My First Time...at Smith

With all this talk in the air about Smith Rocks and my friends taking a weekend trip there at the end of this week (I can't go because I have to move) I started to look through the remaining photos I have left on my computer. After a slight technical glitch(read:me being a dumbass and accidentally erasing 90% of all of my sport climbing photos) I had no choice but to peruse the only photos I have left of Smith, which are subsequently of my first time visiting the colossal crag, known for the first .14a on American soil, tiny edges and knobs, run out bolts, and the free camping at Skulls Hollow.


This is me after my first climb at Smith, Walking While Intoxicated. We had just arrived in the middle of the day to find Travis and Melissa hanging out in the shade of the Ship Wreck Wall. Travis immediately threw me the end of his rope and said, "Climb". I tried my hardest and came out with an onsight and a terrible pump, and was just glad I didn't fall because I was trying to look like an experienced climber in front of my friends.



This is me on my second ever Smith climb, Blue Light Special. I got spanked on the beginning, middle, and end, hanging on almost every draw before clipping the chains. Classic. After that, Travis decided to show me around.


After a quick tour he asked me what I wanted to get on. I was so overwhelmed, the towering orange walls that seemed to go on forever, the myriads of people everywhere, and observing a guy take a massive whipper on Rude Boys was a little much. I finally pointed at the pocketed wall of the Churning buttress. "That one looks good." I said, pointing at Churning in the Wake. I had no idea what I was doing. The first clip was heinous, and I realized that the pockets looked much deeper from the ground then when I tried jamming my fingers in them. I managed to make the second clip and after that it was hang dog, draw-grabbing fest. I took a few good whips, but overall I got shut down, and rightfully so. Lesson learned.




This should be self-explanatory.


Me on my fourth ever climb at Smith, the extension to 9 Gallon Buckets. No I didn't manage to send this one clean, falling at the crux, but I did make it to the chains hauling at least 20 pounds of draws with me. This climb concluded my first full day at Smith and what a day it was. The next day Travis and Melissa split and feeling a little awkward without them I tried Heinous Cling, leaving a draw at the first bolt, Ring of Fire, another hang dog fest, before retiring to the Phoenix crag where I did the Phoenix clean before heading home. Looking back on this trip it went way too fast but I had a great time getting my ass kicked on almost everything I got on and it was awesome to get out to a world famous crag only a few months into my outdoor climbing debut. My second ever trip to Smith was a longer one, about 5 days or so, and I climbed as if the rock was made of scorpions, and lazer shooting lava monsters. I was scared. Not sure why, probably because this had been the first trip outdoors since the Winter and I just did not have very much experience climbing outdoors at all. As much as I hated it at times this second trip was responsible for really instilling in me a love for camping, climbing, campfires, hanging out with friends, and lit a fire under my ass to get out more and climb. Out of that trip I grew into a pretty decent climber, and I learned to love those moments when you don't know what the next hold will be like, or where the next bolt is, and to love the adventure behind climbing at a new crag or on a route you've never climbed before. Just the challenge of conquering something you've never done before was thrilling, and each new climb I did thereafter I tried to tackle with that same enthusiasm.
Now I'm staring down the barrel of my third outdoor climbing season and all I can think about is what to project, and how long I want to spend at Squamish this summer, or when the next Leavenworth trip will be. Scouring over the pages of my Smith Rock guide I can only help but to get psyched on all of the possibilities that await this season, I just hope I'm strong enough, physically and mentally to climb some of them.


Crack Babies.

