After a great day of climbing with a couple of friends, one a new acquaintance, I thought a weekend long road trip out to the east was a good idea. In talking with my friend who had introduced me to Aaron, he had to bow out in order to meet a prior obligation. So that left Aaron and I to ourselves and in checking with weather forecast on Friday afternoon it appeared the only issue would be a little wind. Wind was nothing new for the area, but little did we know what we had in store.

Waking up early on Saturday was not a problem after this past winter, in fact I even had time enough to take a shower and check the weather before I headed out to pick up Aaron. We were heading out of town right at 7:00am and it was easy driving out of town on I-90 over the pass to the east. After a quick stop in Ellensburg to get a Fish & Wildlife parking sticker and the new edition of the Frenchman's Coulee Climbing Guide we pulled into the camping area around 10:30am. It was sunny and warm, just as predicted.

There seemed to be quite a few cars parked and a fairly large group of people standing around and climbing on The Feathers. We opted to head over to Sunshine Wall and check out the lines at the base of some of the routes.

As we neared the top of the mesa, the fragrant aroma of the white spiny phlox and gold spring, which were in full bloom, filled the warm breeze. Looking around, even the sage brush seemed more vibrant than in past visits. It was obvious that this years spring had brought ample water and all the vegetation was thriving in it.

There was a party of about seven people on the trail in front of us when we reached the Approach Chimney, so we stopped for a moment to let the bottleneck clear out. It seemed that all the signs were there signifying long lines and crowds of people waiting for their chance at a climb. Instead of heading right at the base of the chimney, we headed left to the Kotick Memorial Wall and what turned out to be a complete lack of crowds. In fact, only as we were leaving after climbing five routes did another group of three climbers show up.

After running up a few climbs in the King Pins cliffs, a noticeable change in the weather was starting to occur. A few thunder claps in the distance compelled me to Hike around a corner for a better westerly vantage point. An obvious cold front was roaring in, given away by the long thin line of clouds to the west that looked dark and ominous. At this point, the wind had picked up enough to start blowing rocks down from the cliff tops.

In a matter of minutes, the seventy degree heat cooled to about sixty and the rain slowly started to increase. Fortunately, we were able to tuck ourselves between basalt columns where we were sheltered due to the cliffs blocking the horizontally streaming rain. After no more than thirty minutes the clouds passed and the sun came out and almost instantly dried the wetness from the surrounding rock. The wind, however, still persisted.

Knocking off one more climb, we then choose to bag it for the day and head over to the camping area to set up the tent. It took us nearly thirty minutes to set up the tent in the gale force wind that threatened to tear anything from your grasp. After we piled several rocks on each corner of the tent as well as using the four available guy lines secured with separate piles of rocks we left to head into the town of George. All told, there was probably three hundred pounds of rock that precariously held our tent in place.

Opting to eat in town, since our stoves were not going to be able to manage the wind, we had Mexican food from the little restaurant next to the Exxon. We also stopped into the convenience store to grab a few brews to help put us asleep with the roar of the wind constantly distracting the mind.

Fortunately, by sunrise the wind had completely diminished and the sky had become clear and blue with no clouds visible on the horizon.

Discouraged from the long sleepless night, we again chose to skip the camp stove feast and instead headed to Martha's Inn at George. After a hearty meal, we headed back to the Sunshine Wall and climbed at a cliff called Riverview Park.

I had not climbed this far west on the cliff band and found that the rock was very different from the columnar cracks and aretes that are typical of most Coulee climbs. We did several nice climbs here and then moved farther west to the Riverview Point (confusing) cliff before calling it a day.

Though we only climbed one traditional route, with the rest consisting of Bolt-Clipping, it was still a very worthwhile trip. I felt as though the workouts that I have been doing have really helped out my ability and I can honestly say that I am now climbing at or near the level that I used to out of High School. I just need to keep up the hard work and keep on getting out onto the rock. Next time I'll have to remeber to bring a camera.