Mountain and Water Adventures: Crack climbing at Royal Columns, Tieton

We had a great opportunity to learn the fine points of crack climbing from Jens at Max on September 8 and 9 at Royal Columns in the Tieton River area. On Saturday and Sunday, six of us each day (Jayson, Brian, Susan, Eric, Jim, and Mindy on Saturday, then Lisa, Chuck, Julie, Dale, Jim, and Mindy on Sunday) went from instructors to instructees. Among other things, we learned simple taping to protect our hands... kind of. We still had scabs afterwards.

Jens demonstrated everything from thin fingers to ring locks to cupped hands to hand jams, but let us discover useful things like arm bars on the wider cracks.

Then it was up to us to use the stuff and figure out how it works. Over the two days, we climbed a bunch of routes ranging from 5.4 to 5.10c, focusing in the 5.7 to 5.8 range.

On Saturday I was a little surprised to get near the top of Mushmaker only to get rattled at by a rattlesnake that was less than a foot from my hand on a ledge. Susan was a little puzzled when I pushed off the rock, said "Lower," then said "... faster!" It was about 4 ft long and about 1.5 inches in diameter, coiled up, and seriously ticked off at being disturbed! The next climbers didn't bother going all the way to the top of that climb. A little later, I peaked over the top of the next crack over (one of those fun, uncomfortably-wide-but-not-quite-off-width) to see if the snake had disappeared, only to find it stretched out lengthwise with its head toward the rope, slowly recoiling its head. "Lower!"

Brian didn't believe me (?!) but discovered the snake now a little bit down on the climb in a recess that was recently used for hand jams. The next day, we found the snake even further down INSIDE THE CRACK we had been using. Check where you put your hands when climbing at Royal Columns....