CLASSIC CRACK (5.8+) Icicle Creek Canyon, Leavenworth, Washington

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Jeff Kelly leads Classic Crack

Fred Beckey’s old Guide to Leavenworth Rock Climbing makes reference to a "severe layback problem" at the Mountaineer Creek trailhead. The trailhead is gone, moved miles upstream, but the crack is still there. It is rarely done as a layback anymore, though. A marvelous new technique called "jamming", apparently unknown to climbers of the early Beckey era, can now be used to climb this crack, which has come to be known as Classic Crack.

Classic Crack is one of the most-climbed cracks in Washington state. Classic Crack buttress is often used by climbing schools, where all of the basics can be learned: rappelling, belaying, face climbing, and jamming. Classic Crack is a textbook jamcrack, a little wide and leaning a little to the left, deep and occasionally flaring, requiring good jamming technique, from thin hands to fists. It is short, splitting a wall only about forty feet high, but strenuous, with continuous 5.8 moves from vertical to slightly overhanging. The crack is commonly toproped and often led or soloed. It is definitely not a climb on which to make a bold statement, though. The crack has been free soloed up and down, in the dark, barefoot, and by drunken idiots wearing tennis shoes. About the only kind of ascent it hasn't had is a nude mass solo winter layback ascent - at least, not as far as anyone knows.

Classic Crack lies on private property. Luckily, the owner is a climber who tolerates the presence of other climbers so long as they mind their manners. Please be on your best behavior.


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