Tieton River - Day at the Crags

[gosolo]

Tieton River – A Day at the Crags – March 6, 2005

 

My girlfriend Tatiana, who had climbed one day at Joshua Tree wanted to go do some more rock climbing. I had been climbing for about 27 years but hadn’t done much the last three years so I was up for it and we went up to Tieton River. I was a little bit alarmed when she wanted to climb Goose Egg Mtn. I mean, usually beginners are not quite that gung ho. Since she is from Russia, communications can sometimes be challenging but she was visibly upset that I was unwilling to climb anything and everything. Not having a guidebook to the area I had spied a good looking wall down lower in the canyon. We parked and I noticed one other car of climbers. We hiked up along the cliff and there were several bolted lines but the rock looked pretty chossy. At the furthest west location of the crag looked like a reasonable climb. Because of her lack of belay ability I gave her a grigri, 5 minutes of instruction and my philosophy was that I was essentially free soloing, which at moderate grades I could deal with. The climb was about 5.8 and she made it up no problem. We then did the next route and it was cool, again 5.8 and no problem. We hiked down the cliff further and the other climbers had just done The Fan, a really cool looking line that goes at 5.8 to the first anchors. We climbed that and she liked that one and had no problem following that one either. She wanted to do another one and earlier I had tried to explain to her that she needed to let me pick out the climbs. We hiked along the base and I said, how about this one. She said no she liked another one. The climb she pointed to went left of a cave at the bottom of the cliff and through a roof near the top of the climb. It looked a bit out of her league but she most definitely wanted that climb so I said ok. I was used to going to areas and simply climbing and not too worried about difficulty in the past. I mean if there are bolts what the hell, even though it did violate my rule about being able to solo a route with an inexperienced belayer. I started up the route with a little trepidation. Up to the third bolt it was not too difficult, then it got pretty hard. That was ok, but the rock totally sucked. Edges crumbled, all holds had to be cleaned off and many holds were so loose that they were useless. Ahh, this is the kind of climbing that gets your adrenalin going, more like a hard trad route than the sport route it was supposed to be. Not quite what I had in mind for a beginner. I got a little freaked, grabbed a bolt and made sure that Tatiana could hold me. Ok, there is some degree of confidence, but I should have anchored her to a tree. The holds were mank, the climbing about 5.10 and I thought about bailing but the climbing eased a bit so I went for it. The rock up there was totally chossy and I have climbed on a lot of rock known for its unreliability. At the roof, I looked around and knew the moves but the holds were mank. I went for it and the foot hold crumbled a bit, my hand hold was also giving way sending down small rocks. I did those moves ok but there was a fair runout to the belay and the rock was still terrible. I chose to belay her from above since there was a good ledge at the belay. She tried, I will give her that, but because of her inexperience she knocked down a whole lot more loose rock than I did. She eventually and wisely, quit and I lowered her down. We did one more route that day and she climbed until dark. There was no quit in her! A couple days later I bought the new guidebook, curious about such a chossy route. The guide called it 5.10b X and said “(Don’t) Climb the line to the left of the cave…..” Route requires extensive cleaning and bolts…At first I disagreed with the X rating (mostly it was well protected with bolts), but I guess as a guidebook writer that is one way to inform climbers of the dangers. So, don’t assume on a new bolted crag that you are ready to go! I do find it kind of lame to bolt a line and leave it when it is really a choss pile. I decided to climb the thing and it is totally my responsibility to pick routes to climb. But hey, in my book, when you start bolting on rappel and you are cleaning a route like that, finish the job. The new guidebook seems to be well written and there is a whole bunch of good looking stuff in the Tieton River Canyon, next time I think I will head there…

 

PS - The Fan climbs through some cool features of Basalt, but someday, some of those columns are going to fall off. Be Careful!

[catbirdseat]

You were at The Oasis. The Fan was put up by my buddy Mark Glidden. It's a pretty nice route, isn't it? Mark spent a lot of time cleaning that route and trundled a tremendous amount of loose rock. When I climbed it last year, I found one more chuck of column to trundle. One nice thing about that climb is that it traverses a bit to the left, so if anything comes down, it won't hit your belayer. There aren't any adjacent routes either, so no worries!

[andyf]

On the whole, the rock at the Oasis is worse than any other "developed" Tieton crag, with the exception of Goose Egg. That said, there are some pretty fun routes at the Oasis. Based on what you described, you didn't get on them!

 

I think you'll find nearly all of the sport routes at the other crags--and most of the trad routes (especially 5.10 and up)--to be solid and well-cleaned.

[gosolo]

Thanks, aside from the one route, I had no problems with Rock Quality there and intend on going back. Hell, it was fun to go up and get scared. The Fan is a good route and climbs through cool features; however, due to the rock type and small basalt columns, future ascents in years to come must be wary.

[catbirdseat]

No question about it. I've done the second pitch and it features a huge loose rock that moves when you touch it, and touch it you must. Mark said that he pried like hell on that rock with a big crowbar and couldn't get it to go. That's why the new guide lists the second pitch as "not recommended".