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.