Forever Gripped: The Hitchhiker, Washington Pass 5.11a/b 9p

I guess I have to kick this thing off at some point, and Saturday's smooth ascent of the Hitchhiker seems like a good excuse.

This summer almost all of my goals revolve around the world-class alpine rock that we are so fortunate to have in Washington. Last summer I was pretty busy getting married and stuff, so I generally could only make time for sport climbing. While I do love me some sport climbing, venues such as Washington Pass and the Enchantments are much more inspiring and generally bring out the best in me. I decided several months ago that the big objective of the year will be The Tiger at Washington Pass, but I have a long road to reach that point at the end of the summer. Fortunately all of the routes that will help me progress to that point are equally stunning and worthy objectives of their own.

The Tiger, possibly the prettiest climb in the PNW

With summer in full swing here in the Northwest I decided it was time to leave the lowlands and tick off the easiest of my progression routes: The Hitchhiker on South Early Winter Spire. Fortunately Lucas was available and psyched to get outside, so we made plans to leave at 5:00 AM on Saturday so that we could get home that night. Alpine start, right? After a couple minor hiccups on the drive we arrived at the Blue Lake Trailhead at about 8:45. Not quite alpine start.

Lucas nearing the top of the snowfield below South Early Winter Spire

The trail is still hidden under snow so we set out into the woods in what we were pretty sure was the right direction. An hour or so later we popped out into the meadow below the Liberty Bell Group. Following an existing bootpack up the snowfield, we encountered a few skiers but very few climbers. We took our time on the approach, enjoying the views of what is arguably one of the most beautiful regions of the entire country.

North Cascades Glory

Some shenanigans finding the right climb put us at the base at about 11:00 am, just in time for an early lunch. Okay, finally on the rock at 11:30 am. Definitely not an alpine start.

Lucas leading pitch 2

I led us up the first pitch (5.10d) through fun stemming and laybacking to a comfortable belay ledge. Having not climbed on granite much lately I expected this pitch to feel a bit more challenging but instead I found it to be fun and just hard enough to make a good warmup. Lucas continued up pitch 2, which involved quality slab and face climbing, capped by a left-leaning layback to a small belay stance.

Pitches 3 and 4 involved more entertaining mid-5.10 climbing. We moved quickly, wasting no time at the belays. Momentum and psyche remained high as we climbed through the following three pitches, which all fell somewhere in the 5.11a-5.11b range. Lucas dug deep and pulled off an impressive onsight of the cruxy pitch 6 finger crack.

Yours truly leading pitch 7

One more 5.10 hand crack and a pitch of 4th class scrambling put us on the summit of South Early Winter Spire after about 5 hours of climbing, extremely psyched to tick off the first climb at Washington Pass of the season with each of us onsighting the climb. We took in the view for a few minutes and then started the descent. A group of new climbers was rappelling the South Arete and were kind enough to let us pass them and rappel their ropes, which sped up our descent significantly.

We made it back to the car around 7:00, feeling much better than I expected to after the first climb of the alpine season. Well enough to fit in some 90+ degree sport climbing the following day at Little Si! Overall it was a very encouraging weekend that bodes well for the rest of the summer.