Betsy meets all my climbing partners for me. All she has to do is go the gym and look all cute, and guys ask her if she wants to climb with them. Easy. So that's how I met Ram (and John), who went with us to Vantage one rainy (in Seattle) Saturday.

This was my first trip to Vantage, and I had heard people complain it being a namby-pamby sport weenie's choss paradise, where you can pull on (and off) big buckets of loose basalt in the sun. Yes, there are bolts only a few feet away from cracks. But for every one of the rock columns at Vantage, there are at least two possible routes: the crack between columns and the arete or face of the column. The bolts were closely spaced and the holds were all quite similar, but the climbing was pretty fun. And yes, it was sunny there when it was nasty in Seattle.

We pulled into the lot around noon and hiked up and around to Sunshine Wall, squeezing down through a narrow slot in the rock. John's overstuffed ALICE pack barely made it. We set up and climbed a few 5.8 sport routes, but John was eyeing Air Guitar, a fine-looking 5.10a crack. He led it in good style and I cleaned up after him. Face holds or thin fingers widen to great hand and then fist jams all the way up to a weird squeeze and sidepull to finish. Hugely fun, and it ate up John's cams, including the #4 Camalot at the top.

Betsy and Ram, meanwhile, were climbing the same sport routes on the aretes. There was hardly any wind and the sun was shining, perfect weather for climbing. Ram rolled his own and smoked in between belays.

Since John brought his rack and there were ample cracks to climb, I wanted to try leading a trad route. We found a big crack next to an offwidth into which a big chockstone was crammed about halfway up. "There's probably anchors up there," says John. I took all the big pieces and fiddled around with racking it all, then started stemming up between the columns. I put in a piece with nearly every move, and soon (surprise!) ran out of gear as the crack got wider. I climbed up further, past bird-shit-encrusted holds and that chockstone, looking for anchors. Nothing to be seen. I decided to traverse across one of the column faces to the anchors for the sport route on the other side. It was scary reach with my last piece eight feet below and behind me, a cam that didn't seem too secure. By the time I clipped the anchor on the other side, it was getting late and I was a bit freaked out.

Someone had to collect the gear, and Betsy volunteered. I belayed her from above after John instructed me on how to do so from below. The rope drag around the corner of the column was troublesome. Betsy's frightened face turned the corner as my feet were going numb from the hanging belay (I didn't think to untie my shoelaces). I lowered her off and eagerly rapped down after her.

John and Ram had gone off to more bolted stuff. I was too shaken from my first trad lead experience and the fact that I hadn't had enough food and water to climb the 5.10-something they were on. We asked some other climbers to take our photo and then packed up for the trip back.

The first drops of rain hit the windshield before we could cross the Columbia. The storm that was just moving into Seattle when we had left that day was now pouring rain on the east side of the Cascades and we rode through it all the way back home. We could barely see the lines on the road most of the time, the rain was so thick. I felt bad for the people camping out that night at Vantage, hoping to climb on Sunday.

I'd like to go out to Vantage again, maybe lead Air Guitar someday. And John spoke of another area further away from Sunshine Wall with "150 new routes"...