ryanb

Great write up, dug the combination of history, personal experience and ample photos.

As with most roped climbing crags in the icicle, the easiest way to find it is to follow the excellent directions and maps found in "Central Washington Bouldering."

The parking lot (and a strip of land along the tracks which must be crossed to get from the road to the walls) belongs to the Rail Road. The WCC worked out a deal with them to ensure unthreatened access/parking... I'm not sure on the final terms that were settled on but the bridge or whatever they go with is part of that. Party in the evening on the 19th should be a good time. Now anyone want to head out there mid week and act like we own the place?

I used to work in a lab next to some of the uw gravity guys. Basically they use really delicate pendulums to check to see if gravity behaves oddly at shortish distances (~1 mm when i was there). The idea, as they explained it at the time, was if string theory involves a lot of weird extra dimensions all wound up maybe the pendulum might interact with them. No string theorists seems to think this might happen but it is good to check these things. The cool thing is that the pendulums were accurate enough that they could tell when the parking lot was full or the hillside outside was soaked with rain water by looking at the data and delicate enough that a jostle to the enclosure (or an earthquake) would break the wire it was hung by.

There are TONS of great sport climbs at index but most/all of them are in the 10d or harder range check out the stuff in the country... some of the easier single pitch climbs are Cunning Stunt and Elvis Nixon. If you are willing to go multi pitch Leave my Face Alone and Hairway to Stephan are good as well (if you can get over from frank presley or elvis nixon ... we went up zoom which your friend should not do). The stuff above the tunnel would be good too if you are willing to lead the 5.7 gear pitch up to it (can you get over there from the top of cunning stunt). Some decent tens and easier 11's along the base of the upper wall and nearby crags too (checkout earwax wall and the stuff below the perverse traverse). Note there may be signifigant runouts on easy ground on some of these routes and some might even take a piece of gear or two to make them safe (Gorilla my Deams springs to mind, Cunning Stunt takes a small cam or two before the first pin if you want, leave my face alone includes a bit of loose gully you could place in).

"As a kid, I knew two things to be self-evident. Flying: Believe it and it'll happen. Superpowers: Bound to be something - spinach or whatever will do the trick. Climbing is my flying and coffee is my spinach." -- Peter Croft "A man doesn't go to drink coffee after climbing, coffee is integral part of the climbing." --Wolfgang Güllich Gsi makes decent but kind of a pain to use/clean, sprays bits of coffee allover outside the cup and the gasket goes bad if you use it a lot. Starbucks instant is the best really light/quick option. Jet boil french press is my current standard option (i actually wore the threads on the plunger of one out and am on my second) for good coffee in the backcountry on on 1-3 night trips...I like that i can boil a pot of water and have enough for oatmeal and coffee (got to add a bit and re boil for two people). Biggest downside is that you have to use a lot of grounds for best results and it takes a bit of water to clean. Areo press makes the best best coffee and the closest to good espresso by far and is easy to clean but takes a bit of fiddling/time to get right... I have one at home and one at work to avoid paying coffee shop prices but haven't had the urge to take it outside. What do people do for milk/cream? I get some powdered skim stuff at PCC but it clumps pretty easy and something with a bit of fat would be nice...

Those metolius rap anchors seem sweet but do they really not come in stainless? Painted 1018 seems like a recipe for hidden corrosion...

Here is a question: Do you guys want a shoe that you can both approach and climb in or two shoes one for each purpose? I find that the security I get on small feet from a modern shoe (anasazi or miura if it fits your feet) outweighs concerns over comfort, walkability or even ankle protection. Maybe the ultimate would be a two shoe solution... a light high top approach shoe with an edging toe patch for approaching/scrambling and a modern rock shoe for harder pitches. I'd like them both to be velcro for easy swap-ability (why aren't there any velcor approach shoes? seems like it would be perfect for cragging/bouldering). I actually prefer velcro in cracks... if you can get your foot that far in pretty much anything works and i've never worn through the velcro straps on my shoes mid climb.

Anasazi velcro but with c4 and a more relaxed heel. Like a synthetic and more aggressive version of the ascent or v-Mile...good for standing on tinny edges fiddling in gear, able to pull them off at belays.

Thanks for the recommendations so far, we had a good day up there sunday. Looking over at the see of knobs in the waterfall area got me wondering what people's favorite knob pitches up there are. Any good recommendations for intros to upper wall knobs? Seem steeper then the stuff in the country/lower wall.

Does the "It's A Grind" coffe place in 11worth actually exsist? Area code is CA and adress is not google mappable... From feck's link: It's A Grind 17401 Bastanchury Rd Leavenworth, WA 98826 (714) 528-7777 (Free Wifi Coffeeshop / Cafe) It's a Grind Coffee House sells a variety of coffees, teas, blended drinks, and bakery it...

