Route Suggestions
The progression of rock climbing capabilities that the average Intermediate student goes through is phenomenal. Many people come into the course having never even led on bolts, and become strong climbers swinging leads on long multipitch trad in the alpine. That growth doesn't happen overnight though, it needs to be taken in incremental steps with each step well-practiced, so it takes a year or two, if not longer (and longer is okay, everyone should go at their own pace.) The course field trips will introduce a lot of the necessary skills, but the field trips alone are definitely NOT sufficient. There's a big difference between doing a skill once at a field trip, and having repeated a skill so much that it is fast, smooth, and second-nature to you. You, as an Intermediate student, need to get out, go cragging, and practice on your own. Here's a list of routes ideas that you can use throughout your own progression. Be sure to do your own research, look up a lot more beta on each than what I've provided here.
Weather
Obviously, make sure you check the weather before you go. For cragging days, I'd recommend a 30% or lower chance of rain, and 15mph or lower winds. For temperature, I'm willing to crag anywhere between 32°F and 100°F, though other people may have a smaller comfort range. Bring plenty of fluids, like cold gatorade for hot days, or a thermos of hot tea for cold days. Also for cold days, bring a big puffy belay jacket and maybe chemical hand-warmer packets. South-facing walls without much shade can be great climbing in the dead of winter. It is possible to go cragging in the PNW every month of the year if you wait for high-pressure weather systems and check the weather at a lot of different locations.
Leading on Bolts, Single Pitch
Make sure you've learned to lead on bolts before Rock 1. It's not an official prerequisite to Rock 1, but it should be. There is a head-game that comes with climbing above your protection, and it's much better to get used to that while leading on bolts, rather than add to the already complicated subject of placing trad gear.
If you've never led on bolts before, first:
Here's some places where you can find routes that are good for practicing your first leads. Unfortunately, the paperback guidebooks for both have become endangered species.
Bolted Routes where you can Practice Multi-Pitch Skills
After you've both (1) practiced leading a bunch of single-pitch bolted routes, and (2) taken the Ropes & Anchors field trip in January, you've got the skills to try out swapping leads on a real route. Many of these routes are normally done as a single pitch, but you can split them into two short pitches for practice purposes. Time yourself on these, see how long it takes to do even two short pitches and then get back to the ground before you go on to bigger routes.
Single Pitch Trad Routes
After you take Rock 1, but before Rock 2 comes up, it's really valuable to get out and practice more leading on trad gear by organizing your own cragging days with friends you've made in the Intermediate course. Both single-pitch and small multi-pitch cragging routes should be within your reach now, but I'll still do separate sections. Here are some very easy single-pitch routes for you to get more comfortable with your trad gear:
Multipitch Trad, to Practice for Rock 2
Rock 1 is a teaching field trip, and Rock 2 is an evaluation. For your Rock 2 eval to go smoothly, you really need to get out and climb at least one multipitch trad route on your own time, putting all those skills from Rock 1 to use. I've even seen some students who prepared for Rock 2 by going out and climbing most or all of the Rock 2 routes ahead of time. While that much preparation isn't necessary, it is awesome!! Students who have done that come into Rock 2 confident, and are smooth and efficient at the process of swinging leads, all of which makes the evaluators very happy.
First Summer of Intermediate, After Rock 2
So you've passed Rock 2. Congratulations!! The best thing you can do now is sign up to be a Rope Lead on a lot of Basic climbs. Every single Basic rock route is easier climbing than whatever you were tested on during Rock 2, so you know with confidence that you can lead them. The challenge of them will come from everything that makes them alpine: longer approaches, less predictable weather, trickier route-finding, and a huge need to move quickly to avoid having an epicly long day. Also, the art of helping Basic students brings it's own challenges, but also it's own rewards.
After you've been a rope lead on a number of Basic Rock climbs, and your multipitch transitions are extremely efficient thanks to having done a lot of multipitch climbing, you can start branching out to Intermediate Rock climbs, when you feel ready. There's no rush to do this, and many people chose to spend their first summer of Intermediate just being a Rope Lead on Basic climbs, which is hugely valuable! When you do start seeking out Intermediate Rock climbs, two of the easiest ones are the Liberty Bell Beckey Route (5.6, 4 pitches, fairly sustained 5.6 climbing for a lot of the route) and the East Ridge of Ingalls (5.7, 5 or more pitches.)
