Ascents in Washington Column

Lots of dirt and choss lower down leads to 3 or 4 beautiful pitches of climbing. Then the rock quality turns to shit as you approach the summit. Skip the last 2 pitches and take the easy escape instead.

Fantastic route, made it to the top of P6 before pack of water and a 25' whip made us decided to retreat.

Day 1 we climbed to pitch 5 and fixed back to dinner ledge. Stoked to get the redpoint on pitch 2 this time. Day 2 we climbed to pitch 9 however bailed due to running out of daylight before the last pitch. Great adventure.

Did the first 3 pitches and then had to bail from Dinner Ledge as there was already 11 people staying that night. Freed all 3 pitches with one sit on the rope on pitch 2.

Did it in 2 days with a really beautiful night on dinner ledge. Good for practicing some aid climbing.

Onsighted upto the Harding slot and then hoofed and hissed until I finally emerged an hour later. Probably as close as I'll get to experiencing child birth.

I - Jack Seawright - solemnly offer my deepest apologies for displaying some of the most pathetic climbing this king line has seen in its proud 50 year history. I had convinced myself probably too easily that i had what it took to climb astroman while tony, fresh off a double rest day, was rearing to go. We passed some young hoofas on the trail that offered to let us go first. We accepted a little too quickly to be considered polite and then ratted behind their backs about how their mums would be angry at them for being late to school pickup. The tables swiftly turned as they onsighted everything behind us and patiently waited at the belay stations as we racked up the following highlight reel: pitch 2: tony fails to locate totem placement off the deck for boulder problem, rips poorly placed dragonfly out of pin scar with hand, then aids original choss corner. I accidentally king swing across slab above on second after sweating off crimp. Pitch 3 enduro corner: I sloffed up the pitch with 20 rests on lead after telling everyone i planned to onsight the pitch. Pitch 5: I bailed off the last section of the pitch due to what i still consider a pretty serious unprotected 5.10 face sequence, and we rapped down the route past the kids who certainly seemed capable enough to find their own way home after school. The only success was that we didnt have an epic on the harding slot!.. because we didnt make it that far. Back at the campsite i copped a 'free dinner and free pants, i just wish i could free astroman'. Yes, i now reuse my jokes in crag writeups.

Two laps to dinner ledge - both times slowed by parties on the Kor roof but got to practice shortfixing.

probably the single most splitter crack ive done!

IAD, approx 13 hrs base to summit. Descent via royal arches raps.

Done clean, but easy to see some of the (large amount) of fixed mank will fall out. Cruxes mostly just manky clip ups.

Short fixed from P1 anchor to P6 anchor, had planned to block to tapir terrace but was dry/bonking a bit so left the rest to Scott. P6 felt like the aid crux - bolts and some sketchy heads/hooks but not so steep at the top that you'd want to fall.

The only falls for the day was on free-ish on P1, and a daisy whip on p8 (on C1, of course !)

Scott obviously avoided the belly crawl for the RHVs on Ps 10,11. That top pitch is loooose, hard see the cams in the sand filled cracks.

Hauling looks gross at the top, was glad to do it push style.

Some difficulty getting to the rap station on royal arches (?intermediate rap point sling missing) go hard to climbers right at approx 55m on first rap - First tree GPS 37.749424, -119.570062 see maps.ME/openstreet view for GPS on the approach if like us you're doing it for the first time in the dark from the top of WC. Can't compare to NDG as I've never done it.

In a day with Dave. My first grade V in a day. I led p1,7,8,9,10,11 and 12. Dave short fixed the more aidy pitches 2-6 while I jugged behind. Decent via the Royal Arches raps which went pretty smoothly once we eventually found the first anchor. About 12-13 hours on the route, about 19 hours car to car. Great day with perfect weather and nobody else on the route. Lots of fixed manky heads with enough good ones to make progress fairly smooth. Took a painful daisy whip on p8 when a small cam ripped, otherwise pretty uneventful. Amazing views of Half Dome and the upper valley, and great top out with North Dome behind.

The expected dinner ledge shit-show. Watched someone "not a client" being belayed by "not a guide" take 4 hours to lead the kor roof pitch. Luckily we had 2 beaks and could do the southern man var bypass (maybe take 2M+2L beaks next time, camhooks useful, hooks useful) - only a few moves but a bit spicy above the ?expanding flake next to the belay.

Fixed ropes in place from dinner ledge to bottom of scramble access, in OK condition but a bit glazed.

This is a classic first big wall so a must for everyone.

Try to avoid the crowds by starting the route at irregular times. The Kor roof is a massive bottleneck so pack some beaks and hooks and you can bypass the chaos on southern man!.

The bivy is spectacular!

Hard!! Had a go at leading the enduro corner... bring a few 0.75 and 1’s unless you like to run it out!

Have to come back for this one. No OS unfortunately and got eaten up a bit by the harding slot.

Retreated after I nearly killed myself in a rappelling accident on the Kor Roof.

Will come back to try this again someday.

Came back to get retribution from our first barely send. Left the bivy gear and the rations on the ground and bagged an in a day winter ascent. We hit an amazing weather window and didn't see another party anywhere the entire day. Simuled first 3 and last 3 pitches and freed up to 5.10d.

Superb and hard crack.

Climbed this multi-day Big Wall route in a mega one-day push (car to car in 14 hours), made possible by attempting to freeclimb most of the pitches that are usually aided (I climbed 6 of 11 pitches free, all onsight to 5.10d... and together we only aided 3 pitches). I led (onsight) pitches 1, 2 & 3 (linked), 6, 8 and 9. A great moderately big Big wall, with great climbing on every pitch (except perhaps the last), and surprisingly enjoyable aid climbing. Great position.

One of the best routes of its grade