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!!!!
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