An Unnaturally Good Time...

WOW! It’s almost November but today you would have thought it was more like the middle of September. With temps in the 60’s we headed out to uncover some of the sleeping boulder problems that lay in wait for us at the polar opposite of Little si, Rattlesnake Lake. Turn left and hit up the closest sport crag, turn right and hit up the most accessible bouldering spot that doesn’t take a half a tank of gas to get to from Olympia. The water had receded enough to uncover one of the more popular boulders of the area, one I have dubbed the Snake Head boulder. It won’t win any photo contests, it looks kind of like a huge dog turd, but it does have some incredibly fun and worthwhile boulder problems that all have at least three or four variations that will keep you climbing for hours. Or at least thirty minutes. The wind kicked up here and there and if you weren’t careful, either your pad or your possessions were going to be floating away, only to be fish food in the near future. We had the two man pad spotting system down, two guys on the pads to make sure they didn’t blow away while one of us climbed. We kicked around on some classics, all the Poison Prow variations went down, and then we turned over to the other side of the boulder where Dom and Jimmy sent Venom, a classic and one of the coolest V.6 boulder problems this area has to offer. After getting sick of the random wind gusts we headed off to the forest where I had been on a reconnaissance mission and found some pretty decent boulders, or one boulder to be exact. I had done a cool traverse on it before and it turned out there was much more potential on almost every side of this beast.


Ain't she purty?



We walked down the side of the lake and then up into the forest where we gawked and scrubbed the fuck out of this crappy rock until we uncovered a few sweet lines. Jimmy started off the afternoon with a sweet flash ascent of what we ended up calling the Unatural Traverse and graded it V.6. Next we uncovered a more direct start to the traverse that started in the overhang on some sweet underclings and slapped its way out of the overhang and on to the overhung arête to finish as for the unnatural traverse. Jimmy nabbed the first ascent of this one as well and Dom and I struggled to put it together while Jimmy ran around with the steel brush scrubbing here and there and uncovering a few more lines.


Jimmy on Streamliner(V.7)


We all did a V.4 called The Little Room, and Jimmy pieced together what might be the hardest problem on the boulder that he is calling Naturalista and might go at V.8/9, but will have to wait for an ascent next time. There were two other V.4’s that we established and a whole hell of a lot of other variations, link ups, and direct finishes/starts to add to the roster.


Jimmy on one the few V.4's he uncovered, Blood Diamond



Me projecting Streamliner

Now before you go tromping around the woods of the Rattlesnake Lake recreations area looking for these aforementioned gems, let me put out a disclaimer: This is our bouldering spot! Don’t go ruining our possible FA’s and blowing up the spot with your portable I-pod boom boxes and your stupid girlfriends whose only job is to sit around and take pictures of your rippling muscles and your petty climbing achievements. I’m just kidding of course! Have at it, but I’ll have you know, the rock quality is one of the worst I have ever climbed on. In the midst of brushing, cleaning, and climbing these problems we tore off a good amount of hand and foot holds and a lot of them are ready to pop at this very moment, even if you look at them hard. Anyway, we had a blast cleaning our first boulder, or at least my first boulder, and some of these lines are worth a trip back here.


Dom on Streamliner

Besides the wind, Jimmy’s jacket getting blown into the lake, and the crumbly shit rock, I look forward to returning and finishing a few of the lines we started today. Who knows? We may find more crumbly gems hidden somewhere in the vicinity, but for right now, this will have to do for the closest outside bouldering fix. Yay for Rattlesnake lake!!!!

We Didn't Go to Oktoberfest, We ARE Oktoberfest

The view from my pad yo! I mean my bouldering pad. That I sleep on.

The crisp clean air unclogs my brain as I smell the decay of summer. A tattered battleground crunches underneath my weight and I realize now that October is about bouldering. I was glad to make it to Leavenworth with my friends Dom and Laura. I hadn’t been out here in such a long time that I was almost forgetting what the place looked like. The small strip town split down the middle by route 2 was alive with tourists for the ongoing Oktoberfest that thrives on guzzling steins, funny hats, and the occasional bouncy castle. We weren’t here to enjoy the flowing rivers of brown Fall ales. We were here to destroy our tips! And crush some sick hard boulder problems, while power screaming from the top of our lungs and watching the tendons rise from our very hands to crimp on tiny edges, literally squeezing the life force from the granite. Fuck YEAH! But first we had to set up camp, and this time we weren’t going to co-mingle with the commoners. No, that would be too deleterious to our wide eyed psych. We decided to check out the FREE camping tucked away from the trivial aspects of life such as behemoth sized RV’s and lower forms of life that can only help but to stare at our magnificence. You can imagine the distractions. We pitched the homestead and kicked rocks to our favorite spot, Mad Meadows! The home of too many boulderers! We ran into about thirty? It was a blur, the only person I can really remember was Scott Milton with his camera crew. That’s right, Canada’s premiere boulderer hard man Scott Milton was checking out OUR boulder spot. At least I think he’s a boulderer, right? Anyway the golden glow of his aura blinded me and my compadres and we were left in a state of momentary bouldering bliss. We shook off our euphoric high long enough to do some climbin’. We were going bouldering at a boulder crag and even though it didn’t have any cliff bands it had a few cave like features. The real news was Laura killin’ it! She sent her first V.5 on a nice piece of rock with some treachery at her back. Luckily she had Dom and I to guard it and she ticked her first 6c in style. Nice!!

