevin's response:

From: Kevin Pogue
Subject: Re: ice in Dayton WA?
Date: January 29, 2007 7:02:02 AM PST
To: Matt McAdoo

Hi Matt-

I climbed that about 10 years ago with Jim Cunningham. I'm sure yours was the 2nd ascent. I noticed that it had formed up again when we were coming back from the weeping wall a week or so ago. I remember there was a short steep bit at the bottom followed by long slabby section that we basically soloed. I also remember thrashing around in those trees near the top. I believe we rapped off of a couple of those trees that we tied together with some webbing. I have no idea who owns or manages the land. We just went over and climbed it. I've just been calling it the "Dayton Gully".

kevin

add that to the WA ice guide!

The Dayton Gully

will add

I'm calling around determining who owns it, stay tuned...

why?

Maybe better to follow "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission" policy.

This is a bad policy when it comes to land access issues.

thats a pretty sweet looking line, almost completely out of context compared to the scenery in the rest of the photo.

most of the things around these parts are. remiscent of things in the eastern part of the Gorge (east of Biggs; which, by the way, are still iced up to some extent as of yesterday)

The potential lines east of Biggs are still in. I drove from PDX to Tri-Cities today and there is a ton of ice along 84. Some very thin, but if it stays cold a few more days there are some potential FAs in the WI 4-5 range that would be pretty amazing....

how did you get those bolts through the ice kevin?