A trip to the granite domes of Darrington is no simple day at the crags. Says Matt Perkins, nominal curator of Darrington's exhibition of fine stone:

This is not sport climbing. The glacier polished granite in Darrington is generally only moderate in steepness, and the rock offers few positive edges compared to a sport crag or gym.

Good thing we had Paul along. Paul grew up a few short hours from Smith Rock, sport climbing capital of America. During the course of the day, Paul confirmed Mr. Perkins' analysis of what makes Darrington climbing special:

"There are no holds!"
"You can't pull on anything!"

It's not just the clean granite slabs, featured sparsely with edges, waves, and knobs, that get your attention. First, the approach. It begins pleasantly, on an overgrown logging road that you can drive as far as concern for your vehicle's paint job allows. Soon, the road becomes a gentle trail through open forest, pine needles cushioning your eager footfalls. Berry bushes along the way offer a mid-morning snack. After you cross a creek and exit the shade of the woods, it's up through a dry creekbed -- don't lose the cairns! We took a thorny, dirty side trail instead of looking more carefully for the path up the rocky creekbed. Up, under (the branches), and over (the boulders), the path reaches broken slabs underneath Green Giant Buttress.

It was mid-morning already and nearly August, too, so our pores gave generously in a lackluster attempt to keep us cool. My two-liter water sack and half-liter of sports drink were clearly going to leave me raving with thirst after Dreamer's ten pitches. I eyed Paul's four liters with envy. I was still optimistic, though -- we'd move quickly, and after all, there was a creek to descend to.

We could already see a party ahead of us, but I figured we could pass them if they were slow. I cruised up the slabs in my sticky rubber approach shoes, only to look back and see yet another party racking up in the bushes. It was crowded today! After we four reached the base of the first pitch of Safe Sex, the pair below caught up to us and started up after the first party, who were going slowly and trailing a hot pink second rope. My optimism mulled this situation over and cheerily suggested that "if they're so keen on passing us, they'll just pass the guys ahead, too, and we'll have nothing to slow us down."

Traffic moved smoothly until we left the Safe Sex route to join Dreamer below the Blue Crack pitch (p5 on the topo). Colin led a spicy unprotected traverse to a tree and then enjoyed the first hand jams of the route, joining party #2 on top of a pedestal. "Hang out for a second," he said, so I tried to make myself comfortable on yet another narrow, sloping ledge. Bellingham Bob of party #2 backed off his lead midway through the undercling traverse and retreated back to the pedestal to hand off to Seattle Sam. I shifted uncomfortably to let Eric join me at the ledgelet and Paul received his orders to "hang out". Sam took his sweet time, so I drank more precious water, fended off ants, and exfoliated the soles of my feet on the ledge.

Eric and I talked about Index, where there is also granite, but it is cooler and has more hand jams. Waiting around had dulled my rock-sense, but fear brought it back as soon as I started across the short traverse. On the pedestal, I half-hung awkwardly off the bolted belay and talked about Index some more. Colin and I agreed that we both liked placing gear, lots of gear. The runouts (there were five or six bolts at most per 50m pitch) just weren't satisfying our gear urges. Pink rope party was still struggling two pitches up, and Sam was one with the stone in his geological-time ascent of the Blue Crack pitch. We offered our resignation down to Eric and Paul, who heartily accepted.

We needed their rope to make the double raps back down, so we yelled at Eric to lead the next pitch, hoping he would flail for our entertainment. To our chagrin, he made it to the pedestal in fine style. Thread the rope, untangle, clip, untangle, reclip, I'm going first. We rappeled barefoot down the slab with burning belay devices.

I was out of water and my sandwich was cooked and pulped in my pack. Down the approach slabs, we waited for Colin, who searched for his nerve on the downclimb. Eric and I got lost in the vine maple and swung like handicapped orangutans down the branches to the creekbed. We could see the other parties retreating above. My feet felt like cooked bacon: greasy with sweat, crisped with sunburn, and tender from the sharp rock. It was too late for Index, but we satisfied ourselves with corn dogs, beer, and Gatorade at the Darrington Shell station.

The heat must have erased our memories of our defeat that day, because by the time we saw Three Fingers and Mt. Baker from I-5 on the way home, we were already plotting trips to the mountains. Paul, once again, said it best:

"Man, I need to go climbing more."