Laura establishes on The Undercling(V.5)

Dom and I worked on the low start to the problem that Laura had just got, but it was more of a challenge for me because I’m so good that sometimes I forget that boulder problems that don’t have double digits still require some effort. Anyway, we scampered around the boulders in this area for a while running into large amounts of people blaring music and sitting around like hippies at Woodstock. I was a little ashamed of our laissez faire attitudes when some weathered tradsters came around the corner and gave us looks of disgust. That’s right tradsters, I like to sit around on my ass staring at three move problems that don’t get any higher than three or four feet off the ground and still consider myself a bad ass. Are you taking notes?
We ended our Mad Meadows feast and stymied it to another boulder crag. This next spot is a doozy! A beautiful boulder perched right on the side of the road. A rounded looking beast that has a rocky landing and a permanent love affair with a tree. It was perched on a semi mound of earth that fettered away from it’s position leaving a downward rolling ascent to anyone who dared spit off of it’s grainy slopers. I had tried the problem before but my instincts pulsated with the stench of death so I backed down. I always drove by this boulder and stared in amazement and vowed one day to grow the balls to slay the beast. Today the air was thick with testosterone and everyone seemed to be in a carnal state of mind so I fucking sent it!


Me being a straight up poser!! Twister(V.7)

But let’s rewind the tape a bit. We showed up and Dom was psyched to try a V.4 and a V.6 as well as the V.7 that I was chomping at the bit to do. We both sent the V.4 and since I had already sent the V.6 I watched as Dom killed it with ease. A really cool problem that has one of the nicest crimps in the world and a cool heel hook as well. Now that we’re all caught up, the problem that I was referring to earlier is called Twister and takes the center stage of the boulder’s face. It follows a slopey line of ,well, slopers, to a series of hard shouldery moves on crimps, then a nice little throw for a good shelf and jug. After that you just have to get the foot high and reach up to more flat jugs and the top. It was hard. When the feet cut and you’re only holding on to small crimps you start to wonder if its worth a possible torn ligament, but then you think of the adoration and all the fans and groupies you’ll have once you send the problem and descend into Leavenworth history! Besides all that nonsense it was a fucking good problem and definitely one of my top five favorite boulder problems that I have ever touched, let alone sent.

Okay, enough about me let’s continue on with the saga. One more epic awaited our party of merry men, and a wee a lass. The scrambled egg boulder lay in waiting. It’s bluish grey granite cried out, ‘Crimp me! Slope me! Touch ME!’. Oh what a proud and lonely boulder it is, but not for long. Dom was dead set on a problem called Scrambled Eggs. Throwing the gauntlet down as well as a few pads he began to crimp on the boulders sharp edges. The boulder fought back, shaking it’s head wildly sending Dom to the ground a number of times but he commanded the stone with veracity. Finally yelling at the fiend and making it shrink down to a conquerable size he sent the crux and started to pull over on the last bit; a hard rock over on bad slopers for the feet and small edges for the hands.

Dom on the first few moves of Scrambled Eggs(V.8)

His journey was long and in the midst of mastering the more difficult moves he forgot about the victory jug out right. Oh what a tragedy! He fell to his demise shrieking in agony. We were all worn out from watching the battle and Dom had given it a great fight but his tips were shredded and we left to end the day at Egg Rock on some nice V.4’s.

Dom almost sending Scrambled Eggs

Later that night we drank around a glorious fire and ate ember toasted tuna and cheese sandwiches. The moon was crazy bright and illuminated our camp ground like a flood light. We had a nice night yammering away about nothing important and woke the next morning early. I had to get back to Olympia by six so we headed out to the boulders with the crusties still in our eyes. We had a good time at the Pretty Boulders, which have some very pretty problems.

