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Two of the large boulders in front of the main climbing wall. Some bouldering routes on them. |
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The base of the 80 foot high, steep white wall. Intimidating, routes here would be 5.11-5.13. |
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The upper section of the white wall. Definately holds the possibility of hard sport routes. |
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Moving to the right is this slightly overhung arete. Slightly blocky, this would probably be rated 5.9. |
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This shorter wall needs cleaning. I've been up scrubbing the moss off to expose horizontal holds. |
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Here is the chimney with it's obvious chockstone. The wall is usually wet there. |
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Another view of the wet chimney. Routes to the right are overhanging and blocky. |
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The large boulder with steep bouldering on this side. Reminded me of "Slice of Pie" in Leavenworth. |
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Heading back to Highway 2, a gated road takes you to this large split boulder. Kind of cool looking. |
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* Update: As of July 14, 2009 Forest Service
Road #62 has been closed to the public. The gate has been locked within a couple
hundred feet of highway 2. Supposedly this was done because of illegal firewood
cutting going on, and all the garbage being dumped up there. Let's hope this is
only temporary.
Last fall, when I was
driving up past Gold Bar on the logging roads, I noticed in the distance this
cliff, in the woods. I tried bush whacking over to it and got within a couple
hundred feet of it, before running into stickers. Last year when I glanced at
this rock it didn't look too promising. A couple of weeks ago I took another
drive up there, and found out that they had built a new logging road right up to
the cliff. You can drive to within 75 ft. of the left-hand side of the wall, and
most of the trees between the road and the wall have been chopped down. Now that
you can get to the other end of the wall, you can see there is a lot of
potential here. And the best part about this wall is it doesn't have a strenuous
approach, just how I like it! When you're looking at the wall from the road, you
will notice four large boulders in front of it. The second large boulder from
the wall looks as if it had been dropped from the sky and split in two. There is
a nice chimney, which splits the boulder in half. Just past the boulders is the
first wall. The very left-hand side of the wall is mossy and blocky and there's
not much climbing there. As you continue to the right you come across the 80 ft.
high white cliff that is slightly overhanging. This part of the wall has a lot
of possibilities, mainly in the 5.11-5 .13 range of climbing. The holds here are
mainly small and undercut. This would be a sport climbing wall, which would need
a lot of bolts. The next thing around the corner is this steep arête that would
probably be rated about 5.9. Just to the right of it is a shorter 40 ft. wall
with a lot of climbing possibilities mainly 5.6-5.8 range, I have been using
wire brushes to clean this wall which contains a lot of horizontal holds. These
walls have gotten me psyched! Once I get some of the moss off this shorter wall,
it will probably provide about five routes. Just to the right of it is a wet
chimney with a large chock stone on top of it. The routes to the right of that
are overhanging and blocky and some sections look kind of loose. The routes on
this section look to be about 5.9. As you keep moving to the right of this, the
wall continues on with lots of blocky walls where many routes could be done and
then eventually dwindles out to nothing.
May 9, 2004- I just got back from doing another trip to the wall
and the day was nice and sunny. I spent more time wire brushing the walls and
doing some vertical gardening. Hiked around to the other end of the wall and
found a ramp system that was underneath a long dead snag. After bouldering
around trying to make my way to the top of the cliff, I decided I'd better get
down because things are getting a bit dicey. Went back to the main cliff and did
some clearing of brush and branches to make a cool hangout spot for when you
first get to the wall. I spent about four hours up on the cliff today, and had a
great time. Like I said, I've been doing some work up here and am all fired up to go do some
more
climbing. It's been awhile since I've been motivated to go do something new. It
seems like I had gotten bored with all the areas around the Skykomish Valley. Now I've got some new
goals, and a new area to climb.

Got access pre-approved on 5/24/02 for climbing and
putting up new routes from Ron Simons and Dean Prevy at Longview Fiber Company of Leavenworth.
Their company is the owner of the land. He said as long as we stay clear of their
logging equipment there should be no problem. Contacted the Skykomish Ranger
Station and they said as long as illegal dumping of garbage is under control,
that road #62 will stay open.
Here are the directions of how to get there:
Drive east of Gold Bar for 4.9 mi. until you get to forest
service road # 62 which is on the right. From there drive 1.2 mi. up the dirt
logging road until you get to a intersection with a new gravel road heading to
the right. Either park your car here, at the intersection or continue driving
down the new gravel road a very short ways to some narrow parking spots. From
here walk the road to where the large boulders are, and the obvious wall is
seen. Walk about 75 ft. over the newly downed timber till you get to the base of
the 80 ft. white wall. This is the first wall with many other routes available
as you head to the right. Have fun climbing! |