Colchuck Balanced Rock

My body feels wrecked.

On Tuesday, I got off work at 8 pm.  I picked up a few things I had forgotten at my apartment and, after a convenient falafel on Lake City Way, drove to the Colchuck and Stewart Lakes trailhead outside of Leavenworth, Washington.  I got in around 11 and slept in my truck ’till a nice, alpine start at 4 am–my friend, Marcus, was already camped up at Colchuck lake and would be waiting for me when I arrived.  We needed lots of daylight ahead of us if we were going to climb any of the peaks we had talked about in the weeks prior.

I nudged Marcus awake when I found him at the South end of Colchuck lake, camped in a small patch of dirt within a field of car-sized boulders.  After I set up my tent, we prepared to climb.  We had talked about climbing a few different routes, but decided on the West Face of Colchuck Balanced Rock (or CBR)–a beautiful series of cracks that splits a peak hanging over the East side of the lake.

The camp at Colchuck Lake

It being June–somewhat early for alpine rock climbing–much of the approach to CBR was on snow.  Over the course of a few hours, we kicked our way up to the base and proceeded to cache some gear that we would grab on the way down.

Marcus on a saddle below CBR

CBR looms right above

Dragontail Peak (I think) behind me

The rock climbing on this route was excellent, but it crushed us.  Easier, fun climbing brought us to an immaculate, 90-degree, 100-foot corner that stands below a giant roof.  Unfortunately, the top 15 feet of the crack proved to be drenched by runoff, tossing aside our goal of climbing the route free (as opposed to aid climbing, in which protection placed in the cracks is weighted and pulled on to move up).  After aiding another wet pitch that traversed under the roof, we were exhausted and running out of time to finish the route with enough daylight to easily descend back to camp.  We decided to pull on gear through the next section too, nominally the crux if free climbed but easy when you pull on protection, and then blasted our way up through a series of helmet-crunching chimneys–the last of the difficult climbing.  Another couple hundred feet of easy climbing led us to the balanced rock of Colchuck Balanced Rock and the summit.

Starting up the 90* corner

A few feet before the wetness

Marcus follows the corner

The belay above the corner: 2 fixed nuts, 2 fixed pins, and a yellow TCU

The bag being hauled up with our boots inside

Starting the chimney pitch

Marcus belays me to the summit

Colchuck Lake from above

Sitting on the balanced rock of CBR

We knew the descent would be heinous and long if we let the sun go down, so we rappelled East off the summit to a scree-field and a snow field and finally to the cache of gear we left at the base of the route.  Re-tracing our path from the beginning of the day, we plunge-stepped the remaining snow fields and made it back to camp without major incident (disregarding me plunging up to my chest into a hole in the snow).  We finished the night with a congratulatory hug and a massive franken-meal of rice with zuchinni, onions, green onions, eggs, and avocado plus chili flakes and sesame seeds sprinkled on top.  Then, we proceeded to sleep.

Descending the snowfields to the cache at the base of CBR (I’m bottom right)

We woke up Thursday morning to a light drizzle and packed our heavy packs for the slog down to the trailhead.  Marcus had been climbing, skiing, and camping at Colchuck Lake for days beforehand and I had just pulled a 19 hour day of foot-travel and climbing; we were worked.  The truck was a beautiful sight as we shuffled toward it; I was grateful neither of us broke an ankle with our big packs.  After a quick meal and the day’s first cup of coffee (at 3 pm) at Good Mood Food in Leavenworth, we zipped back to Seattle, where I dropped Marcus off at his grandparents and we agreed to do this again as soon as we could.

This was one of the bigger adventures I’ve ever had; snow travel added to hard climbing on a long day really adds up, and I haven’t felt so tired or sore in a long time.  I hope to go back later in the summer, when the rock has dried, and climb the route free.

More of the last 9 months to come soon!

Wrangell, AK

Two weeks ago, I flew from Seattle to Ketchikan, Alaska, and from there to the island town of Wrangell.  Wrangell is in Southeast Alaska, the pan-handle of island chains and coastline that stretch out from Alaska’s body to meet the coastline of Canada.

