Kayakers in Deception Pass, one just spilled.
It was a pretty bold idea, going climbing after a solid month of snow, followed by rain. But I was getting pretty frustrated at not having done much climbing lately, so I hooked up with Tom, a friend of friends, and he was free, so we said, let's go. The night before, walking the dog, I was thinking I needed to bring along my mechanics gloves to climb in, it was that cold. The day had been very cold -- that damp cold that is so hard to bicycle in, and even though it had been partly sunny in the afternoon, it looked like a pretty foolish thing to do.
So, Tom swung by the house at 8:00 in his Element, and we headed north. Since we were heading up there and he's a kayaker, we stopped by Deception Pass to see if anyone was kayaking there. And, sure enough, there was six or eight folks down there; it looked so cold I felt myself going hypothermic just watching them, but Tom assured me it was perfectly comfortable dressed in a dry suit. Even after we watched one, then another, capsize.
It was beautiful and sunny at the top of Mt. Erie, Mt. Baker glistening in the distance beyond a sea of clouds.
Then, on to the climbing. One of the toughest parts of climbing at Erie is actually finding the crags. The maps make it seem very straightforward, but since you're starting from above, and there is an absolute maze of trails, it's easy to get turned around. Part of the reason I always end up on Powerline is that it's the easiest one to find, with the power poles above it.
We started off with Tom leading a 5.8 sport (bolted) route, pretty quickly and easily. I, by contrast, had a pretty tough time, and I actually had to stand on one of the bolts just below the top.
Then, I did a 5.5 crack, which isn't really a crack climb, more of an off-width mixed-face climb that happens to follow a salal-filled crack. I actually fell, right after my first placement, which was pretty frustrating. On I went, trying to find the way up, struggling with the routefinding, and not doing a very good job placing pro.
Eventually I got to the top, and brought Tom up, and we headed back down and went over to the far left, where there were some more bolted routes.
There were some folks over there climbing, including a couple who were getting ready to head down to Mexico for a week of climbing at a place called Potrero Chico, I think, which made me wish, for a bit, about being 25 years younger and living the life of a climbing bum. Or, someone like Aaron, anyhow.
