A day out in Washington’s finest granite climbing arena

◊ 9.25.2017 ◊ Index, Washington

Towering granite walls with quality that competes with Yosemite, only an hour from Seattle! Who would have thought?! Turns out the state of Washington boasts a considerable amount of great rock, and the granite at Index is easily some of the finest in the state.

The town of Index is a small hamlet of only 200 people, nestled at the base of Mt. Index in the Western foothills of the Cascade Mountains. The towering granite walls are located on the North edge of town. And by ‘edge of town’, I literally mean they are right there, just a couple minutes of easy approach from the roadside. The easy accessibility along with free camping at the base of the wall makes it a very popular location.

We arrived late in the day on Sunday, just in time for other climbers to leave and open up a free camping spot for us. Rolling into the little town of Index and seeing the walls for the first time was breathtaking. The setting was about perfect; A tiny Yosemite hidden in the Cascades. Unfortunately the rain had arrived overnight, so in the morning we headed down to the closest real town, Gold Bar, to wait out the storm. Waking Tuesday morning the skies were blue, and it was time to climb!

Considering we only had one day left to climb here, we decided to focus on a few top rated classics. Index Town Walls is split into two main sections, the Upper Wall and Lower Wall. The Upper Wall is mostly categorized by long hard aid climbs and free climbs. The Lower Wall is said to “rank as Washington’s finest crags, with perhaps the greatest concentration of clean, steep cracks of any cliff in the state, even rivaling Yosemite’s Cookie Cliff in number of quality climbs.” That description coupled with its short approach made it an easy choice.

Our first objective was G.M. route, on The Country wall. It is a stiff 5.9 trad route that follows a main crack system for three pitches up the right flank. Notably was a slightly off-width overhang section that required fun sequence of committing moves to pull.

Next, and with only time left for one more climb we headed down to the Lower Wall – Right Side.

Our objective: one of the best pitches of its grade in Washington: Godzilla. Godzilla is another stiff 5.9 trad route, comprised of a 120-foot tall steep, airy flake and corner system. It was an amazing climb well deserved of its popularity, with perfect body position on finger and hand size cracks.

Having used up all of our time, it was time to make our way to Seattle, and prepare for our journey to Alaska.

For more photos see our flickr album… https://flic.kr/s/aHsm8hX2AC