This summer, from July through August, I’m working on a salmon tender boat.  Our boat starts the week by bringing ice to 10 or 11 boats in our district, some 60-70 500-lb bags of ice lifted by crane and guided into place by me and the rest of the crew.  Once the fleet is iced up, we wait for them to catch a day’s worth of fish and do rounds through our district, pitching the fish they catch into our tank and supplying them with more ice, if necessary.  The boats can only fish for a set number of days, determined by the local fish and game staff, in order to regulate the population of salmon in the area and allow for future generations of fish.  We take more fish in, returning to town mid-week if necessary for more ice, and eventually head back to town on Wednesday or Thursday to drop our final load of fish off and take ice for the next week.

The Towego, our 58 foot boat

Leaving Wrangell

Loading and unloading fish and ice can only take so long, however.  After the work is over or between boats on opposite sides of the water, my time is free to read, listen to music or radio programs, or get some exercise.  And there’s a lot of free time.  I’ve found that I’m exhausted whenever I’m not working, and I have a reputation for falling asleep in the cabin between boats.

I’m working this summer with Gabe, the captain of the boat, and Carla, the other deckhand and cook for the boat.  Gabe has been fishing for more than 10 years, running this tender for the last five.  Carla is a returning deckhand from last year–Gabe and Carla knew each other from Leavenworth before working on the boat together.  Gabe drives the boat, Carla cooks delicious food, and I sleep and ask if I can help with anything.  And then another boat appears and we get to work again.

The cabin and kitchen

One of Carla’s amazing meals

The work this summer hasn’t been easy, but I eat better than I ever have before and I’m getting to see truly beautiful land and sky wherever I look.  And I’m simply blasting through books.  It’s going to be a wild summer.

 

In-between time

I leave for Alaska in a week–here’s what I’ve done meanwhile:

KJ at the Firewall

Tigerlilly

Diablo lake, I think?

Ben, Matt and me

Zach ponders the Snow Creek wall

Granite slab+big creek= water slide?

Darrington approach…

From a saddle over Hidden Lake

Matt’s psyched on The Hairpin on The Papoose

Leavenworth and what’s next

Since the last time I posted, I bought a truck and got nationally certified as an EMT after a month-long course in Leavenworth.  I’m writing now from Squamish, where the weather was cool enough to climb.  Some more time has landed on my table, too, as I have nothing to do before traveling up to Alaska in July to work on a tender boat in Wrangell, an island in Alaska’s panhandle.  Here are some photos from the last few months (in chronological order):

Enjoying the roar of Icicle Creek

Steven’s Pass was still covered in snow in April when I tried skiing for the first time

Christina, one of my EMT instructors, bundles a fellow student up in a litter

The brothers Kneipp in their natural habitat

Aven and Gregg from my EMT course think they’re clever, taking photos with my phone while I was off getting a beer

Derek enjoys being red in a field of green

Some peace and quiet looking toward the Olympics from Iron Mountain in Sedro-Wooley

Joe finishes up the last pitch of “Bulletheads East” in Squamish, BC

Dan takes a rest while Mikhal belays him at Rogue’s Gallery just North of Squamish (rope disconnections courtesy of my Iphone’s panorama feature)

More to come soon!

In the words of James Brown…

“I’m BACK!”

Luke and I started out in Siurana, where it was rainy and cold and we were jetlagged.

We drank lots of coffee.

Then we went to Margalef, where there are lots of little pockets in the rock that are really hard to hold onto.  We were still jetlagged!  We decided to go to Terradets, up north a bit.

Bruxes wall, Terradetes

Very beautiful place!

We climbed on the Bruxes wall in Terradets for a little over a week.  The wall is like a massive wave frozen into limestone, dripping stalagmites called “tufas” that climbers pinch their way up.  The climbing is strange and fantastic (and really hard)–long and demanding routes that are steeply overhung the whole way.  We met tons of wonderful Brits there on vacation from the boredom of the British winter, something I could identify with.

While climbing in Terradets, we stayed at a hostel in the tiny town of Abella de la Conca, perched upon the side of a limestone mountain in the middle of nowhere, Catalunya.

Luke sits on eye-level with the birds in front of the hostel

The hostel itself is in a house that is probably older than the United States.  It smelled old.  Nothing was level and it looked like it was made out of building materials that actually looked like they came out of the earth, unlike any building I’d been in in the States.  It was so comfortable and welcoming that we stayed in the area partly just to stay in this hostel.