Weather
Obviously, make sure you check the weather before you go. For cragging days, I'd recommend a 30% or lower chance of rain, and 15mph or lower winds. For temperature, I'm willing to crag anywhere between 32°F and 100°F, though other people may have a smaller comfort range. Bring plenty of fluids, like cold gatorade for hot days, or a thermos of hot tea for cold days. Also for cold days, bring a big puffy belay jacket and maybe chemical hand-warmer packets. South-facing walls without much shade can be great climbing in the dead of winter. It is possible to go cragging in the PNW every month of the year if you wait for high-pressure weather systems and check the weather at a lot of different locations.
Leading on Bolts, Single Pitch
Make sure you've learned to lead on bolts before Rock 1. It's not an official prerequisite to Rock 1, but it should be. There is a head-game that comes with climbing above your protection, and it's much better to get used to that while leading on bolts, rather than add to the already complicated subject of placing trad gear.
If you've never led on bolts before, first:
- Read this page.
- Get an experienced friend or your Intermediate Mentor to teach you how to clean & rappel. This skill is best shown and then practiced while the two of you are standing side-by-side, either on the ground together, or both at the top of a climb together, NOT with you alone at the top of a climb shouting questions to people on the ground.
- Consider taking a class. Vertical World & Stone Gardens offer good ones for reasonable fees, or search the Mountaineers website for the "Introduction to Leading Bolted Routes" class.
- Do mock-leads. Mock-lead means two ropes required: one already up as a top-rope, on which a loose belay is given, and a second that you clip into quickdraws as if you were really leading, ideally with a second belayer on that rope for realism (even though the top-rope will catch the falls, so the lead rope will likely never be weighted.)
Here's some places where you can find routes that are good for practicing your first leads. Unfortunately, the paperback guidebooks for both have become endangered species.
- Exit 38 -> A great wall to start at is either Write Off Rock on the Deception side, or Easy Street or Headlight Point on the Far Side. Be aware that the trails on the Far Side can be tricky to navigate, so get a copy of the map from the Exit 38 Rock Climbing guidebook and allow extra time to get there.
- Vantage -> You'll probably want to go to The Feathers. The print guidebook is hard to come by. There's a free short PDF guidebook online, but since it doesn't list all the routes, it can be hard to figure out where one route is relative to another unless you're already familiar with the area. Lastly, here's my notes on visiting Vantage that I send to people who've truly never been there before.
- Leavenworth -> Playground Point has a few easy bolted routes.
Bolted Routes where you can Practice Multi-Pitch Skills
After you've both (1) practiced leading a bunch of single-pitch bolted routes, and (2) taken the Ropes & Anchors field trip in January, you've got the skills to try out swapping leads on a real route. Many of these routes are normally done as a single pitch, but you can split them into two short pitches for practice purposes. Time yourself on these, see how long it takes to do even two short pitches and then get back to the ground before you go on to bigger routes.
- Exit 38: “Easy Street” 5.6- → 2 full pitches. The middle route at the Easy Street wall on the Far Side. Two rappels required to reverse the route. Tieing stopper-knots at the ends of your rappel is always important, but I want to re-emphasize them here anyway. Finding the Easy Street wall in the first place can be an adventure.
- Exit 38: “Insomniac” 5.8 → Can be split into two pitches. On the Far Side, in between the Headlight Point wall and the Tunnel of Love route. The first pitch is very short 5.4, the second pitch keeps left up the "open-book" then becomes a super fun 5.8 arete climb. One 30m rappel can reach the ground.
- Vantage: “Chossmaster” 5.7 → Can be split into two pitches. On the Sunshine Wall, a little east of Gully #2. One 30m rappel can reach the ground.
- Vantage: “Justified Ancients of Mu Mu” 5.8 → Can be split into two pitches. On the Sunshine Wall. One 30m rappel can reach the ground.