RawCandy

Well, well, well. It seems as if Olympia isn’t quite boulderless after all. I had heard tales of rock sightings at a place called Rock Candy Mt. just 10 minutes or so from Evergreen but didn’t think they would pan out until my friend Kyle showed me a video of a mutual friend of ours doing a boulder problem on what appeared to be perfect granite. He told tales of another boulder as well, smaller in size but promising and another boulder trapped in the confines of a locals backyard. That was all I needed. I swooped up Kyle and we headed out to Rock Candy Mt. to see what fortunes we could find. First we checked out the boulder in the backyard of a rather large man’s property. His pit-bull chained to a line that ran horizontal along his property in order to create a moving, and biting animal fence. The dog was all front though as he buckled before my unwavering sense of pack leadership, yeah I’ve seen an episode or two of the dog whisperer. It turned out the dog was the least of our worries, the rather large man shot down our attempts to scope out the lonely boulder that stood slouched in the corner of his property begging for our attention. It wasn’t exactly an amazing piece of rock, besides the fact that it was at least 8-9 feet tall and looked like it had some promising lines up a nice overhang on bullet stone granite. We gave up on that prospect and headed to the boulder I had seen in Kyle’s video. Up and over some steep muddy roads we finally arrived at the pinnacle of Rock Candy Mt. with a great view of Mt. Rainier and a nice little boulder just off the side of the road.


The majestic Mt. Rainier, almost brings me to tears.


Our little boulder, awwww.

Kyle gave me the run down of the line he and his friend Evan had established on it. A cool little traverse that ended on a slab. The rock quality was amazing, salt and pepper granite very similar to the kind of granite in Squamish and Mt. Home road. A nice jug undercut to a big flat jug side pull, led to the crux pull around on crimps to a cool little slab finish, not bad. I flashed the problem as a warm up, felt pretty hard, I’d say on par with many of the V.2’s I have done. Then I did the slab by itself, a cool V.0, and then I manufactured the direct finish to the traverse utilizing a cool pinch and a high step, probably soft V.2.



Me on my direct finish, Right Handed Pinch Shooters


Kyle on Left Handed Six Shooters(V.2)


Comin' round the Mt.


Almost...



























It's slab time, yeeehaw!


All in all not a bad little boulder at all, after running a couple of laps and Kyle coming close to sending the traverse, which his friend Evan, the first ascentionist called Left Handed Six Shooter because of the shallow divots made by drunken locals blasting their ‘six shooters’ at the poor boulder.
Kyle wanted to show me the other boulder they had found at the base of the mountain. He told me it wasn’t as good as the previous boulder but worth a look. We arrived, and he was right, but I could spy a short one to two move problem on the steeper side of the boulder, which was also of extremely high quality granite, a little darker though. Perched on a small mound of weeds I plopped down chalked up a small slopey right handed pinch and a crimpy slopey pinch for the left and tried beasting it to the lip.


GET SOME! Take that boulder!


I think I'll just take a nap.


I didn’t manage to send so we packed up yet again and went marauding about the various dirt roads that swirled and intersected up the Mt.’s face. We found nothing, unfortunately, but it was a beautiful day and I was just glad to get out and do some climbing on a nice granite boulder and pleased my finger didn’t give me any trouble. In the end, if you’re looking for a good V.2 drive up there and check out this boulder. Don’t be afraid of the random gunshots in the distance, or the pit-bulls on chains, they’re just there to scare rock starved climbers away.

Electric Mayhem

Yo yo yo yo! Wazzzzup to all my dogs in tha’ house?! Throw your hands in the ayer, and wave them like ya’ just don’t cayer! C’mon now, ya’ll know me! Well, I guess it has been a while. All my fans are stark raving mad because I haven’t posted in such a long time, but we discussed this in the beginning. This is a C-L-I-M-B-I-N-G blog, and well, in the last two or three months I just haven’t been doing a lot of the stuff. Inside climbing yes, but I don’t really count that as ‘real’ climbing.

I have finished my first quarter as a true blue grad student, and am currently half way through my second quarter, yet another excuse for not blogging as much as usual.