The setting of the hostel is, likewise, remarkable.  Valleys filled with farms spread themselves across the view from the hostel window, limestone walls jut out above the town’s streets, and wonderful rock climbing is only a 10 minute walk away.  If you decide to walk an hour, though, you can be blessed by the sight of a series of giant limestone arches in the hillside above the town (which have climbing on them).

From the outside

And from the inside

Truly an awe-inspiring place.  I felt lucky to find such a gem so far outside of a normal tourist’s path.

Luke and I got shut down by the routes we were trying at Bruxes wall, though, and decided it was a good idea to change up our locale, though.  Our friend Em, who we met at the hostel in Abella, recommended Chulilla, a town outside of Valencia, a few hours south of our current location.

Look close–you can barely see Chulilla next to the huge limestone walls!

We were supposed to go to the island of Mallorca in a little over a week, but Luke and I said, “What the hell,” and drove a few hours south.  We ended up liking Chulilla so much that we skipped our flight to Mallorca and just stayed for the rest of the trip.

This town was likewise home to a wonderful hostel called Altico.  Perched on top of the cliff-line that abuts the town to the north, Altico is a windy, sunny hub of activity for climbers in the area.  Within walking distance are hundreds of routes, grocery/bakery/climbing shops, and the climber’s bar (cracker thin, straight dope pizza on the weekends).  This is a paradise for climbers.

The crew stares at the “pared de enfrente” crag on the wall adjacent to Altico

The climbing was varied and exceptional, as well.  The cliffs face all different cardinal directions, so if one wall is too hot to climb on one wall because of the sunshine, you can just plan to walk to a different one.  The routes can vary from short and powerful to ridiculously long (50+ meters) at all sorts of grades.  Most of the roues we climbed were from 30-40 meters, though–bring your 80 meter rope for a trip to Chulilla!  The climbing style was often vertical and crimpy, testing our endurance and, honestly, emotional strength (trying that hard for that long is tough).  There are sections, however, of huge overhanging walls (read: difficult routes) and massive vertical tufas–something I’d never encountered.  These vertical tufas make for incredible stemming and pinching for climbers of most skill levels; I warmed up on a 40 meter 6b+ (5.10d) tufa route one day, one of the most memorable climbs of the trip.

The people we met in Chulilla were wonderful as well.  I had a blast speaking bad Spanish to our hosts (Pedro and Nuria) with Alan, telling awful jokes with Magda, having my photo taken too many times with Madis, and being giggled at by Hampus.  Altico was a melting pot of European climbers: Poland, Estonia, Germany, France, the UK, Sweden, Finland, and many other nationalities represented themselves.

Alan, Madis, and Luke

I hope I can go again!

I’m back in Seattle for another month, though, so send me a message.

Whoops.

My phone is broken and I didn’t bring a computer. Looks like I won’t be making many blog posts! Look forward to some photos and stories in the future though.

Spain

I’m boarding a flight to Barcelona this afternoon.

The summer left me with many questions about what to do with the next few months and a lot of open possibilities.  Repeat the road trip from the previous winter?  Stay in Seattle with friends and a job?

I chose to travel abroad on a climbing trip–something that I had talked about doing all summer in Lander.  Living frugally and saving most of my paychecks from working at the Lander Bar left me with enough cash to buy a plane ticket when Luke suggested Spain, and my feelings of ‘what’s next’ uncertainty made the idea of a concrete plan I couldn’t back out of seem like a relief.  I bought the ticket–I would go to Spain in Febuary.

Living in Seattle from September till now has had ups and downs.  A living situation with good friends from Bellingham spontaneously appeared, and I spent a lot of time with old friends from Seattle who I hadn’t seen for far too long.  Working two jobs for the month of December is something I won’t soon forget though, so everything comes at its price.

I’m mostly just glad to be able to take a trip like this–not many people have the freedom to follow their passions the way I’m able to.  I’m traveling to one of the most famous areas of the world for sport climbing: Catalonia, Spain, and I’m traveling there with a good friend and climbing partner.  I perceive opportunities like this as a way to build myself–there’s tons to learn about out there, and I’m hoping to soak as much as possible in while I can.

More to come soon!

Journey to the West

A lot has happened since the last time I posted anything!  I’m back in Western Washington for a time, and I’ve never been so happy to see my family and old friends.  Here’s what I’ve been doing in the last two months (in picture form).