- Vantage: “Duress” and “Under Duress” 5.9 → The route “Duress” is the second pitch to “Under Duress”
Single Pitch Trad Routes
After you take Rock 1, but before Rock 2 comes up, it's really valuable to get out and practice more leading on trad gear by organizing your own cragging days with friends you've made in the Intermediate course. Both single-pitch and small multi-pitch cragging routes should be within your reach now, but I'll still do separate sections. Here are some very easy single-pitch routes for you to get more comfortable with your trad gear:
- Mt Erie Summit Wall has a handful trad routes 5.6 and below
- Mt Erie Powerline Wall and Crack Wall have a few easy single-pitch trad routes as well.
- A note on Mt Erie: it's unusually hard to find the climbing walls. At a place like Vantage you see the climbing walls rising above ground level, so you can see them and go to them, but at Mt Erie you park at the top and have to scramble down hill next to the walls, so you can't see them until you're standing on top of them (and sometimes it's hard even then.) To get there, drive the road to the very top of Mt Erie. You want the pull-off just before the big radio tower, it's like a tenth of a mile before the road ends, so it's okay to go to the road-end & turn around to be sure you're in the right spot. From that parking pull-off, go out to the cliff edge, then hang a right (turn west) and hike through the woods getting further & further away from the road. Find where the powerlines drop over the cliff edge (a 5 or 10 minute walk from parking.) If you look down over that powerline cliff, you'll see bolts in the rock. You could rappel from there if you really wanted, but the preferred way is to go to the right-most edge of that cliff (skier's right, that is,) and look for 3rd-class gully to descend. (Maybe ramp is a better word, it's not much of a gully.) The gully/ramp is not obvious until you start down it. (Don't you love catch-22's?) Here's my best memory (educated guess) of where to go on a map. Here's pictures of ramp beginning where you descend, from far away, and closer up.
- Vantage: There's not a lot of routes at Vantage that are good for someone new to leading trad. The only two routes that I'd really recommend are Chapstick (5.5, very easy, a great first trad lead) and Seven Virgins and a Mule (5.7, a moderate but long chimney. No bolts at the top to rappel off of that one, so some creativity will be required after you're done climbing, I'll leave it to you to research/invent a solution.)
- Vantage, harder routes: If you feel like you're climbing strong enough to tackle 5.8 on trad gear (I didn't until after I was leading trad for about two years,) then another two good single pitch trad routes are Party in Your Pants (a.k.a. Problem in your Pants) and Crossing the Threshold. For both, I'd recommend a rack with a set of nuts and 10 cams, doubles of BD sizes #0.5 to #3.
- Tieton: Actually, I still haven't climbed at the Royal Columns yet myself, but I hear there are a few good easy trad routes there.
Multipitch Trad, to Practice for Rock 2
Rock 1 is a teaching field trip, and Rock 2 is an evaluation. For your Rock 2 eval to go smoothly, you really need to get out and climb at least one multipitch trad route on your own time, putting all those skills from Rock 1 to use. I've even seen some students who prepared for Rock 2 by going out and climbing most or all of the Rock 2 routes ahead of time. While that much preparation isn't necessary, it is awesome!! Students who have done that come into Rock 2 confident, and are smooth and efficient at the process of swinging leads, all of which makes the evaluators very happy.
- The Rock 2 Routes. (Note on Leavenworth difficulty ratings: they don't mean much. Who first climbed it and when it was climbed matters more. I'll list the Yosemite-decimal ratings for these climbs, but you should ignore it.)
- Groundhog's Day → 3 pitches, rated 5.7, but IMHO this is the easiest Rock 2 climb. Great for new trad climbers, and a great first multipitch trad lead. All anchors are a pair of bolts, so you don't even have to build gear anchors. The one gotcha: the 3rd pitch is longer than 30 meters, so if you just have one 60m rope, it won't be enough to rappel the 3rd pitch. Bring a 70m rope, or two ropes (perhaps organize a group of 4 people, climbing as two separate rope teams, who then meet at the top and combine ropes for the rappel. With a double-rope rappel, you can reach the ground from the top of pitch #2 if desired.) Next door, Aquarius is a similar route you could climb too. Here are photos of the routes' starts.
