The Art of the Leavenworth Day Trip

Micah displays the double pad technique on the way back from the Sword boulders

Okay, here's the deal. I live in Olympia, where there are no rocks and it rains pretty much 80% of the time. Leavenworth is about 3 hours away, where there are multitudes of granite boulders, and sunny blue skies for days, hell even months! I started going to Leavenworth with my friends Dom and Laura as a weekend trip dismissing the notion of a Leavenworth day trip as silly and too expensive, but as time has gone on and my school work load has increased exponentially I find that I only have about a day out of my week to spare for climbing. Thus, the Leavenworth day trip was born! For the past month I have made about four trips up to Leavenworth for bouldering, three of which were day trips. My first trip of the year was a send off trip for Dom and Laura where we spent two days bouldering on perfect granite soaking up the sun which we had not seen in months. After Dom and Laura set out on there Euro-climbing adventure I made a couple more trips back out to Leavenworth, one with my friend Jimmy, and one solo trip on a particularly hot day. All of the trips were amazing and I managed to send my first, second, and thrid V.8's! My last trip was yesterday, which is what this entry is all about...

So far I have been unsuccessful in getting my two climbing partners, Jimmy and Nick, out to Leavenworth on consecutive trips, due to their work and school schedules, so I have been forced to look elsewhere for real-rock starved climbing enthusiats. Luckily I work in my college's climbing gym and there are willing spotters everywhere. After my last trip to Leavenworth, which was by myself, I decided having some company was a lot better for the morale. Al is a guy who comes into the gym on a pretty regular basis and is a true boulderer. Growing up in North Carolina he regailed me with tails of boulders right in his backyard, and being three hours away from Hound Ears one of the best bouldering spots on the East coast. However he had not managed to go on a bouldering trip here in the northwest yet, and I was happy to introduce him to Washington's finest. With three pads and a tank full of gas we arrived at the pull out for the Sword boulders area around 10:30 in the morning, greeted by the sound of Icicle creek and the warmth of the sun. I was totally psyched because I had been to the Sword boulders once before and came agonizingly close to sending two V.7's and this time I knew they were ripe for the picking. Plus I wanted to check out the other classics like Ressurection(V.8), The Prism(V.9), and The Classic(V.2). We took a quick look around inspecting future projects, and then warmed up on I Heart Jugs, a great V.2 with a tenuous top out. Around the corner from that we did The Wizard, a crappy reachy V.3 and then headed over to The Classic. A sheer face disrupted by a vertical rail that leads right to a jug beneath the lip, about 18 feet high. A cool line that I had to do, getting to the jug was kind of strenuous and the top out definitely made my heart beat a little faster, but I was happy to be on top. Al opted out of this one, he is a strong climber in the gym but lacks a little confidence on the real rock, especially for this being his frist time outside in a while. We moved on to a cool slabby problem called Played Like A Poop Butt(V.0+) which was a cool quartz vein that ran up the left side of this tall boulder. Sweet crimps and sidepulls lead to the top and while Al and I ran laps on this problem our first visitors of the day arrived. I was kind of surprised that anyone would be here this early but it turned out the Sword was the hot spot of the day because more and more people kept showing up.

After our initial warm up I was really keen on getting back to a problem called Off The Couch(V.7). It starts on a neat sloping rail, pulling on with spread out good feet you go left to a nice gaston, rearrange the feet and then slap to another gaston, hit a small crimp, bump to another small crimp, and then yell to get to the victory jug, which is more like a bigger version of the crimps below. I managed to get it my second go, and desperately hung on through the dirty, lichen-encrusted ledges to top out. Very pleased with the first hard send of the day we headed over to a one move problem called The Hourglass, another V.7 that I had tried a long time ago but could not complete. The problem starts by walking up a small ramp to get to the overhang, you can see why it's called the hourglass, in the overhang you grab this slopey crimp that is really no good at all, past your feet high on the ramp and then blindly lunge over the lip to grab a good knob/crimp and then good ledges to the top. Below is a photo of my friend Al trying the lunge.

