This weekend I decided to go climbing at Vantage with Jimmy and Eun. We left Friday night after work and got to the campsite around 7:30. We thought about doing a bit of climbing that night, but decided to just set up camp and eat hobo pockets for dinner. Since we got there a bit late, we had only a few campsites to chose from. We ended up chosing one which had enough space for our three tents, but was a bit rocky. The next morning we woke up at 6 and broke down camp before heading over to the sunshine wall.

There are several climbing areas at Vantage. We spent time at two of them - Sunshine Wall and the Feathers. All of the climbing we did was on basalt columns, which tended to chip easily and had excellent holds. Based on relative bodyweights and comfort levels, we climbed each route in the same way. First I would lead with Eun on belay, and set up the anchors for toprope. Then Jimmy would climb with me on toprope belay. Finally Eun would lead with Jimmy on belay, and would clean the route on the way down.

We started out the day at the Sunshine Wall, and were some of the very first people out. At first there was a lot of shade, and we climbed Peaceful Warrior (5.6) and Chossmaster (5.7) before it got too hot out. Peaceful Warrior was my first lead climb, and is a nice chimney route. Chossmaster is a two-pitch route, but we climbed it as a single pitch with 14 clips.

After Peaceful Warrior and Chossmaster, the sun rose higher and it began to get very warm out. The Sunshine Wall also became more crowded, and we ended up looking at a few climbs, since several had long wait times. Interestingly, the easier climbs seemed to have the longest waits - we saw very few people doing 5.10 or higher. We ended up climbing Ride'Em Cowboy, which is a fun 5.9. The climb starts out with some nice holds, along with multiple small mantles and aretes along the right side of the pillar. Eventually the holds run out, and there is a traverse across the face to the left side of the pillar, where it's a bit easier to make progress. Near the end it opens up a bit. I traversed back to the right side, and Eun stayed on the face to get to the anchors. Overall this was my favorite climb of the day.

After finishing Ride'Em Cowboy we were all warm and pumped, so we headed to the Feathers. The north side was shaded, and we started out with a nice 5.4 and 5.5 - Mandatory Suicide and Shake It Don't Break It, respectively. Off to the left of our climbing there were a couple of interesting-looking climbs. One was a 5.8 which looked like it was pretty slabby with some smearing. Another was a 5.9 with a constant arete off to the left. We weren't able to do these climbs because they were pretty crowded, but I'd like to do them another time. We ended up shifting to the south side, where the warmth felt nice after all the shade. On that side we climbed Don Coyote (5.8), which was a straightforward route with nice holds.

For full-sized pictures, you can click the images in this post. I've also got all of the original unedited pictures in an archive here (1.1 GB).