Dom on the crux of Pretty Girl(V.3)

Dom after the crux of Pretty Girl.

I got shut down on the dyno of Pretty Hate Machine, while Dom ran laps on Pretty Girl, one of the coolest problems anywhere. We hit up one last spot, a rather large boulder hugged closely by private property and most likely gun toting owners ready blow a hole through any would be boulderers who trespassed on their land. We were able to send a V.4 with a cool highball ending and an even cooler highball 5.6 down climb. After that we went home. Debating in the car ride home about the morality and ethical nuances of the deeper complexities climbing has to offer. I hope that we will be able to get back to Leavenworth at least one more time before the snow comes.

Bob's Your Uncle

Who the hell is Bob anyway? I kept repeating this phrase over and over again to myself on the laborious trek up a steep Mt. Washington trail for two and half miles, until, finally, Dom and I arrived at the first crag’s turn off trail. A small wall dubbed the Chainsaw Wall with only a few routes from .10b to .12a. This was my third time overall at the infamous Bob’s area and I can remember always being impressed with the routes and the rock quality, the latter being somewhat of a phenomenon in this particular area. At Chainsaw wall we warmed up on a route that we had both done before a really good, technical and balancy .10c. There was a variation that went out right on a short and steep face that neither Dom nor I had tried before so Dom went for the onsight. Marking a few hidden holds for me I stepped up to the plate and managed to flash it, a particularly awesome route. The texture of the rock and the sweet edges and crimps up this slightly overhung face were well worth the hike and made for a good start to the day.

Dom on My Evil Plan(5.11c)

Next on the list was a .12a called Stihl Fingers, a route we had eyed last year when we were here but neither of us had the balls to tackle this slightly overhung slanted seam that was cut into an almost black and smooth looking face. This beautiful route felt exposed but had good incut crimps the whole way that made you feel a little safer. The last move was a huge lunge out left to a ‘thank you god’ jug. Dom hung the draws on his first attempt and I almost flashed it after that. Dom made a quick second go ascent and I felt confident that I could do the same, but once I got up to the last clip I just skipped it in favor of making the lunge out left to the finish jug thinking it would be over. Well, I panicked, lost my footing and started to get over pumped and worried that I hadn’t made the clip. Needless to say I fell blowing the redpoint which, now, looking back on I could have bagged quite easily. I tried this sweet line two more times before coming to grips with the fact that I just wasn’t going to do it this trip. We packed up and headed to another secluded crag just up the trail.

Chainsaw Wall.

This area was pretty sweet even though it only boasted a total of two routes, a .10b which was covered in little black patched of moss, and sweeeeeeet looking slabby face climb called Passage that went at .12a. Dom got to work on Passage chalking holds and figuring out a way up this really nice piece of rock while I enjoyed the view. After getting shut down on top rope and figuring out a good way to get to the anchors I came down and Dom powered through the finger wrenching crux to clip the chains. It was impressive, I have to say, since he didn’t really look like he was going to send at all when he first tried it.

Dom at the last little bit of Passage(5.12a)

I opted out of the redpoint in favor of my poor tendons and pulleys and we moved to the main area, Bob’s area. I headed straight to an .11d that I had always walked past before and never tried and went for the onsight. I fell at the first roof, and then the second before making the mossy mosey up and over a couple of extremely dirty slabs that really should not have been included in the last third of this route. Dom flashed while I managed to get this one second go, but in all honesty it was rather easy due to a large no hands rest before the last bit of hard climbing.

Me cleaning the draws off of Liberty Smack(5.11d)

Either way I was pleased and we decided on one last route before making the walk down. I got shut down twice in a row on a route called Give Your Shelf to Me, which was a short route that I should have been able to walk up but I was just getting too pumped too quick. Before you knew it we were faced with a long walk down in the dark, but fortunately Dom had packed his trusty head torch. My knees and ankles were berated by small rocks and loose ground as we stumbled and bumbled along the trail to eventually find solace at the flat parking lot.

The view from Bob'a area at night.

Gracious as I was to not have been eaten by a mountain lion or a cougar I still felt the sting of getting shut down a route I really felt like had already sent, and even more harsh was the reality that set in when I realized that I would have to make that heinous journey back up there just to try to send it again some day. Oh well, I welcome it! Plus there are still so many cool looking routes that I have yet to try at Bob’s area, however the weather has turned as of late and it may be a while until I can get back up there. We had the good fortune to get out on the very last day of summer weather, and it's already Fall! And judging from the last three days of non-stop rain we have had, it's going to be along one.