Eric leading pitch one
Eric Gratz and I climbed the NW Face route on Kangaroo Temple on Saturday. Originally, Eric just wanted to go to Index or something because he had to study for finals, but all I had to say was "Washington Pass". We left Friday night. Things looked sketchy right away, as Eric wasn't diggin' the Zappa on the stereo, fell asleep, and started to snore. It rained. I worried about the rain. I worried about having climbed nothing but Coach's Crack in months. We laid out sleeping bags in the back of the Subaru and Eric conducted his snore orchestra, heavy on the bass and oboe parts.
For breakfast, Eric shared his magical long-lasting burritos. Their effects lasted well into the approach, their taste returning now and then. We sidehilled ridiculously in our snowshoes through the trees after Kangaroo Pass. The mountain looked cold.
We wandered to and fro near the base of the route, looking for the best start, finally settling in to belay at a tree partway straight up the first pitch of the summer route. Eric led in crampons with much scraping on the traversing, slabby bits, then was rewarded with some thin ice and mixed climbing to a tree. This first pitch had a little of everything: drytooling on slabby granite, moss/dirt, sticky ice, verglas. Really fun.
Verglas was treacherous, collecting in the positive dimples on the slabs. Eric took a nice leader fall on pitch three, right as he was reaching for a piece of gear. I reeled in several armfuls before he scraped to a stop, upside down and saying "eff" in his inimitable way. I cheese-gratered off at nearly the same spot while following, swinging to a stop directly over a big smear of ice. We were in rock shoes at this point, which is really the best way to play "find-the-verglas".
Above the "Dance Floor", we went the way labeled "variation" in Beckey, belaying in a snowy, dark, windy alcove. The sun was on the face at this point and I chose the only dark spot to belay. For the last pitch, Eric led past in a shower of oatmeal granite, up the rightmost of three weaknesses.
It was sunny and frickin' beautiful on top. What a day! We gaped at some skiers across the way and I looked in vain through my spy scope for climbers on the Liberty Bell group. We took four rappels to get down, leaving three runners, a pink tri-cam, a quicklink, and a dropped green Friend for the bootyhounds. Shoulda used the two short raps off the north side.