- R&D → rated 5.6, which I'd say is roughly accurate, this a "medium" difficulty for a Rock 2 route. It's often done as 4 pitches, but there's more than one way to divide up the pitches, so I've also seen it done as a 3-pitch or 5-pitch climb. (IMHO, splitting it into more pitches is better: less rope-drag, better climber/belayer communication, less run-out if your rack is small, etc.)
- Tree Route → 3 pitches, rated 5.6, which is also roughly accurate, this a "medium" difficulty for a Rock 2 route. The 3rd pitch has an off-width crack, which is actually pretty easy by off-width standards, but does requires some big cams to protect it. I recommend bringing one BD #4 and one BD #5 in addition to your regular rack. You may need to ask your friends and see if you can borrow them, since few people own those. If you want more after Tree Route, it's a bit of a hike uphill, but somewhere up there is another 3-pitch route called "Stump Route."
- Saber → 5.5, best done as 3 pitches. Don't let the rating fool you, this is one of the harder Rock 2 routes. The easiest way to get on the first pitch is by climbing the sandy "trail" on your right until you can traverse left onto the route, there's no need to self-inflict pain by trying the "direct start" with hard bouldering moves in that roofed alcove. For the rest of pitch #1, just remember these two words: "Go left."
- Midway → 5.5, best done as 3 pitches. Quite possibly the hardest of the Rock 2 routes. Look up who and when the first ascent was to understand why. Getting off the ground is the hardest part, but fortunately it gets gradually easier the higher up the route you get. If you need pro for confidence at the start, either look for a crack that takes your smallest nut on the rock behind you, or, if you happen to have a BD #5, it will fit in the space between Jello Tower and the main wall of Castle Rock, but that's the only spot on the whole climb you'll use it so it's not part of the usually recommended rack.
- Routes elsewhere that are somewhat on par with the Rock 2 routes:
- Zig Zag at Mt Erie → 3-ish pitches, rated 5.7, but I'd call it more like a 5.6. I highly recommend substituting the route "Undercover" for pitch #2, it's a lot of fun! Also, I'm not really sure what pitch 3 is, if it even exists. No matter, it's still a fun climb and good experience. When rappelling the route, drop down on top of Snag Buttress, and rappel off the lowest *living* tree, the tips of 60m rope will just barely reach the ground.
- Smith Rock: If you have a 3-day weekend and can manage the 5.5 hour drive down to Smith Rock, there is tons and tons of awesome climbing down there. Some trad multipitch routes that are on par with Rock 2 include:
- Cinnamon Slab → 5.6, 2 pitches. The first pitch is awesome and a lot of fun. The second pitch is easier, short and bland. It helps to protect the 1st pitch if you can bring some big cams, one BD #4 and one BD #5.
- Moscow → rated as 5.6, but the climbing felt a bit stiffer than that to me. 3 and a half pitches. Big cams were valuable, one BD #4 and one BD #5.
First Summer of Intermediate, After Rock 2
So you've passed Rock 2. Congratulations!! The best thing you can do now is sign up to be a Rope Lead on a lot of Basic climbs. Every single Basic rock route is easier climbing than whatever you were tested on during Rock 2, so you know with confidence that you can lead them. The challenge of them will come from everything that makes them alpine: longer approaches, less predictable weather, trickier route-finding, and a huge need to move quickly to avoid having an epicly long day. Also, the art of helping Basic students brings it's own challenges, but also it's own rewards.
After you've been a rope lead on a number of Basic Rock climbs, and your multipitch transitions are extremely efficient thanks to having done a lot of multipitch climbing, you can start branching out to Intermediate Rock climbs, when you feel ready. There's no rush to do this, and many people chose to spend their first summer of Intermediate just being a Rope Lead on Basic climbs, which is hugely valuable! When you do start seeking out Intermediate Rock climbs, two of the easiest ones are the Liberty Bell Beckey Route (5.6, 4 pitches, fairly sustained 5.6 climbing for a lot of the route) and the East Ridge of Ingalls (5.7, 5 or more pitches.)
Top picture: Andrea Keating follows pitch #6 while swapping leads on Prime Rib of Goat, 7/5/2013