Climbing Journal: Static Point

First of all, let me get right to the belly aching. The person that wrote the section on Static Point in the "Washington Climbing Guide" is seriously on my shit list.
"hike down the trail .6(Point Six) miles, at which point you will cross a gully and travel 1 mile up the gully to the rock face." WRONG! So wrong. We only crossed, oh maybe two dozen gullies/creeks/whatever.. And man it was easily 4 miles in before we found the trail up to the face.. Which they neglected to mention was a serious kick in the butt. Where's the sherpa? I think it was 20 minutes to the uphil, and then an hour of solid up hill hike. Forget driving up, and walking a few minutes to the crags.. This was a sweaty aproach made worse by a bad choice of footwear..Next time hiking boots! But we made it, and my shirt was soaked.


Man, it was worth it. A sea of granite, very few holds, slab climbing, friction time, Just smear those hands and feat and keep trucking to the next bolt. Try not to think about the fact you are hundreds of feat up and you have absolutely nothing to hold on to. NO HOLDS. I'll admit the fear kicked in a couple of times. Even the tiniest little crack provides you with a sense of security because you can squeeze it hard, the harder the better, it won't hold you on the wall if your feet slip, but just the act of gripping something is so reassuring after swimming across the ocean of granite.
The routes were a bit run out... but refreshing in comparison to something like exit 38, where you clip every five feet. We went up four pitches of 5.8(about 200 meters or so). The fifth pitch:
was 5.10a and while it definitely seemed within our reach, we decided not to push it and rapelled down. We got there at 11, and got back to the car at 5, way way tired. Mostly from the hike.

Did I mention the view?