Leavenworth-ing

I've never known what to make of Leavenworth - a little town deep in the Washington Cascades that in the summer is packed with tourists, instagram-clout-chasing hikers, and some of the best quiet crusher rock climbers you've never heard of in equal measure. It's a town where you can pay $11 for an ice cream cone, park next to a lifted Chevy plastered with aggressively MAGA bumper stickers... and climb dozens of world-class alpine routes in an alpine lakes landscape that feels like it was plucked out of The Sound of Music.

Like I said, it's hard to know what to make of it.

I spent a week and change in Leavenworth around mid June, and enjoyed the experience perhaps far more than ever before? The last time I'd been in the area was over 4 years ago when I was still living in Bend. This trip, I was armed with much better running fitness and the first order of business was to shake off the long drive with a quick run up to Stuart Lake, an 11-mile roundtrip with about 2,400' of elevation gain. There's a nice spot on the far side of the lake to jump in, and the cold water felt great after all that uphill.

Next up was Outer Space, one of my favorite multipitch climbs of all time. Lacie and I had connected through a partner post in the Leavenworth climbing group a couple of weeks prior and it was the top thing on her list to climb. I was more than happy to get another lap on a climb that author Brendan Leonard describes as "the most incredible rock climb you will ever do. You cannot not smile while climbing it. It’s like the Beatles. Even if you for some ridiculous reason don’t enjoy it, you can’t deny its inherent goodness."

There's something really fulfilling about repeating a climb where you've already led every pitch in good style – for me it's nice because instead of worrying about trying to send, I can focus on making sure that my climbing partner is getting all the best pitches and having a great time on the route, which feels really cool in a sport like climbing that is usually very individualistic and at times even a bit selfish. Lacie and I both cruised all of our leads and we were lucky enough to be the only climbers on the entire wall all day - a rare thing for what is possibly the most popular alpine climb in all of Washington!

We took a rest day the next day and I found my new favorite coffee place in Leavenworth - Argonaut Coffee and Biscuits, a cute no-frills little coffee shop with fresh pastries, good tunes, and plenty of outdoor seating situated on the mellow side of the highway, away from the wackiness of downtown proper. Later Lacie and I met up for a round of putt-putt golf; the wacky artifice of the tiny fake houses and windmills of a putt-putt course feeling oddly integrated with the rest of the town.

Our final climbing objective was This, My Friend - a relatively new route on Dragontail Peak that was put up during COVID by a first ascent team that included one of the mentors from my mountaineering club that I'd attended back in high school. The route has a reputation for clean rock and good movement, and the summit of Dragontail is pointy and irresistible to a climber.

We got a roughly 4:30am start, and it wasn't until we crossed the bridge where the Colchuck Lake Trail splits off from the approach to Stuart Lake that I felt like I was truly awake. From that point, the scenery got better and better as we climbed up past Colchuck Lake to the start of the route, a buttress near the top of Asgard Pass at 7,200'. The early morning light brought out the bright blue hue of the glacial lake and baby goats gamboled around green tufts of grass lining the alpine streams that wound through the moraine. I've been a lot of places on this planet, but there are few that rival the Enchantments in terms of natural beauty.

The first 40 feet of This, My Friend is the most difficult climbing on the route, with a stiff and awkward 5.9 flaring off-hands start that quickly gives way to runout rambling over much easier terrain. I took the lead on this and didn't particularly enjoy it as a warm-up, but nonetheless it was over quickly and I built a belay on the first of the many large and comfortable belay ledges we'd have on the route. Lacie got the second 5.9 pitch, a beautiful open-book splitter with great hand jams and very secure stances. Pitch three was more ramble-y, stepped terrain, before a beautiful and mellow 5.7 straight-in splitter hand crack on pitch four. Basically, if you're going to climb this route, try to get the even numbered pitches. They're all fantastic.

After a low angle pitch five (unremarkable, but still fun), we found ourselves at the base of the summit - a wildly pointy block of perfect white granite reaching straight to the sky. We took turns scrambling up to the top to take in the exposure and the views into the sparkling alpine lakes and sheer summits that mark the high alpine Core Zone of the Enchantments, before picking our way down the loose and indistinct descent (kinda heads-up, use caution!). On the way down, we ran into two mountain-boot clad hikers who were insistent about giving us a bag of caramel corn - kind of an odd interaction, but a very friendly one nonetheless!

All in all, it was a fantastic day with perfect weather and smooth climbing on generally very good rock. The climbing on This, My Friend was a lot less sustained than other things I've done in the area, but still had at least two and a half fantastic pitches of perfect crack climbing, and the position you're in at the top of Asgard pass overlooking both the Colchuck basin and the Enchantments Core Zone is unbeatable.

The next couple of days I kicked around Leavenworth and floated the river on a borrowed SUP, attempted to climb in Index during a heat wave (great rock, but so hot it was honestly not the brightest move), and did another trail run up to Colchuck Lake before a storm front blew in and it was time to move on to my next destination (Bellingham!).

Trip Notes:

• Climbing in Leavenworth is a lot easier and more fun if you have good uphill fitness. Doing the alpine climbs in Colchuck Basin car-to-car eliminates a ton of hassle with permits and heavy overnight packs, but being able to put down a lot of vert without blowing up your legs is essential for keeping the day in the Type 1 fun category!
• The best two coffee shops to hang out in on a rest day are Argonaut Coffee and Biscuits in town, and Lupine Meadows Market up Icicle Creek Rd. Both are run by the same owners and both have impeccable vibes. If it's rainy, Lupine Meadows Market has better indoor seating than Argonaut.
• Leavenworth is much more of an alpine destination than a single pitch hotspot; I think it's worth the extra drive time to Index if you're trying to crag for a day. Beware hot conditions though, both at Index or the low-elevation crags around Leavenworth. A lot of it bakes in the sun.

Gear Notes

• I really need to pick up a good 60m alpine rope, lugging my workhorse 70m around in the mountains is starting to get old!
• I've been enjoying using a Micro Traxion for faster and easier belays on easy terrain as well as faster transitions (you get a pulley to haul rope up with before belaying the second!). Important to know and understand the limitations of this system before using it, though (good resources here and here)!
• Shout out to the La Sportiva TX Guides for being bar-none my favorite approach shoes of all time. I don't usually like hiking in approach shoes that are also stiff enough to climb well, but the Guides are great for big mileage.