Climbing at Index (Index Town Wall)

This Sunday (8th July) me and Jared hit the Lower Town Wall in Index for some easy trad climbing. Index is a non-descript "town" one and a quarter hour away from Seattle. Among the Washington climbing regions, Index is well known for high quality steep granite, terrible weather and hard route ratings. The weather this weekend was magnificent: sunny with temperatures in the high 70s. We got out around 7:30 in the morning and was at the base of the Lower Town Wall by 9AM.

We decided to try out the Great Northern Slab (5.6 or 5.7+) depending on the guidebook you believe. GNS has many starts including a 5.6 bushy ramp and a 5th class chimney. There was a party ahead of us who soloed the bushy ramp and all the way to the top of first pitch. To make it a little spicier, I though I'd start out with a 20ft high fist crack on the side rated at 5.8 and thus bypass the ramp. The crack started out innocuous enough, but soon turned to a slippery painful fist crack with no feet. I retreated and let Jared have at it. At the same time another party showed up at the base of GNS. Since we had to hurry up to beat the other party, Jared french freed the fist crack and went all the way to the top of first pitch and belayed at the 1 inch thick railroad bolts. I got the "crux" second pitch. The crux was some awkward moves right above the belay to gain a pair of beautiful finger cracks. The finger cracks were perfect for nuts: I used only nuts and and slings to protect the cracks until I hit the second bolted belay. The team behind us opted to traverse right after the railroad bolts and belayed beneath a 5.6 hand crack which is part of Libra (5.10a or 5.6). Jared made short work of the third pitch which ended at a pair of chains below a slab. The slab was not as well protected as the rest of the route, but it was easy. When we got to the top, the party above us seemed to have disappeared. We didn't think too much about it and rapped down the route while trying to cause least bother to the folks below us.

Next up we decided to try the 5.6 hand crack and to do that we wanted to do a variation on the first pitch of GNS. Just below GNS, there is a 5.10c dihedral about 15 feet high and I thought it might be fun to aid up it and then continue. Dutifully I slotted nuts into the corner, clipped shoulder length slings into them and stood up on the slings. Unfortunately the crack petered out pretty rapidly until only thing I could slot in was my smallest Black Diamond nut. As I fiddled around looking for my next placement, suddenly the small nut popped and shifted below. That was enough aid climbing for me: there was no more place to put pro and the pro I was standing on was slipping! And now the nuts were so tightly lodged into the crack so that we'd have to clean them on rappel. I went back to the bushy ramp, climbed up to the right of GNS and set up a semi hanging belay below the hand crack. Jared led the hand crack and the crack was beautiful. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if my shoes were not pinching my toes. When we got to the end of second pitch for GNS, we rapped back. By then there were a total of four parties on GNS and the raps were getting a bit out of hand with the crowd.

Once we got back on ground, we had lunch and decided to try Robin's Ramp (5.7) on Mid wall. The description of the trail to Mid wall was a bit vague. After a few missteps, we decided to ask the folks at the base of the Lower wall. The Lower wall is very steep ---we walked by City Park (5.13+): it is visible a soaring steep thin crack with a white streak washed around it. Todd Skinner's first free ascent of City Park is an interesting story by itself and you can read about it from Jeff Smoot. After getting directions we started up the trail towards upper wall. The trail was steep and strenuous. On top of that, in the forest the humidity was close to 100% and we were sweating like pigs. Halfway through, we decided to abandon our packs and just go and check out the Mid wall. Jared had to get back home early and we didn't have enough time to climb the route any way. We went quite a bit in, but ultimately lost the trail in a glade full of downed logs and mossy boulders. Obviously people do not use the trail much. We decided to call it a day and hiked back out. When we were close to the parking lot, we met the couple who at the very beginning were ahead of us on GNS. They solved the mystery for us. The used GNS as an approach climb for Winkie Dinkie Wall and Mid Wall is above that. We learnt our lesson: next time we go looking for Mid Wall, we shall just climb GNS and take it from there.