It's September
6. We need to start heading South toward Las Vegas, where we are scheduled
to fly to New Zealand on September 18. We leave Winthrop and drive to Yakima
where we spend a few days. We park the bus at the Bend. It's too hot to climb
there as it is in the sun all day, but we climb "Ride the Lightning",
a 4-pitch route on Goose Egg Mountain.
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Spending
a few days at "The Bend" along the Tieton river, near
Yakima, WA.
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Goose
Egg Mountain.
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The
only worthwhile pitch (#2) on Ride the Lightning (5.9, PG).
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Scary
flakes neat the top of the wall, Goose Egg mountain.
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Keep
an eye on the wildlife...
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Goose
Egg mountain looks quite good from a distance: tall, steep, and apparently
clean. At closer look however, the rock is a bit substandard, quite loose,
and pretty scary in spots. The climb is good fun still, at least the lower
pitches. The second pitch is by far the best, with a long section of jamming
and lieback corner. The rest is either forgettable, well bolted face climbing,
or loose. The last pitch is horrible: it ends on stacked plates at the top
of the wall; scary, loose, nothing to anchor to… we simulclimb until Eric
can reach a pine tree.
The descent
is easy to find and well setup (except for two raps from dead trees…). We
wouldn't recommend the route. Or just do the first two pitches if you must.
BTW: if you do, you will need 60m double ropes for the ascent AND the descent
(some pitches and raps are long).
We also
climb a few routes at Wildcat Wall in between packing chores. This is an impressive
wall, with steep, sustained routes.
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The
steep Wildcat Wall - one of the great crags around the Tieton
River.
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Driving
through Oregon.
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The
small town of Pendleton, OR.
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Only
in America... (Pendleton, OR).
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Stopped
for the night after a long day of driving.
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We start
driving South on September 11, through north-eastern Oregon and the back roads
of central Nevada. Those roads have light traffic, and are mostly straight,
so we pushed 80+ mph for a good fraction of the time. We stop in Austin and
Goldfield for a bit of sightseeing.
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Driving
the wide open back roads of Nevada.
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Tiny
and picturesque Austin, NV.
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Strange
display in Goldfield, NV.
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Goldfield,
NV.
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Still
legal in Nevada!
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We make
it to Pahrump two days later around 6PM and settle on the parking lot of the
local Wal Mart.
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Our
next stop.
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