Ah, Leavenworth in springtime! Warmth and greenery have returned at last to Washington's own little slice of Bavaria. Herds of Mounties roam the canyons, bleating out belay commands from under the swaying topropes. Ticks flutter softly down onto unsuspecting heads, seeking the warm hairy places. It's time once again for der Alpen-Craggin'.

What better way to open the season at Leavenworth than with a linkup of two routes on Snow Creek Wall? This was Eric's plan and I was pleased to go along. We rolled into the free camping area late Saturday under starry skies and hit the rack right away, wanting plenty of energy for tomorrow's ambitions. I was eager to start hiking at first light so we could hop on Outer Space before the crowds arrived.

Our day started at 5am. Eric snoozed while I got out the stove for a spot of tea. A hot breakfast was not to be, however, as I had brought the wrong fuel canister. We snuck out from among the still-slumbering car campers and tore down the road toward the gas station. Half an hour too early and not willing to wait for the station to open at six, I grumbled to myself and ate what was left of last night's Chex mix. Eric generously offered me half a banana. The day was not starting smoothly.

We hit the empty trail and hiked without a pause to the base of our route, where we were greeted by the entire goat population of Snow Creek Wall. There appeared to be some rivalry among the males, as we observed two of the horned beasts stamp, whine, lunge half-heartedly, and skitter away. The brief battle was concluded with a shitting duel at ten paces: the two goats "faced" each other with their tail ends and simultaneously let loose a stream of brown pellets.

Eric stashed the packs in a tree and we started simulclimbing up the nasty gully left of the original start (highly not recommended). Crossing a rock rib next to an old fixed pin, the rope dangled beneath me and snagged on a flake. I was stuck on some awkward gritty holds, so I backed down a little and tried to flip the rope out, to no effect. I didn't want to downclimb any more with Eric above me, so I found a rest and called for a belay. Eric built an anchor and took up tension on the un-stuck strand of the doubled rope. I fiddled with what I thought was the knot belonging to the stuck strand, untying it so that I could drop it down to free the snag. I pulled the strand free from the twisted tangle on my harness and saw that I had untied the wrong end! Calmly, I retied the belayed strand and freed the stuck one.

After this close call, my mind was in a weird state of focus. I climbed up to Eric, but numbly followed a direct path that forced me into a hard friction traverse. "Aw, shit, just take." Eric tensioned me over to a handhold and I flopped onto the ledge. "I think you made that harder than it had to be, man."

My head was still in a fog as I grabbed the rack and scrambled over to Two Tree Ledge. The stress of the stuck rope fiasco had left me with a mild sort of tunnel vision. I was calm and moving carefully, but my thoughts felt somehow over-focused: "get some pro" (I slung a tree on class 3 terrain), "set a belay" (I placed a hex and clipped a nest of webbing), "find a good spot to belay from" (off come the shoes, sit in the tick-infested dirt), "stack the rope". As I sat on the ledge bringing Eric over, I looked at the quiet valley below, felt the sunshine, and relaxed. Though I felt sheepish doing so, I declined Eric's offer of the next lead, the crux hand traverse.

My partner forgot all about my momentary lapse of confidence once he got halfway up and plucked an abandoned #1 Camalot out of the crack. Yeehaw! The traverse was exciting and reachy, finishing with a couple fun face moves. I took the next lead, finally getting into the groove and enjoying the climbing. Knobs led to a short dihedral and a single bolt. We were moving at a good pace by now and had discussed simulclimbing through the next pitch, but I just brought Eric up to my stance at the bolt. He started off on the incredible perfect handcrack, which had me grinning and shaking my head in disbelief.

I found Eric relaxing on the ledge with some reading material, but tore him away from whatever article he was reading to give me a belay on the fun bouldery finger crack. A couple well-protected moves led into another long and lovely jamfest. My enthusiasm carried me past the obvious belay tree into an alien landscape of grapefruit-sized knobs, but the rope was 15 feet too short to make it all the way to the top. I set a belay with three slung knobs and a cam under the roof. In short order we were done, about four hours from when we started, despite the minor snafus.

We didn't set any speed records on Outer Space, but there was plenty of daylight left for Mary Jane Dihedral. There were a couple parties on Orbit, but they were past the finger crack already, so we had the route to ourselves. I led the chimney and couldn't resist going up the clean layback on the left (toward Orbit) instead of the dirty start of the MJ dihedral. Getting back to the dihedral required a traverse past a couple big loose blocks... better to just head up the dirt to the right.

The first dihedral pitch involved fun stemming and a couple steep bulges, ending at a crappy hanging belay on two 1/4" bolts. Eric complained about his foot hurting and I looked down to see that I was standing on it (oops!). I finally got the rack and moved off Eric's foot into the mungy corner. Protection is decent, including a fixed pin, up to a single bolt. Not sure where to go, I weighed the options: continue up the very mossy corner or start traversing left right away. I saw a bolt 15 feet above the end of the corner, but getting there didn't look appealing. A faint line of knobs led left, but the moves were intimidating and I didn't see much pro. I knew there was a traverse somewhere in this pitch, so I headed delicately left.

Just then, it started snowing. "Hey, uh, Ralph, look up the valley." What had been a clear view up Snow Creek was now a wall of mist. Shit. How big a squall was this? Where does the route go? How long until my t-shirt gets soaked? Can we bail with a single 60m rope from any higher on the route? I downclimbed to the bolt, grabbed it, and swung down. We bailed. Luckily, we didn't have to leave much gear for the three rappels down to our packs: one locker on the bolt and a long sling plus rap ring on a horn. The rope got stuck in the chimney, so Eric got an extra half-pitch out of the deal!

So much for the linkup. The weather, of course, improved right away and we ate our lunch in the sunshine. MJD had some good climbing, enough to make me want to go back with a better idea of where the route goes. We headed down the trail to do some less-committing cragging and caught up to Ania and Paul, on their way out from an attempt on Orbit. They headed into town for pizza, but we wanted to get in a few more pitches. After a quick tick check, it was off to Castle Rock for a run up Canary, which Eric had never led and I had never climbed. Pitch two is an absolute classic and a perfect way to wind down the day.

Dinner at Leavenworth Pizza Company, cheesy and delicious, fortified us for the rainy drive home.