My professor holding up a dead chinook, god I miss this class


a foot print

I’m trying to remember all the intricate details of the last two to three months in order to convey them in written word so as to entertain any of my ‘readers’. I guess I’ll pick up where I left off. Returning from the year’s last trip to Leavenworth. I couldn’t actually believe we got any climbing in for November, usually a very wet month here in the Northwest. Of course it was the last bit of climbing for me anyway for the last three months. December was a wretched blizzard, more snow than I’ve ever seen here in Washington, or at least this part of Washington. But the sessions at the Warehouse were pretty sweet. Nick came in from the east coast and showed us all why taking three months off to go to nursing school was well worth it by sending problems I could only dream of projecting. He also set some pretty sweet routes before returning in early January to DC to start his second quarter in pursue of his BSN.
Jimmy, well, I don’t really need to say anything about Jimmy, his climbing has done all the talking lately and he and his rock crushing sister are off to Boulder, Colorado to compete in Nationals. I predict they both will do very well and represent Olympia to the fullest.
Dom and Laura both got jobs (finally!) and Dom actually got out climbing on one of the more perfect days a couple of weeks ago in January, due to another bit of odd weather. He managed to tick all the Gritscone routes and solo Rough Cut.
I, on the other hand, have been suffering from old age related injuries (shoulder and finger) and have greatly missed out on some nice weather in January and some good sessions down at the Warehouse. I did however; manage to hike to the top of Little si, a feat I had not yet accomplished. I’ve probably walked half the trail, just to get to World Wall One, 50 or 60 times easily in the past two years but never realized the other half is quite a nice hike. Not to mention the view from the top, pretty amazing. I also grew a crazy beard, shaved it, did yoga for the first time, found a new place to live, finished the first draft of my candidacy paper, rescued my cat from behind a water heater, and scratched my balls.


picture of said 'crazy' beard


picture of the winter wonderland that graced the NW for a few weeks

Currently I find myself sitting in bed writing this blog and bitching and moaning about my damn finger that just refuses to heal so that I can get back to training for the upcoming climbing season. Speaking of which I just couldn’t be more excited about. I had compiled this huge list of tentative goals for the year but I decided that my main goal is just to stay HEALTHY!!! In fact if anyone reading this has any tips for avoiding injuries, specifically finger injuries whilst training for power crimping, please drop me a line. But, I guess I shouldn’t leave you hanging in the goals department, I know Dom is clawing at the screen right about now. I’ll just give you a quick run down: Chronic, Propaganda, PC7, hopefully a trip to Mazama, Sesame Street, Mind Bender, Golden Boy, ATD, The Back Seat, Defenders of the Faith, Droppin’ tha’ Kirschbaum, Lonely Fish, Atomic Energy, Musashi, Batman, Smith Rock (anything), and hopefully, maybe, another trip to Bishop. But this is just a short list, I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of things and I’m sure that a lot things on this list will have to wait for many, many years.


Little si trail


Fall on the TESC campus trail to the beach


Little si again

So, to end this post I think it would be fitting to re-cap the 2008 climbing season’s achievements to give some perspective to the 2009 goals. Olympia was represented quite proudly by everyone this past year.
Jimmy: Sent multiple .12’s outside, including a flash at Chekamus. Absolutely killed it bouldering, sending a number of hard V.8’s and V.9’s including a V.8 flash, sent his first V.6,7,8 at Squamish plus a stout flash of Tim’s Sloper Problem, and helped establish some nice lines at Rattlesnake lake. Now, he is dominating the comp scene and is off to Nationals.
Nick: Sent his first V.9(Coffee Cup) before sending his first V.8(Resurrection), cleaned up multiple projects at Squamish including Gibb’s Cave and Golden Boy, as well as a sweet send of the Doja at Gold Bar and made an impressive solo pilgrimage to Bishop. On the rope he sent .12’s at Red Rocks including a flash of Fear and Loathing, here at WW1 he cleaned house, Techno, Psychosomatic, Hydro, Viagrophobia, and made some nasty links on Californicator, in one day he managed to send all the letter grades in the 5.12 range.
Laura: while on her Euro climbing tour sent a staggering amount of routes and boulder problems, including numerous 5.11a flashes, as well as numerous V.4 flashes, by far the hardest she has ever climbed. I’m jealous.
Dom: pre Euro trip sent in one day V.4,5,6,7. While on the Euro trip turned into a crazy onsighting mad man with onsights of .11d through .12d, and came back with his first .13a. Post Euro trip came back and quickly dispatched an old Squamish project Immunity Challenge (props), then cleaned up some classics at 38 and 32, Stihl Fingers and Passage, plus Hydro at WW1. Best year on the rope? I think so.
Whitey: Went on the Euro trip as well and came back with a smile and his first .12b’s including a .12b flash (I haven’t even managed that feat), and his first .12c in three goes (!!!). Post Euro trip, came with us to Gold Bar and sent multiple V.4’s and his first V.7, GET SOME!
Me: Became addicted to the Leavenworth day trip, sent 10 V.8’s, 5 V.9’s and an unconfirmed first V.10, and got busy on the rope with Techno, Hydro, and Viagrophobia.

