Washington Granite
I’m finally back in California after a two week escapade in the Pacific North West where I climbed for 10 days straight. The climbing in Washington was super inspiring and I managed to send some of the proudest lines I’ve ever tried as a result. The highlight was when Adam Martos and I top out the Liberty Bell in the North Cascades via a difficult 12 pitch route called Thin Red Line just before sunset. I managed to onsight all but a single move on the route. For the first time in my life, I lowered back down from the top of the pitch, cleaned my gear, and reclimbed the pitch on lead in order to count the send. What a funny concept.
After 3 days of climbing in the North Cascades, Adam and I drove down to Mazama to climb an 18 pitch sport route called Flyboys. This was supposed to be our “rest day” but being that the temperatures reached 105 degrees and we opted to haul up a huge speaker to blast on route in lieu of taking any water, it turned out to be a tiring endeavor. We still managed to climb all 1800 feet in 2 hours and 14 minutes.
Temperatures reached 107 on the drive down to Index but when we arrived, we were greeted by a beautiful forest, cooling temps, busy railroad tracks, and a turquoise colored river running right next to camp. The scene was awesome to say the least... we made lots of bomb food, hung out with great people, and coincidentally met the developer who put up two of the routes we had just climbed up in the North Cascades. But in addition to the hang, we quickly discovered that Index has the best single pitch granite climbing either of us had ever encountered. We spent days ticking off classic routes, onsighting as much as possible, and occasionally taking some pretty big falls on gear. Other than all the bomb food we made, the highlight of the trip for me was onsighting a route called Natural Log Cabin. This 40 meter pitch rated 11d R is hands down the best single pitch I have ever climbed. Some dude named Alex Honnold called it “the hardest 11d in the world” and while the guidebook gives it an R rating, I found it to be quite safe after some gear beta from a dude we met named Tavish.
On my ninth straight day of climbing, I linked up with Natalie Afonina to try a newish 7 pitch route called Afterburner on Snow Creek Wall out of the Leavenworth area. I’m usually the one to obsess over researching climbs before I try them but I went into this one completely blind. I didn’t have any sort of high expectation, but I was totally shocked by how good the route was. The 3 crux pitches were all sustained at a similar grade yet were of totally different style relative to one another. I climbed the route without falling which apparently means I got the second free ascent.