Al lunges for the knob on the Horglass(V.7)

This problem doesn't really tire you out from working it so much as it just makes you annoyed. After the first 9 or 10 goes it starts to get in your head, planting that seed of doubt of wether you will ever be able to latch that stupid knob! After 25-30 tries you just start to expect to jump, slap, and then hit the pads and it is at this moment that you can't give up. I can't really tell you what went through my head when I finally latched the knob because a part of me had already dropped back to the mats, when I finally caught back up with myself I managed to pull over the lip and top out with a look of stunned enthusiasm. I fianlly gave a victory shout that signalled to the other climbers that something had gone down. As I walked back around to the front of the boulder I got a high five from Al and I was finally ready to take my shoes off and let the mosquitos feast on my blood. Al tried the lunge a couple of more times and then I decided that before we leave I should give the Prism a go. The first moves aren't really that bad at all and before I knew it I was reaching for the lip, which was terrible and slopey. I gave a glance back down at the pointy rock that was waiting to snap me in half if I fell at this point and decided to jump down and wait until I had a lot of spotters.

The view from the Labyrinth boulders.

After the sword we drove back down to Icicle junction and headed up Tumwater canyon to check out a new spot that I had never been to called the Labyrinth. The book made it sound like a 5 mile adventure hike, but it really wasn't that bad at all time wise, just steep and demanding, especially when you've got two crash pads on your back. We arrived at the lower area wich was home to a couple of good V.2's and a few harder problems with terrible landings. We were pretty spent after the trudge up the hillside and after inspecting the landings I tried out a V.7 called Beckeys Problem. Making descent progress but scared of falling I gave up and we spent the rest of the time doing two V.2's on a cool boulder. The rock is grainy and sharp, salt and pepper granite, and the problems have not really seen a lot of traffic. The two problems we did do were good, not great, and provided some entertainment after our power hike.

Al looking for the top out on Sarah aka Jennifer Connoloy(V.2)

Instead of wasting more time and energy on exploring unknown possibilities we headed back down and decided to go to a cool riverside boulder called the Hucoe Crimper boulder. I had checked this boulder out the last time I was here but didn't bother putting my shoes on becuase of the rocky landing. Now that I had enough pads to make a menstruating elephant happy, plus a spotter, I was really psyched to try the boulders namesake problem that went at V.6. As I was putting on my shoes a couple other boulderers arrived and started working the problems around the corner. I figured out my beta and pulled on, I couldn't quite get my heel in the starting hold slot so I toe hooked and the first move felt solid, a good wrap on a slopy pinch. The next move was a bump from the slopey pinch to solid sloper. I matched on the sloper and kept myself on with a sharp crimp. Getting my feet up I rocked over to a side pull, one more slap to a sloper near the victory jug and voila!

Me repeating the Hueco Crimper(V.6) after the flash.

I was standing at the top, I had just flashed the Hueco Crimper! That really provided me with some good energy after the Labyrinth disaster, and Al and I moved around the corner to join the other guys trying a V.2 and V.4. I flashed both problems which were excellent and then spotted some chalked up holds near the end of the boulder that didn't seem to go anywhere. The starting holds were good flat edges but the boulder formed a rounded undercut near the bottom and there was almost no feet. One of the other guys at the boulder came over and started trying to plan a sequence with me. After uncovering a tiny crimpy undercling near the lip we threw ourselves at the problem hoping for first ascent fame. The move was pretty powerful and the feet were tiny, but I made good progress getting close a couple of times before becoming too tired to try anymore. I will definitely revisit this project wich I named The Watership Down project, it felt like it could be solid V.8.

Me getting the heel high to make the hard press for the tiny undercling.

I wanted to show Al a couple more spots so we packed up and headed for Swiftwater. This turned out to be a huge bust because of the problem selection. We tried two incredibly contrived and craptastic problems called Chicken Man(V.8) and Goat Boy(V.7), both one move problems on sandy granite. After failing to be inspired by the two previous problems we wandered around Swiftwater for a little bit and fearing that our time was running low we checked out one more spot called the Backseat which was another bust beacuse of the terrible landings. We called it quits, loaded up on overpriced petroleum, and headed back to Olympia. The day was really hit or miss, but the good areas were really good and made up for the ones that were less than fun. Driving back home I felt like I always do after a day of bouldering, tired, hungry, and ready to get back on a rope! Of course I always say that and then the next chance I get I'm right back out there lugging my crash pads around. Thanks again Al for coming out there with me and spotting my fat ass, hope you had a good time. Also thanks to Jimmy for letting me borrow your triple, and a big thanks to Laura for entrusting me with her new crash pad. All I have to say is that it's not new anymore.

Al sending Missin' Nugget(V.2) on the Hueco Crimper boulder.