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Trip: Exfo Dome- Proxima Wall - Ancient Melodies (of the Future)III, 5.11- Date: 8/19/2012 Trip Report: Danny Coltrane and I finally finished a new route on Exfoliation Dome in Darrington last weekend. This route is situated on the southern flank of Blueberry Hill, and provides a unique view of the buttress route and summit massif, along with some really exciting climbing on great features. In 2001 or so, good buddy S. Packard and I did an exploratory foray up the right hand margin of this wall, getting a long 3 pitches up and blanking out completely on a vertical smooth headwall before resorting to a few desperate bathooks to a ledge. The new route shares the first pitch of our 2001 effort and the previous high point anchors situated at the bottom of P4. Fast forward 2 kids, 2 dogs, a goldfish, a dozen years, lots of beer, a few pounds of penalty weight, and several new routes in between; I was drawn to the place once again in 2011. A big thanks to good friend JR Storms for humping loads on several occasions! Upper right flank of BBH P2 View from Blueberry rt Workin the veggies Frog pond on the sidewalk P4 Part way up P3 Route tops out at the gendarme straight up from my sexy head Danny on P3 crux traverse Pronounced rib at P1, top of approach gully

Found Petzl E03 250 headlamp with newish Duracell AA batteries on the approach to Dreamer between the creek crossing and brushy tunnel. Let me know if it’s yours, and how the hike out was in the dark.

Trip: Salish Peak & Roan Wall linkup - 17 pitches 5.10+ - Date: 6/20/2007 Trip Report: Yesterday Darin Berdinka and I climbed two new grade III routes near Darrington. The are both recently completed and feature flawless granite in a beautiful spot. We did them in a day 16 hours round trip. Approach using the Squire Creek Trail towards Three Fingers, and the Roan Wall is on your right, easily noticeable from the head of the valley. Ours was probably the 4th ascent of both of the routes, but they deserve lots of visitors. The Roan Wall has a 5.8 bolted pitch, a 5.4 cracks pitch, then a bit of scrambling before 8 more pitches up the steep wall. Mostly small edgy face climbing, although the last 3 pitches have cracks mixed in. Locate bolts on the above bulge to begin climbing. The 5th (crux) pitch involves a leftward move close to the belay The last 3 pitches have fun crack climbing. Then you top out and are a short walk from this: Scramble off the top of the Roan Wall by walking along to the left, then across to the base of Salish Peak. Every pitch is mixed crack and face, with lots of fun exposed moves. The 3 hardest moves are all somewhere in the 5.10 range and you could AO on a draw. Pitch 1 Darin had told me that the face move was 5.11something and I A0ed without trying it out. He freed it on TR and said it was more like .10c The 6th pitch was spectacular face and crack... maybe the best of the route. You can rappel the route in 5 double-rope rappels, using fixed stations. The black webbing/grey mammut runners are ours. From the base of the route, we high-tailed it back to the car in 3:40, because I insisted to Darin that we complete the day wihout headlamps. After all, the solstice is good for something, right? (The trailhead is at the base of the landslide in the distance) Cheers to Chris Greyell for putting up the routes, and to Payless Shoes, whose $20 sneakers passed the test. Also, the gas station in Darrington gives out all its hot food for free after 10pm:hcluv: , so thanks to Darin for putting up with my erratic driving when my hunger-crazed brain payed more attention to Taquitos than turns on the highway. Darin was a great partner even though he originally tried to get me to leave Bellingham at 2:30 AM! This linkup is one of the best rock climbs I've done, it should be high on the to-do list!