Vantage

Some PicsThe warm up .10a
BOULDERS!
Yeah, photo evidence of me trad climbing!
Sunshine Wall before sun set.
Josh on warm up, .10a

This was my first trip to Vantage and it was pretty fun, definitely makes me appreciate granite though. After 5 minutes of trying to find out where we were due to the fact that almost all the pillars look the same, we located a cool looking 5.8 that leads into a .10a. It was fun and after we all did this climb the next stop was some trad! We located two short trad climbs that were next to each other. Josh took the left one and then I took the right one. They were a little dirty because they were put up the day before! (The FAer walked by and told us we were the first besides him on it).
After the new climbs we headed around the corner for some old classics. The first was a striking pillar called Sunshine Buttress, 5.10a. It had an easy start to an exciting finish. Stu managed the onsight of this radical line. After we all gave it a go we moved over to the classic crack, Air Guitar 5.10a. Its a slowly widing crack starting with finger jams to off hands at the finish. Josh took the onsight but messed up 10 feet in, lowered and then fired off second go with a harrowing finish and a semi-stuck hex. I went next and managed to flash the line using more crimps than jams but felt pretty satisfied with my climbing, I'm guessing 60-70% of my pieces would've held, so I'm glad I flashed it. I would like to come back and try some of the other trad lines here too.
After the exciting traditional climbs we headed over to the Powerhouse Wall so I could try the two .12s. Well, The first one is King of the Ruins and besides getting lost at the crux, pumped out of my mind, and taking three times, it went well. (I've decided basalt which has a gazillion chalked holds is not the best place to practice onsighting) It was a cool line and I tried King Connection, another .12a, and had a better result. I managed to only one hang it! After trying a few other lines in the fading light of sunset, we called it a day and hiked out in twilight. All in all vantage is a cool place for cracks and moderate sport, but this place will definitely be cookin' in a few weeks. I learned that I'm definitely in bouldering shape and need to kick the endurance up a notch but that can wait till after Bishop. It's looking like Leavenworth again this weekend an I'm glad to get back on the textured granite boulders...