When it comes to alpine rock climbing in the Cascades, there's one location in particular that stands out: Washington Pass on Highway 20. The combination here of mostly quality rock, long routes and simple access is unrivalled elsewhere in the range. As the mountain guides down in Mazama like to say: It's Euro style mountaineering. In our case the lifts are replaced with the trusty gas guzzler to facilitate the one day ascent of a major peak via a long technical route.

It is almost cragging. The commitment factor is relatively low, with the drone of the highway always there in the background. Some routes are so consistently good that it feels like you indeed handpicked the individual pitches at your favorite crag. You can encounter lots of people too, just like the Sunshine Wall during spring break. But as always the tendency is to gather on the well known, high profile routes.

The rock is the famed Goldenhorn Granodiorite, which has the reddish tone of Chamonix granite but the rough texture of Joshua Tree's quartz monzonite. Like the former it is often fractured and exfoliated into very climbable features, but like the latter it can also quickly deteriorate into a grainy, crumbly choss, affectionately called kitty litter. But it is alpine climbing after all, and therefore one must expect such inconveniences.