Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Potholes Rendezvous 2010


Here's a brief slideshow/video meant to give you a taste of the 'Potholes' experience.




Top TR crag in WA? Look no further.

If half the rock in Eastern Washington was decent, climbers from around the world would flock to the NW in excessive numbers. Unfortunately, most of these basalt/volcanic deposits are pure choss.

Exploring random outcroppings of climbable rock scattered to our east is a winter tradition for us and after visiting the Potholes several years ago we concluded that it was probably worth a second trip. It took a while but we finally made it back to this notoriously short (diminutive, lilliputian, brief) crag to touch the stone and judge its worthiness.

Conclusion? Really fun, good old casual enjoyment. Thoughtful anchor arrangements, very little (climbing-generated) impact, an obscure feel and above all, sunny. After endless weeks mired in a soupy fog it was refreshing to get some direct light.

This area is a great alternative to the played out grid bolting and greasy crack hordes of Vantage and while it fills a very narrow weather gap in my climbing season I think I'll be hitting up the Potholes again, if only to work on my tan.