 The Wind River Range, Again

Tensleep, Wyoming: Sport Climbing Paradise

Squamish, BC

Washington Pass

It’s Good to be BackNext: Leavenworth?  Heading back south?  Staying in Seattle?  Don’t ask me.

Lander Livin’

When I moved into my car at the beginning of June, I didn’t think I’d end up having roommates.  That’s not to say that I have other people living in my car with me; I just have friends who work with me that are also living in their cars for the summer, so when I wake up, it’s not unusual to see my so-called room mates up making breakfast in their kitchens, much like living in a mobile house where the bedrooms are vehicles and the bathrooms are a short walk away.  This is living and working in lander: the strange imitates the normal and the normal is totally wacky.

The evening sky from Lander City Park

A day in the month of July would begin by waking up either in the city park or about 40 minutes out of town in the parking lot (read: beautiful clearing in the woods) for the Aspen Glades wall in the Wild Iris climbing area.  After some breakfast, whoever was around would rally to go climb, hiking 30 minutes through alpine meadows full of flowers to bolted limestone walls.

The walk to/from Main Wall at Wild Iris

Not actually Wild Iris, but definitely dolomite. This is the Killer Cave in Sinks Canyon

Climbing on bolts like this, called “sport” climbing, involves as much falling as it does climbing, usually, due to the fact that most sport climbers seek out a route that will be difficult to the point that it might not be physically possible for that climber to do.  The process of climbing a route at your limit is called “projecting,” and often begins either with many falls or by cheating your way up by grabbing onto the fixed protection, as it’s difficult to climb a route whose holds you’ve never seen before.  Climbing a project can be a process of weeks, months, or even years, and successfully climbing up a project without falling is one of the main draws of sport climbing.

Other days, we might go bouldering instead: another contrived but super-fun kind of climbing that involves picking the most improbable way up a boulder and climbing it without a rope on.  Some of the best granite bouldering in Lander, found at a place called the Rock Shop, is just a 10 minute drive from the limestone sport climbing.  Every move of a “boulder problem” (analogous to a “sport route”) is hard, so falling while bouldering is even more a part of the process than it is in sport climbing.  Thankfully, big foam pads and your friends’ guiding hands help you fall without hurting yourself.  Bouldering is also often a more relaxed day: you try a few moves on a boulder problem, then you rest and complain about how sharp the holds are and how much the skin on your fingertips hurts.  Sometimes, it’s only necessary to just walk up to a boulder and touch the holds before complaining about your skin!  Once your skin is spent, you can reasonably spend the rest of the day alternately taking naps and heckling the people who are somehow still climbing.  Really though, bouldering is one of the most fun styles of climbing: athletic, powerful, and engaging (sometimes you fall off from the top!).

Boulder bash at the Rock Shop

Kian is, believe it or not, bouldering in this photo

Once 2 or 3 o’clock rolled around, it would be time to head back to the car to go to work at the Gannet Grill/Lander bar–famously the climbers’ haunt in this small ranch-town-turned-outdoor-mecca.  One can expect any number of things to happen at work in the kitchen, depending on which position you’re working that night. The grill cook might run out of hamburger patties to cook, the person taking orders at the window might have up to five groups of NOLS students (at around 12 people a pop) to take complicated orders from, and the person running the food out by name (who has no idea where people are and must rely on the people who ordered to be listening for their names) might have to deal with a band playing outside which masks the names he or she is yelling.  The one thing you can count on is to have something interesting, or maybe heinous, happen.  Thankfully, we all work at a bar, so you can have a nice drink afterward to mellow out before going to sleep.

Now, repeat this process for a couple of months.

Here are some snapshots from the spring and summer:

While I was still living in a house during April and May, I started baking lots of quiche; here’s one of the products.

The fourth of July at the Rudy household. Rawkus!

Nate, head brewer at Lander Brewing, demonstrates his new pony-keg-plus-backpack method of beer distribution

Luke has just found his dream camp-chair in the middle of the road. Luke is psyched!

Summer is winding down; I can smell change in the air!  I’ll be back in Washington in a month.  Hope I see you there!

