I reminded myself recently of why I generally prefer to climb privately with friends, and how doing Mounties' climbs can be painful. I wanted to chip away at finishing the Intermediate Course (which I still intend to do) by rope-leading on a Basic Rock Climb. We did a cool climb, albeit ridiculously easy, in an area of the Cascades that I hadn't spent any time in before. This may rival Yellowjacket Tower as the easiest Basic Rock climb. The only difference is it is quite a bit longer, in terms of amount of technical terrain covered. We simul-climbed the whole thing, thank God, and I would put any of the moves at harder than 5.4. The rock was extremely suspect, as bad as anywhere in the Cascades. But the setting was superb - sunny weather, perfect temps, great views of Mt. Daniel, Mt. Stuart, and lots of Cascades peaks I'm not familiar with. What made the outing slightly painful was the pace. Matt Jillson and I could have done this entire climb car-to-car in 6-7 hours, it took our team 13 hours. They actually moved pretty well on the way up. The descent was at a snails' pace. Rappelling took forever, of course, as did downclimbing the steep snow couloir (it actually was pretty dang steep for a Basic student). So what would have been a quick, easy, mellow jaunt into the Cascades, turned into the classic all-day Basic Rock climb foray. But oh well, I think everyone had fun. Here's some photos:
View of the objective from the parking lot:
Cool views of Mt. Stuart from the Southeast (I think):
The snow couloir leading to the SW Face:
Vivian climbing the couloir:
Easy 5th-class simul-climbing, David rounds the gendarme:
Upper section of the SW Face:
David and Jerome follow as we near the summit:
Me on the summit, with Mt. Stuart:
Me and Jerome Velosky on the summit:
Me and Tord Kurthy on the summit:
My little Yaris braving the crazy creek crossing on the road on the way home. It made it:
