There had been some discussion of hiking at Vantage this weekend on the Discord channel and I thought an Autumn day at the Frenchman Coulee might be a good time. The day to go was originally Saturday, then it shifted to Sunday. I had wanted another weekend doing the Mt Teneriffe to Mt Si traverse again anyways on Saturday since I botched my Strava log the last time. Qiang, an old friend from the meetup hiking community, and I connected and coordinated a carpool. And while the weather wasn’t promising (there was some precip in the morning and heavy overcast), I was looking forward to flying up some sport routes on the Eastside of the state with the buddies.
It’d turn out that run on Saturday would leave me operating at least at half my usual capacity. It’d also turn out that the we’d get hit by the rain and would even run into some unexpected trouble at the end of the day.
Qiang and I met at the pre-planned 7:30 time at the Sammamish park and ride. I told me to hitch a ride with him, which was a relief since he’s got a better car. Its also always nice taking shotgun. We made our way to Safeway, and met friend Alyssa for some breakfast burrito wraps at the Northbend Safeway.
There was heavy rain through Snoqualmie and even light precipitation going into E-Berg (Ellensburg). We were both concerned that we’d get rained out, however there must’ve been a front the stopped the rain because just after passing the Columbia River there was almost no rain. Qiang and his wisdom had predicted this. We reached Vantage by 9:30am, and the rest of the group arrived by 10am.
I just learned about “Lux” which records the amount of light during the day. A sunny day might have a lux of 100,000, but an extremely dreary day might have about 100. Today was dark, even for PNW standards and must have been below 100.
Nevertheless, in no time we were at the base of the Zigzag wall climbing some of the routes. I was really feeling the exhaustion climbing a 5.9S on the right side. But managed my way up to set up an anchor. It was a bit disheartening to see a couple of the guys who’d never climbed outdoors before say the route wasn’t that bad. Chatting with one of the guys, it turns out he was on DACA and was unsure about whether he’d get deported as a part of the new administration, I certainly hope not!
Next we made our way over to the Sunshine Wall in Echo Basin, specifically the King Pins crag. We found a cool little cave that took us through the divide and opened up to the immense Echo Basin. Qiang got me leading Vantage Point (5.8S) at which point I realized I was done for the day. This also happened to coincide with rain starting. By the the time I reached the anchor it was slick and I was feeling a bit sick and unset with everything.
Everyone on the Sunshine wall quickly packed up and left, leaving our group. Thomas had started to project an 5.11a, called Never Forget Your Friends, which was located adjacent to Premature Ejaculation. He was at the base with a couple quickdraws stuck up on the third and forth bolts. So Dima and I hiked around to the top and set up a rappel. I delayed Dima on a Munter Mule down to the bolts where he was able to rappel down and retrieve the gear. By the time we reached the cars again it was truly dark, about 5:10pm. We said our goodbyes and departed our separate ways, likely with Dima and co speeding back towards Seattle. Fun day, as always, and I look forward to many more adventure familiarizing myself with Vantage.
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