May Shenanigans
One failed trip is the foundation of another. Or something like that…
Fail: Mount St. Helens summit
Success: Leavenworth climbing & trail running
One of the amazing things about Washington's landscape is that if it's stormy on one side of the cascades (read: St Helens was getting socked with precipitation), there are blue skies and warm temps on the other side of the passes (Leavenworth was 75 and sunny all weekend).
We quickly got over our bummed-out moods about another inopportune weather window for St. Helens and re-packed our bags from splitboards + avy gear to climbing gear + running shoes and headed out to Icicle Creek for the weekend.
It was our first trad leads of the season, so we wanted to start them out easy on Mountaineers wall. Turns out we weren't the only ones with this idea, as there was already groups on the wall and a queue forming up. We made a call to explore some walls east of the area, and found some great routes.
Gibson's Crack
We spent the 2nd half of the afternoon on Sport routes:
A new route that we're assuming is not yet done being bolted. The bottom was a spicy fest of featureless slabs with thin finger crack-like features. The top was more blank slab.
Contractor Rock: Slabs on Slabs on Slabs!
The next day, after waking up and shaking off our headaches from the night before, we parted ways with Christian and Dave, who went back to Seattle. Meanwhile, Katy and I opted to spend the day trail running.
We parked the car along icicle creek and aimed for Colchuck Lake. We had to turn around a few miles shy of our objective due to snow, but not before we were rewarded with some great views of the canyon and some burn from elevation.
Another great weekend in the hills.
(A couple more photos here: http://flickriver.com/photos/elygerbin/sets/72157645177450801/)
