Jimmy, Nic, Micah 1. Coffee Cup 0.
My Gato prepares to stomp on the unsuspecting invader, the house spider! He can also climb V.futon, but he cheats and uses his claws.
Anyhow, last week my friend Nic and I set off to Leavenworth with out the slightest idea of what awaited us; our hardest send the Coffee Cup(V.9). This week I took my friend Jimmy back out to Leavenworth to show him this beautiful problem and see what damage he could do. After arriving at the lower Forestland area and going through the motions of warming up; One Summer, The Real Thing, Breadline, Breadline Dyno, The Shield, and taking a good crack at Backdoor Ass Attack(soooo close yet again), we shuffled up the steep hillside to the upper Forestland area and headed straight for the Coffee Cup. Relieved to find some shade and shedding the heavy loads of our crashpads, I gave Jimmy the skinny on the problem pointing out what Nic and I had done to get to the top. About an hour later and several close attempts and many brushings of holds Jimmy launched himself from the middle crimp to the top with a triumphant growl and topped out the problem for his first ever V.9! Great job Jimmy! I managed to get it on video tape but he fell on the top out, subsequently sending it while I was spotting him the next go. Check out the video on youtube.com under Redpoint films. The day was already off to a great start as we headed back to the car. On a side note, the Forestland was crawling with avid boulderers that day, and just about everyone of them had a copy of Kelly Sheridan’s new guidebook Central Washington Bouldering. That guide has really taken off, and so far I have met two different groups from Vancouver, B.C. which means the word is spreading and Leavenworth will soon be as polished as Squamish! I can’t be mad though, if it weren’t for that guide I would have never known Leavenworth was the bouldering paradise that it is. Plus everyone I have met so far has been really cool and has nothing but good things to say about the problems and the rock quality.
It was a pretty overcast day, but the temps were warm so we sought shade at the Sword and I was eager to get back on a sweet problem called Ressurrection. As we approached the first boulder at the Sword we were greeted by a couple trying the Prism, but I’m not sure they spoke English because in response to my cheery ‘Hello’ they just gave me a strange look. We kept walking on back to the Towering Sword boulder itself, which is home to the problem I wanted to try and low and behold ran into a group of boulderers one of which I had climbed with before. A really nice guy from Seattle named Ryan who I met a while ago, I think in November, with my friends Dom, Laura, and Tony, who at the time was all by himself so we kind of absorbed him into our little group. He was there with three other people who were all students at the UW. Ryan was trying a problem just left of Ressurrection called Go Baby!(V.6) and he was coming agonizingly close to sticking the first move. He was anxious to send it because it would have been his second ever V.6.
We shared our mats as Ryan tried Go Baby! and I tried Ressurrection. As I explained in my previous blog Ressurrection is a great slopey compression problem that starts on a fat prow with both arms spread out between a good sidepull and a terrible sloper. Getting a high left foot and launching to a good sidepull/sloper and then slapping up the other side on more slopers you finally come face to face with pulling over the bulge of the prow arms spread between two slopey sidepulls. And this is where I found myself time and time again until finally I put my foot high on a smear and trusted it enough to stand up and snag the victory crimp just in sight. Oh what a glorious moment that was, but I wasn’t celebrating yet. The top out loomed overhead and with the lip at 25 feet and guarded by a mossy, lichen encrusted dihedral that was chalk free I had to do some serious soul searching. At that moment I asked myself, ‘what would Dom do?’. Just kidding, I actually don’t think I was thinking at all as I felt my way to the top almost teetering off and snagging a jug before pressing out over the lip somewhat shakily. In the end I stood on top of the Sword boulder for the first time still faced with a tree down climb. I grabbed the trunk of the tree and felt it sway under my weight and realized half the branches were skinnier than my arms. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt because it had been so warm and my pale white skin was exposed to the bark and sap of the tree I was so desperately depending on to get me down safely. I must have looked like a polar bearing climbing a tree. My feet finally touched solid ground and I was able to continue breathing and tried to play it off as if I hadn’t been phased at all but my climbing mates were already reminding me of how my legs looked like they were about to shake off my body as I hauled myself over the lip. I was extremely proud both of the ascent and of the top out and I decided that Ressurrection would go down, at least in my mind, as one of the best problems I have done in Leavenworth so far.
After that I worked on Go Baby! with Ryan and Jimmy finally sending it after four or five tries, it was a tough little problem. We talked to Ryan about where they were headed next and we both agreed on Egg Rock. So packed up and said we would see them there.
A friend of Ryan's trying on the Egg Rock classic Weather Report(V.3)
Egg Rock is a cool little spot right off the road with some stellar boulders. Home to the infamous Jerry Garcia project that is no longer a project thanks toKelley Sheridan, and Musashi(V.9) which was a big part of the reason I wanted to go there. It also has some great moderates like Smoke Stack Lightin’(V.2), a really challenging slab called China Cat(V.2), and a sweet V.3 called Weather Report that has an interesting fin like feature. It had been raining off and on since we had arrived at the Sword and while we ate some lunch in the car a few other people showed up. As the rain stopped we dragged our pads up to the boulders and immediately checked out Musashi.
Me on the 'easier' part of Musashi(V.9)
It was a lot harder and harsher than we wanted at that point and after a couple of goes decided to come back when we were stronger. In the meantime we went down to the other boulders and did some fun problems with Ryan and his friends, and a few other people I had climbed with before but had not met formerly. It was a great little group we had going and the problems were fun and we laughed and just hung out.
Another one of Ryan's friends topping out Weather Report(V.3) Sorry, I'm terrible with names.
We finished up at Egg Rock and headed straight to a place I had never been to before, the last spot on my hit list in Icicle, all the way down the canyon called Tin Man. A sweet bloc of granite located on top of a short steep scramble that literally plateaus onto a meadow. The area is named after the one problem we came to do, Tin Man(V.6) with the low start clocking in at V.7. The weather had been the worst I had ever seen in Leavenworth so far and as we started in on Tin Man a light rain began to fall. Not being deterred we both sent the V.6 version and then started working on the low start. Jimmy gave up after a few goes but I finally stuck the crux move and had enough power to send the second crux move. Excited to have sent this classic problem in both forms the only problem I was faced with now was how to get down. The rain had drenched my previously safe down climb-a narrow dihedral-and I ended up wading through bushes and smaller rocks to safer ground. We packed up and headed on down the canyon to try another V.7 called IS, which is on the same boulder as an area classic called WAS. I had tried the problem several months ago and was not able to top it out, but it was a different story this time. In a few tries I had sent the huge throw and reached around the corner to perfectly placed crimps for the top out. So far I was cleaning up, 2 V.6’s, 2 V.7’s, and a V.8! A spectacular day for me. On top of Jimmy’s send of the Coffee Cup this was starting to become one of the best days of bouldering I had ever had. Jimmy gave IS a try but the crux move proved to be a little out of reach for him. Here is a picture of the impressive boulder:
Jimmy on the crux lunge of IS(V.7).
The rain kept coming but we were not to be deterred. Except for the fact that our skin was running low, as well as our energy and time. We finished the day at Barney’s Rubble, getting on The Rubb’ Dyno(V.8), sooo close! And sending a couple of other good problems, and running into more people I had climbed with before. Jimmy made me an official ‘regular’ of Leavenworth and I had to agree. We were both psyched on the days sends and we couldn’t help but stare off into space dreaming of the awesome granite we were lucky enough to climb on, over a Heidleburger burger. Much thanks to Jimmy for providing all of the pads, as well as a huge congratulations on the V.9 send. I just can’t get enough of this place!!
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