I will be visting Seattle from May 3- May 6 and have a friend interested in learning how to climb. Does anyone know of any good sport routes (5.6-5.8) within a couple hours of Seattle?

check out the section on here for Exit 38 and/or Little Si. This is a great sport climbing one hour east of Seattle on I-90. You could spend weeks here. Rock is solid and ratings are good.

I definitely agree with the comment about Exit 38 and Exit 32 (little si). I also have to recommend Vantage, also known as Frenchmen Coulee. It's about 2.5 hours east of Seattle on I-90, and offers excellent sport climbs up columnar basalt pillars. Routes range from 5.4 to very hard. Check out the "Feathers" section in Vantage, where there are a few days worth of pretty good quality routes from 5.6 to 5.10. Sunshine Wall also offers great climbs, and are longer, and more interesting than the routes at the Feathers. If you trad climb, bring a standard rack, and hop on some classics on sunshine wall, like George and Martha (5.10a), Air Guitar (5.10a), and Party in your pants (5.8).

I just returned from Seattle. We climbed Exit 38's Deception Crag area. Although it's much different from Red Rock's sandstone, we had a blast. Thanks!