Mushrooms, Cracks and Bolts

Skipping out early on Friday afternoon, Kristin and I picked up Moira and headed east on I84 towards Leavenworth looking forward to a couple of days of climbing. This was our first trip of the year to Der Bavarian Crackville, and we were definitely feeling the anticipation of climbing on granite for the first time in several months.

We woke up on Saturday morning at about 5 am and left for Snow Creek Wall. Kristin had never climbed Outer Space, so that was the main objective for the weekend. The last time we hung out with Doug and Moira, we tried the same route and got a late start, getting stuck behind several slow parties at Two Tree Ledge. After rapping off, we started up Champagne, only to get lost high up on the wall wondering where the hell the route went. That led to a late night of rappelling in the dark, which we were hoping to avoid this time around.

The early start helped, and we were racking up around 8-ish.
Snow Creek Wall was looking good on the hike in.

From Leavenworth May 2010

From Leavenworth May 2010

Kristin on the morning log crossing.

From Leavenworth May 2010

Looking up the stellar hand crack. Fun!

From Leavenworth May 2010

Looking back down from the top.

From Leavenworth May 2010

The spring flowers were out in the Icicle.

From Leavenworth May 2010

Saturday night, we segued from climbing into the beer-wine-bourbon triathlon in Doug's hot tub. We slept in on Sunday and drank a bunch of coffee to recover from the day before.

From Leavenworth May 2010

After pounding some serious soy for breakfast, we headed out to a fairly new local sport crag. Doug claimed we'd find steep, long routes on juggy overhanging walls of solid rock. Yeah, I'd heard that story before and was kind of skeptical, but when I got there the place lived up to its billing.

I was too busy climbing to get any good shots, but Moira got this one of me on some unknown route of unknown grade that surmounted two rad roofs up a 100 ft. overhanging cave feature. Yeah ... sounds fun huh? This place has a TON of awesome looking lines.

From Leavenworth May 2010

Oh yeah and the kicker ... fresh morels!

From Leavenworth May 2010

They made for some tasty pasta tonight.

Thanks to Doug for putting us up at Der Treehouse and Moira for the company. Excellent weekend!

Next weekend, YOU need to go climbing.

From Leavenworth May 2010