Four months later: the Cirque of the Towers

I haven’t published anything in four months because I haven’t done anything very exciting for a long time (work, sport climbing, work, bouldering, work, sport climbing, etc.).  I’ll follow this post up with a collection of photos, stories, and videos from the last few months though.

More importantly, my friend Luke and I made a trip to the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River Range for a few days earlier this week.

The Cirque is an improbable collection of huge glacier-carved granite towers just a few hours drive and hike from Lander.  The rock is solid (not chossy kitty-litter, like some granite), the setting is breathtaking, and the climbing is abundant, committing, and fun.  There are tons of granite towers to climb, dotting the trail approaching the Cirque and surrounding you once you’ve reached the basin of the Cirque itself.  From the car, the approach to climbing in or near the basin is a few hours walk with a big ol’ pack on your back, so it’s nice to have an idea of what you’re doing so as to not precipitously screw up in a place that is somewhat far away from civilization (the committing aspect).  What awaits you when you get there are impossibly large walls of granite that provide a fun time for climbers of any skill, from easy rambles up ridgelines to hard free-climbing up clean vertical faces.  There’s not even a need to climb there to have a good time–many visitors simply hike in to enjoy camping and fishing near the cerulean alpine lakes and rolling meadows full of indian paintbrush, alpine daisies, and other wildflowers.

Luke and I got off work on Sunday around 4 pm and made it up the pass and through a field of talus to our camp in the Cirque at 11:30 with the spectral light of the Milky Way occasionally pulling our eyes away from the monotony of the trail.  We set up camp in some soft grass and tried to sleep for a few hours before the alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am, telling us to get our gear on to climb.  Our goal was to be the first party of climbers on the Northeast face of Pingora, a super-classic route that gets the, “must do” from everyone who climbs it.  We began hiking at first light, after some coffee and oats; me with a rope-turned-backpack and Luke with our rack of cams, nuts, and slings.

A bleary-eyed Luke prepares for the climb with Pingora as a backdrop

After reaching the start of the route via some sketchy slab moves, Luke blasted off into the first of 10-or-so pitches (rope-lengths of climbing) of the day.  We made our goal of being the first on the route, but through the day we met two other parties of climbers on the same route, one of them passing us toward the top of the climb.

Down-valley from the first pitch that morning

Luke follows as we swing leads

Getting passed by some folks from Tennesee

The Northeast face of Pingora is exceptional in that the climbing is not extremely hard, getting a rating of 5.8 at the most difficult, but is consistently vertical for all 10 pitches and often exposed, the view downward a sheer drop into the lake in the basin of the Cirque.  The granite on the climb forms large flakes of rock to climb up, pulling on the outside of the flake and pasting your feet on the inside or wedging your whole body between the flake and the wall to scoot your way up.  After nine hours of climbing, we reached the summit, looked around, ate some food, and took some photos.

The nearby “Wolf’s Head” from the top of Pingora

Obligatory (says Luke) “Summit Selfie”

Everywhere we looked, granite towers blasted out of the ground to form sheer walls; more to climb in the future.  A few minutes later, it was time to descend.  We rappelled down a few faces off of convenient webbing slings left by other climbers and rambled down some shelves on the other side of the tower.  We were soon back at camp eating Annie’s white shells and cheddar with tuna and taking pulls of Wild Turkey.

Luke, exhausted, has made it into the basin from the descent

Filling the void full with tuna-mac

The next day, we set out with a plan to climb a route on the nearby Sundance Pinacle, but were thwarted in our attempt to approach from the wrong side of the peak, spending a few hours building our calves and quads with high-steps through a boulder field.  Once we reached the other side, we chose not to climb that day, the decision a combination of our already-late start, some glances at the accumulating clouds, and our poor luck so far.  Instead, we hiked down to Clear Lake, set up camp next to a beautiful, sandy beach, and had a fun rest day of napping, hiking, and fishing.

A soft-sand beach in the alpine

Making the most of our time in the mountains

Rest-day romping

The day culminated with a chow-down on the fattiest fish I’d ever eaten, caught by Luke about 15 minutes before we fried them up.

The next morning, we blasted out of the alpine to the car in a few hours and made it back to Lander before work with enough time for me to go to the gym and get a work-out in.

This trip into the Winds felt like spending time inside Tolkein’s Middle Earth; a real-world fantasy land.  I can’t wait to go back next Sunday!