Climbing Adventures in Canada: Leavenworth, WA

A few weeks back I was introduced to Craig who is now a local who is working as a post doc at UW. His buddy was one of the guys who pitched in a helped carry me out the last 1/4 from Oak Creek Canyon at Red Rocks when I rolled my ankle (see April 2007 Red Rocks trip report).

Wanting to introduce Craig to some of Washington's finer side of climbing I decided to take him to Snow Creek Wall. Since Outer Space - the 5 star classic on the wall - would most likely be crowded on this fine weathered weekend, I decided against doing it and decided to check out a longer more varied route which I thought would provide a fun day out. We decided to give Galaxy 5.8+ (FA 1966) a run since it goes at a moderate grade for about 9 or so odd pitches and would be a good climb for us to feel each other out. The guidebook doesn't say much more than pro to 3" and describes the route as wandering up the gully to the left of Iconoclast.

Craig met me at my place around 6am and we took off for Leavenworth making a Starbucks pit stop along the way. We parked at the Snow Creek Trail Head, packed and made good time up to the base of the wall in about 75 minutes. The weather was sunny but a nice cool wind was blowing down from the pass and keeping the temperatures moderate for the day. After racking up I started up the lower slabs and the route basically went as follows:

P1: Start up what best figures as the easier entry to the gully system 5.6 and pass slings atop of the first set of blocks. Move up and right thru bushes to find gear and then step further right on good face moves to continue up until reaching the 2nd set of slings 20' higher.

P2: Continue up the corner/crack/gulley system 5.7, to a two pin rap/belay station. (We climbed past this and enjoyed building our own belay about 30ft. below the tree and at the bottom of a left trending rotten crack that lulls one out on the chossy face and towards a stew of slings and a small dying shrub-ask me how I know!)

P3: From the 2 pin belay continue up the corner/crack with fine stemming and jamming, 5.8+, until 30ft. below the tree. Move up and right and get good gear in cracks on right. Traverse back left across a thin ledge and a blank face (no protection) and into a rotten layback crack reaching the tree from the right. - note to test the pins, the one on the right was loose and I hammered it back in with a rock!

P4: Continue up from the tree in the ramp and crack system leading up to another bush and another rotten corner. 15 feet up this corner reaches another ledge and belay point.

Our actual pitch four led us up behind the tree on a clean slab that had no gear. I followed this to the left side of a bushy ramp and a big boulder. I then proceeded to bash my way up the ramp and wack those bushes aside until I got on top and found 2 cams to place. The next logical step was across and into the rotten corner that I describe as P4. At this point we decided to bail since we spent too much time getting lost and gardening the route. Kramer's hand drawn topo of the wall was frustrating to follow as it doesn't really describe the features on the upper section of this wall very well. We ended up trying to follow a route that didn't seem there!

I have to say that the third pitch is great but overall the climb would be much better if it would see more traffic. Good gear but way too much greenery on the route that we had to bash thru or tear out. The cracks were also very dirty and required much cleaning for us to place gear and proceed. It felt more like landscaping then climbing. We later discovered that the slings on the chossy face and dying shrub are useful for bailing from the route. A single 60m doesn't go from the tree to the 2 pin rap below so one must use the intermediate station. The small tree at that rap is quickly decaying so it'll be a short time before it's gone.

I'd like to go back and finish the line but from below the route finding for the next 4-5 pitches looks just as wonder filled as some of the earlier stuff. Craig was great about the whole thing and we had two good karma events that day: 1) missed a speeding ticket on the way over; 2) recovered a lost #10 Stopper in the bushes.