I've done basically nothing on the upper wall (some of the single pitch stuff and flailing up Tempitcheous following a buddy) and am looking for some route recommendations for some trips up there in the next few weeks. Classic, oddball, recently scrubbed or rarely done and in need of a scrub are all fine as long as the climbing is fun. Probably won't hop on anything harder then 11b at the moment but if you have a favorite harder then that I'd love to hear about it (particularly if you can a0 the hard bits . 70 vs 60 vs 2x60/Rope length/rap beta etc would be great too.

oh yeah!

gimp is awesome. Look into using the "stroke path" feature ... you can probably find some video tutorials but basically you create and edit/tweak your path by placing and moving control points until you have it right and then "stroke" it with a doted line or whatever. I like dots because they don't cover the crack systems etc. I made this using it:

Crank Bros just came out with a whole new generation of pedals that are supposed to have longer lasting bearings... you can find the old ones on clearance a lot of places at the moment. However I just switched my mountain bike over to time atak aliums after having some retention issues with my egg beaters while bunny hoping etc... They are kind of a beefed up candy...similar design but each rail gets its own spring, i like them so far the only drawbacks being weight and less float and i'll probably switch my commuter over as well next pay check. This means I have a pair of eggbeaters (the old style c's i think...) in decent condition if anybody wants to make an offer...I'd throw in a pair of beat up crank brothers smarties (their POS commuter clipples) and a couple of pairs of worn out cleats if you want them.

You can't ding the guy for not scrubbing something. What have you scrubbed lately? Good point but that corner does look fun (if it ever dries). As to what i've cleaned recently. Mostly bits of rock that fell off the better crags: Some fun stuff though. The wide crack still (to my knowledge) awaits an ascent that doesn't end in head first dive into the pads below. If anyone is interested in an after work trip from seattle let me know.

I'd say: +2 for unearthing a fun looking moderate route. +1 for attempting to name something after an Episode of Futurama. -1 for announcing it to the world and discovering it had been done. -1 for not scrubbing the corner next to it. Still I'd say a net gain and I'd recommend following up on it by scrubbing and renaming the whole wall left of there down to and including the lower lump. Got to be some classics in there.

I tried to lead the first pitch and had to pull on gear. I haven't even tried the chimney- it was the most miserable, just not fun rock climb that I've ever done. I want to enjoy my climbing. Many can do that pitch but few actually enjoy it. One, surprisingly popular, approach to it is to decided you are ready to solo it and then deck from the crux. Short even steven and the variations (sticking to one crack or the other, avoiding the arete) are worth adding to the list of widish crack climbs...you need to learn to get just enough from your hands/forearms/chicken wings to hold you into the rock while you move your legs up... and be content with inch by inch progress as that is often all you will get. Also, i seem to recall that you can get up battered sandwich without any hugh gear if you sling chock stones etc... some 2's and 3s and maybe a 4 would be enough big stuff.

You can also get a weird wide crack style knee bar at the base of libra crack before it pinches down which lets you swing your upper body up to decent thumb cams. Honestly though the start of libra feels only slightly easier (and similar in style) to the first 5.11 crux on japanese gardens. I think it falls in a certain class of "5.10" TR puzzles which are better viewed as character (and technique) building experiences then typical examples of the grade... In terms of routes you should get on, at some point when I was working through the 5.9's at index I acquired some wide gear and went on a tour of the index moderate wide cracks which is something I'd recommend to anyone who aspires to be an all around leader as lots of routes have at least a bit of the wide. There aren't many of them and most of them are pretty classic. GNS area: Aries p1, Butt Lipps, Timberjack Private Idaho: Magic Fern, Battered Sandwich, Istanbul Other Areas: P2 and P3 GM, That thing across from toxic (easies one on the list). Read up a bit on wide crack technique first and try to lie back as little as possible. You also really need to get on some harder routes that aren't steep...there are lots of routes that are much more about footwork technique on insecure moves then sustained jamming like libra or BOC. Short Japanese Gardens is probably the best easily accessible easy 10 example of this. There are also some 10d ish routes at Private Idaho that are worth trying on tr if you have a rope there already.

Do you boulder? If you boulder you should see if you can follow some of the mid-hard tens (p2 city park, dr sniff and the tuna boaters, klaus van bewler, tatoosh) as they have distinct cruxes but nothing as enduro as libra. If you don't boulder you should take up bouldering... Also all of the short variations (short shirley, short japanese gardens, short sag, short thin fingers ... probably one or two other) are pretty doable. I think my first ten lead was plumb pudding but sky valley rock calls it 5.9+

Last year around this time I ran into Colin and Bjorn on a sunny afternoon in the index parking lot... they said they had decided they were happy with what they had done in alaska and decided to move their plane tickets up and climb some dry granite. Then they hopped in colin's beat up station wagon and speed off to try to make it to rockfest in Leavenworth in time for free hot dogs shouting jokes out the window as they left. Good guys and I hope they find some sun and a few hotdogs to help them recover and plan the next trip.

I emailed Jeremy.

midweek colchuck lake permits (and sometimes even weekend) are reasonably easy to get if you show up at the ranger station at open (7?). enchantment lakes are harder but you might get lucky (or you could camp somewhere in the colchuck basin and blast up in the morning). Banks lake, mazama and the tieton river canyon are all decent rainy weather destinations depending on exact weather patterns. Sometimes the weather is good in the tieton when it sucks further north and the rock is better than vantage. The serpentine arete has some snow/glacier involved in getting on route and off the peak.

Another description is in "ways to the sy, historical perspectives on north american mountaineering" here: http://books.google.com/books?id=aXRz6_EIAYQC&pg=PA289&lpg=PA289#v=onepage&q&f=false

I heard Joe Puryear did it and I think Fitz Cahall gave it a good go.