Leavenworth 4/19/03-4/20/03<BR>
and<BR>
Tieton River Canyon -- 4/22/03
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I had never been climbing at the Tieton River Canyon. In fact, I had barely even heard of it.
However I recently acquired a copy of the Nelson & Potterfield guidebook, which had good things to say about this area.
The climbing looked so good that I went to check it out right away!
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I just got back from a trip to Leavenworth, where I had led several 5.10 trad routes. I'm hoping to get more solid at this
grade, so hitting a few more 10's was definitely in the plan for Tieton.
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Here's a picture from right before our Leavenworth trip. We climbed Outer Space on Saturday (a classic 6-pitch 5.9 in
Snow Creek Canyon) via the 5.10b direct start. We have everything in those packs for the day--60m, 10.2mm rope, full rack
including runners & quickdraws, harnesses, rock shoes, food, water, helmets, and some emergency gear. The super-efficient
packing made the route go pretty smoothly--we wore our packs on the route, eliminating the need to hike back to the base
after finishing the climb, and were well-prepared for the day.
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<img src="packs1.JPG"><BR>
(note: the detail-oriented viewer may suspect that this photo has been edited. This was done because the background of the original photo--a nondescript room--was considerably less scenic than this alpine meadow I photographed on Granite Mountain!)
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The following day at Leavenworth, we did some cragging--Givler's Crack (sweet 5.8 handcrack), Bo Derek (10b flake), Dogleg (5.8 hands), and
Z Crack (5.10d fingers/hands). We started late and took our time, so around 6pm we were in town at Starbuck's, grabbing
some coffee for the road. However we didn't feel done climbing for the day just yet...so we stopped by Castle Rock to
climb Canary (5.8). It's typically a 3-pitch route, but we didn't start climbing until it was almost 7pm...so in the interest
of time, we did it in 2 long pitches. The route was a great finish to a fun weekend, and we were on the road by dark.
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Oops, this page was supposed to be about the Tieton River Canyon!...we went there the Tuesday after the weekend at Leavenworth.
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so we drove through Mt Rainier National Park to get there. This took about 3 1/2 hours,
and unfortunately it was too cloudy in the park to catch any good views. We drove through Yakima on the way back which was
definitely faster (more like 2.5-3 hours). We were the only car in the parking lot, and headed for the cliffs.
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<img src="tcar.JPG">
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<img src="wall1.JPG">
<img src="wall3.JPG">
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The guidebook said to cross a bridge to get across the Tieton River and access the cliffs. However, the bridge was gone!!
We wandered around for a while and found a wild steel cable & pulley system that someone had set up to allow for a river
crossing. We put the harnesses on, and made our way across. This was pretty tiring--especially pulling up along the cable
on the opposite side--but made for a good pre-climbing warm-up.
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<img src="t1.JPG">
<img src="t2.JPG">
<img src="t3.JPG">
<img src="t4.JPG">
<img src="t5.JPG">
<img src="t6.JPG">
<img src="t7.JPG">
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We started out with a bolted 5.9 slab. It was pretty run-out (4 bolts in 90 feet) and a bit scary, but the climbing--while
insecure--was not particularly difficult.
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<img src="t8.JPG">
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That climb wasn't super-fun, so we cracked open Nelson & Potterfield. This book, being a 'select' guide, only lists the
best routes at each area. We racked up for a 5.10b finger crack that the guide indicated to be of the highest quality.
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<img src="t9.JPG">
<img src="t10.JPG">
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This route was AWESOME! The guide recommended a nearby 5.10c stemming finger crack as a good follow-up. We agreed, it was
also an excellent climb.
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<img src="t11.JPG">
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We went on to do the remaining climbs recommended in Nelson & Potterfield, and enjoyed every one. Here's a hit-by-hit list
of what we climbed:
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Thriller Piller 5.9 bolted slab<BR>
Orange Sunshine 5.10b finger crack<BR>
Paul Mauk 5.10c stemming/fingers<BR>
Inca Roads 5.9 fingers & hands<BR>
Price of Complacency 5.11a bolted arete<BR>
Western Front 5.3 wide crack/corner<BR>
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It was a great day of climbing, and I'm sure I will be back soon to check out the other walls in the area.<BR>