Alpine Climbing

Tim, an old friend from home, was in town on business and wanted to get out and do a bit of climbing before flying back. The UK doesn’t really have a lot of long multi-pitch routes so, dispite a marginal forecast for Leavenworth, I picked Outer Space (6 pitches, 5.9) on Snow Creek Wall.

This is the forth time I’ve done Outer Space and I’m still not tired of it. It’s fantastic! The first two pitches aren’t that exciting but can be avoided by a couple of direct start variations. Pitch three is a spicy traverse and pitches five and six follow a perfect hand crack up the headwall with huge chicken heads. It just doesn’t get much better than that. Tim was grinning like the Cheshire Cat pretty much the whole time.

Just to make life sweeter there was only one other party on the wall. They were a lot slower but were on the direct start so we avoided them lower down. The rain started just as we topped out. We hiked down the trail with a touch of shadenfreude leaving the other party finishing the now damp headwall.

Life is good.

Outer Space and other routes in Leavenworth are described in “Leavenworth Rock; Edition 2” by Victor Kramar.