Okay, that’s enough from the master spray lord I have become. I know I have left out many climbers in Olympia that are now stronger than me, but their accomplishments outside are still waiting to be seen. Super duper props to everyone at WRG and a special thanks to the people listed above for setting the bar high, really high! Can’t wait for camp fires at Leavenworth, no hospital trips in Squamish (Nick!), a new generation at Little si, working bathrooms at Vantage, a trip period to Smith, and a chance to blog about it all right here.

Disappearing in a Fog

After a couple of weeks of rain, the sky opened up and we decided to caravan our little behinds out to Leavenworth for some good old fashioned granite groping. We piled as many people as would be comfortable in my Suba-ru and made the red eye drive to L-town, arriving at 9:00 in the morning. It’s a three hour drive, you do the math. Groggy, yet feeling unclogged after a nice stop at the Safeway we headed to the best spot in Icicle, Forestland. We were supposed to meet up with four other guys, Jesse, Al, Mika, and Evan, all greeners and all around good guys, but they were still packing up camp seeing as how they decided to come down the night before, bbbrrrrrrrr! They eventually made it to the spot and we all congealed to form a bad ass bouldering blob of goodness. On a strange note, the weather was not cooperating at all, and while the boulders were bone dry and velcro in a frictionable nature an incessant fog blotted out all hope of a sunny escape or any chance of seeing the beautiful Fall scenery. First time I have ever been to Leavenworth and not been bathed in the wholesome goodness of the sun. Oh well, it didn’t do much for my psych, but we all got off to a good start.

Evan on The Real Thing

I ran laps on my favorite problem ever, The Real Thing, while Dom sent the crouch start to One Summer, and Jimmy ticked off Drill Sergeant and the broken version of Busted. We all eventually gathered around a cool problem called Feel The Pinch and everyone in the group worked on de- mystifying the sequence, nice send Jeremy! I gave my work horse a few beatings, which means I did The Shield a couple of times (get your mind out of the gutter!!). We also gave Cruise Control a go or two before eventually heading to the uppers.

Dom reaches on Cruise Control

Upper forestland is where it is at! Huge boulders with tons of problems on them. We ran laps on Lovage, one of the best anywhere, I committed to the highball slab Fedge, as well as everyone else, and then we slapped the heinous slopers of The Physical around for a while.

Mika tops out Fedge as we all gawk in amazement.

These three pictures are all of The Physical:

Jesse

Mika

Dom

We then moved to a sweet round boulder with sweet round slopers and incut jugs. We ran laps once again on Sunny and Steep, and then a few of us managed Funny and Cheap, a sweet dynamic problem with awesome slopey holds and rails. A good time was had by all, and while I didn’t manage to really get into the hardcore focus of sending anything gnarly, I loved just climbing all of these wonderful boulder problems. I have a new found respect for Forestland and will always love the boulders here.

The crew.

We packed up with very little skin left and headed to the Scrambled Egg boulder. More good times ensued as we sent a cool slab thingy, and a sweet little slopey arête next to it. Then everyone gathered around Twisted Stone and wasted what remaining skin they had left by crimping hard and slapping for victory on the perfect grained slopers and crimps of this light blue giant. It was a good way to end the day and I’m excited about getting back out here in the Spring.

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.