Escape into the great unknown. Finally a chance to go camping for a few days and enjoy a new climbing area. Our best chance was Tieton. We had previously been set on Mazama but the forecast made the five hour journey sound down right unappealing. We settled for two and half and by dinner time Dom, Laura, and myself were pulling into Haus Creek campsite. The drive was a very pleasant one by the way, taking us approx. 80-90 miles down a single lane road after getting off I-5. Past many farms, small towns, and up and over White Pass. Tieton River snaked alongside the road after a while and the feeling of our surroundings was mountainous. We enjoyed a small campfire and some good food before hitting the sack.
The view from Lava Point.
The next day we awoke to sun and good chances of climbing. I had never been here before but Dom and Laura had come several years back and decided which crag we were to start our trip at. A few miles up a grated dirt road led us to a trail and then finally to our destination. Lava Point. With spectacular views that stretched out on either side and a long list of new climbs we got to work with enthusiasm. The rock was very nice. Orange to dark brown basalt(?), broken in some places by gas pocketed chunks of rock that offered nice but sharp pockets and jugs, and smooth almost featureless patches of rock that had small to large flat edges. The climbing was a bit technical and slabby in places but could also turn into roofs or overhangs quickly so you had be prepared to whip out your full bag of tricks on almost every climb. We started out with a .10a that was nice and mellow to start with and then jumped straight on an .11a that had a reachy and tenuous crux move in the middle. I managed the onsight and then Laura stepped up and flashed it with a display of graceful confidence. Good way to start the trip.
Laura flashes an .11a at Lava Point.
We played around on a couple more routes, Laura almost flashed another .11a making it all the way through the sustained parts only to fall at the very last hard move. She was keen to get back on it but the rain came and we decided it was time for lunch anyway.
After a small rain shower, and a good lunch we headed back out to another crag called the Beehive. Horizontal columns pushed their way out of the earth only to be cut short on one side forming a three dimensional masterpiece of a crag. I better just let the photos tell the story here. In short I got spanked on an .11a slab, but managed to flash the .11c and .12a, while Dom got onsights of nearly everything. And Laura put up a cool looking .10d on the other side of the road that didn’t climb nearly as cool as it looked.
Dom onsighting Anaphylactic Shock(5.12a), at the Beehive wall.
Dom on AS.
Laura onsighting Horizontally Yours(5.10d)
The crimp!
That night we waited for friends who never showed, opting to arrive early morning instead, and enjoyed an uproariously good fire. We ate, drank, and talked into the night.
Aaaahhhhhh, there is truly nothing like a campfire in life.
The morning brought friends from Oly’, along with torrential downpours. We decided climbing could wait for dryer times and headed out to Yakima for some wine tasting. Out of the five wineries there only 1 is free, 1 is three dollars for a tasting, and all the rest are just too expensive or swanky looking for our campfire encrusted garments. We chose to drink for free, twice, and then antied up for the three dollar tasting and ended up buying a few bottles and having our first book club meeting right smack dab in the middle of the tasting room. I actually think our table full of young self proclaimed scholars attracted business for the winery and so we were doing everyone a favor by talking loudly and enjoying the fermented grapes of the region. Afterwards we ate lunch in a park and headed back to the soggy campsite.
A cloudy Yakima.
By nighttime the clouds had removed themselves and we sat around another slightly smaller campfire but with more faces to share in a game called…well I’m not sure but involved guessing words and asking cleverly worded questions.
