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Frenchman Coulee Cragging

Feathers and the Sunshine Wall

July 20, 2012


My nephew, Blake, and his fiancée, Caitlin, are relocating to Seattle from Iowa and have been out enjoying the best of the Pacific Northwest this summer. I took them climbing at Vertical World and at the Mountaineers climbing wall to build some mad skilz. So we put these new skills to use at Frenchman Coulee while on our way to Eastern Washington for the Chapman Family Reunion.

I hadn't been to Frenchman Coulee for years and now we've been there three times this summer! So for Blake and Caitlin's first trip to "Vantage" we started off at the Feathers with Ruffled Feathers. Blake had climbed Kangaroo Temple with his brother, Cam, and my friend Dan and I a couple years ago, but this was Caitlin's first venture on real rock. They both did marvelously on this first route, so we walked over to Shake It Don't Break It and climbed another Feather's classic.

Now, properly warmed up decided to make the trek over to the Sunshine Wall (Kim's favortie place!) and get our Peaceful Warrior on! It had just rained with some thunder and lightning in the distance so the temperatures were comfortable.

I had fun showing Blake and Caitlin the slot canyon leading down to the Sunshine Wall

Since we still had to drive over to Cheney where our family reunion was, so we only had time for this one route. We all had a great time climbing and this was the first time we had the Sunshine Wall all to ourselves! Caitlin had her nice Canon DSLR so Blake used that to take pictures while she was climbing.

Having sampled a few of the highlights of Frenchman Coulee, we hiked back out and continued our journey eastward! Thanks Blake and Caitlin for letting us share one of our passions!