A new top-rope problem in Darrington

There is a new, or possibly old, short top-rope crack climb in Darrington. Two years ago, on a fine day in October, I walked up Squire Creek Trail #654 and noticed some white rock behind a blanket of moss. This blanket was hanging down a rock looming large beside the logging road. So I scampered up to the top of the boulder to find a large fir tree in just the right place to anchor a top-rope. I clipped in a rope and threw it down to take a look. When I lifted the blanket away, there appeared a good looking crack, hand width at the top and getting narrower as I descended. I spent a while to clean it off.

But I didn't try to climb it that year, nor the next. Only this year I got motivated and asked my buddy Yale Lewis for a top-rope belay. On May 29th we tried and could not get off the ground. I found a good low foot hold, then a beauty three-finger stack crimp. I worked on the sequence many times, and was able to make a big reach to get established in the good part of the crack. I was not able to finish the thing cleanly, but knew I would be back.

One week later, on June 5th, I returned by myself with an old GoPro camera. I strapped it to a tree, in upside-down mode, tilted up. I tried and fell onto my uAscend device seven times, learning a bit each time, and worked out a sequence which succeeded on the eighth. It made a sketchy video, not a smooth or refined ascent, but it was made.

Does any one of the Darrington old timers out there know of any other attempts on this rock formation? Could this have been a testpiece of the past, left to be grown over and forgotten? Please see the photos on the "Squire Creek Walls/South Face" page, where I'm calling it "Loggers' Crack" for now. There is also a sketch map of the logging road approach.

Funny, I walked past this last Saturday and couldn't remember ever seeing such a nice and clean looking finger crack there before. Almost hopped on it. Makes sense now!

I'm sure someone, soon, will "hop on" it without a rope and it will be a highball bouldering problem!