We awoke yet again to more rain and the company from Oly’ plus Laura decided to take off on an adventure hike leaving Dom and I to nap peacefully during the depressingly long rain showers. It was four o’clock the next time I gained consciousness and Dom’s phone was ringing. Laura was on the other end spraying about dry rock and other climbers. We hopped in the car and raced down to meet them. The Oly’ crew coughed up Laura and sped off to the campsite while Dom, Laura and myself trudged up a steep hill to find a bone dry crag laying in wait for us. We had a sense of dire urgency and quickly flew up a .10c, which was amazing(!), before hunting down the next line. So far the rain was leaving us alone and we decided to try this unique looking .11a that started out of the corner of the mouth of a large cave. The rock was like no other rock I’ve climbed on before except held a strange resemblance and feel to some of the sandstone I’ve climbed on in Utah. The route was close to perfection. The holds and moves complemented each other like a good set of cheeses and wines. It flowed delicately up a swooping face and none of the moves were desperate or unbalanced. Just pure climbing and pure fun. I was honored to have the onsight, and then Laura stepped up and flashed this gem as well, another .11a flash, oh hell yeah! Dom did it as well, and we were on to the next route wasting no time. Clouds loomed and then were upon us raining down drops of discouragement but we never really got wet and neither did the crag. We managed a very lengthy .10c that was excellent IMO but loose and crumbly in some places. We were almost done and heading down the trail when it hit us to do one more climb. A super long 5.9 on mini columns was the last route of the day, and it also held a bit of drama, but nothing we couldn’t handle.
Satiated, we headed back home in the dark and upon arrival were met with our friends from Oly’ packed up and ready to leave. We bid them farewell and plopped down in front of the fire and listened to 80’s, 90’s, and ‘whatever’, before the magic of the day faded away like so many embers before us in the fire pit.
Our last day we were just hoping for no rain and maybe a little sun. We got all of that and more. Giant fluffy clouds loomed above but were no more threatening then the small fluffy animals they resembled. We packed a still soggy campsite and headed back to Lava Point, the first crag we had gone to on our first day.
We had left many routes undone so we still had quite a nice selection of 5.9-5.11d climbs to choose from. We were all feeling a little sleepy from the night before so we did a nice long warm up of two really good 5.9’s. The air was cold, but the sun would peek out every once in a while to remind us of how miserable we would be if in fact it was blazing 100% on us. I did a sweet .11a with an exciting roof encounter before stepping over to a route Dom suggested called Long Strange Clip(5.11b). It had a sweet compression start on bullet stone edges and side pulls, before getting to a huge ledge and then a blank section. I made a clip, looked around and felt a little stumped for a while before finally seeing some edges up and right. I reached high, grabbed some flat small crimps and hoisted myself up on them using a tiny dime edge to finally propel myself to what was hopefully a jug. Yes! It was a jug. Whew, it was wonderful 5.10b climbing on cool edges and gas pockets to the top and was definitely a favorite of mine at this crag. I came down and then Laura hopped on it on top rope. She managed the flash easily, came down, and shedding her pullover sent the route on lead. Her second ever 5.11b and she sent with style and poise, nice job again Laura. This trip was turning out to be amazing for her.
Laura sending Long Strange Clip(5.11b).
Feeling psyched up I decided I would try to manage an onsight of the steepest route there, a 5.11d. Unfortunately I couldn’t pull the first move, but Dom was able to get the OS and hang the draws for me. I never did manage the first move but I pulled past it and flashed the rest of the route which was one of the funnest routes I had done so far and pretty pumpy but juggy almost the whole way up. We finished our time here on another 5.11b that Dom onsighted, I flashed and Laura got on TR. It was turning out to be a great last day. We were all excited to check out the bouldering here after all of the rope climbing we had done so we headed up to a place called the Caldera Boulders.
Located up a small mountain, the Caldera boulder field was nothing short of amazing coupled with beautiful. It had an alpine feel and the ground was covered with Juniper and pine trees dotted the landscape here and there. It was really easy to find the boulders and getting about was even easier. We walked up and over a hill and there they were. The majority of the boulders looked way more impressive from afar then they did up close but there were definite stand out gems, like the first boulder we came to that was the size of a small house and sported many lines all V.0 to V.2.
We walked a little further and found a really sweet fin of a boulder that had small flat and incut crimps on it and was home to some of the more technical vertical problems. We did a bunch of V.3’s, a V.4, and the V.5 low start to the V.4 before the sun dipped behind a ridge and the canyon started to get dark quick. We called it quits feeling more than satisfied with our decision to check out the bouldering and packed it in and headed back home.
My review of Tieton is definitely two thumbs up. I would recommend this place to anyone, and I look forward to returning. Hopefully this weekend.
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