More NC Cimbing

I spent all day Monday and Tuesday morning hiding out from the rain in Brevard. I did a little shopping and spent a lot of time hanging out at a coffee shop with free wi-fi.


This is my awesome, but mostly ineffective rain shelter. Who would have thought that my old tent groundsheet was water permeable?

Tuesday afternoon, the rain cleared up and the sun came out and it was beautiful! I hiked up to Looking Glass Rock to see how wet the rock was. To my surprise, it was almost entirely dry! It hadn't rained too heavily and I guess the wind and sun of the afternoon dried the slabs out quite quickly.

This is the really unique looking face of Looking Glass. The eyebrow formations are quite bizarre. They are mostly slopey, but often make good foot-holds and sometimes have cracks that will take gear and occasionally even a hand jam, or a lip on the top that is a good undercling. Mostly, though, it is friction climbing. Slabtastic.

Since the rock looked dry, Kent came to Brevard on Wednesday, and we climbed Sundial Crack at Looking Glass. I was pretty scared leading the first pitch, even though it was supposed to be only 5.5. Route finding is rather interesting here. There isn't a really clear line. You just have to look around and figure out where you might be able to get gear, and where the holds (kind of a mis-nomer since you are rarely able to hold onto anything...) look best, and climb in that general direction. I didn't do such a great job on the first pitch and ended up with some pretty long runouts...and every move is delicate.
Here is a view up the second pitch, I believe.

The third pitch starts up the name-sake crack (really a water groove, I believe). It was my lead again and I was thrilled to have a crack to climb. Finally, something familiar! The crack was somewhat flaring in places, but took some good hand jams, and some fantastic foot jams. It's a shame it only lasted 30 feet. After that, it was back to the slab. By this time, I was feeling more comfortable on the slab, and did a better job of finding gear placements. I felt much stronger on this pitch.

Kent led the last easy pitch to top-out.
Here I am at the top. It was a beuatiful, sunny day, but a little bit windy, and cold until the sun came over the top of the rock.

Wednesday night, we drove to Shortoff Mountain, in Linnville Gorge, and camped there for the night. Thursday, we climbed Paradise Alley (5.8+) at Shortoff. I forgot to take my camera on the route, and, therefore, didn't get any pictures, but the first pitch of that climb may be one of my all time favorite pitches. It was absolutely stellar climbing. The climb tackled a steep, juggy start, then pulled up onto a ledge, from which it followed easier dihedral climbing to another ledge under a steep, pretty clean face, with a more featured face on the left side. The crack in the dihedral was mostly thin hands with some great pods for hand jams. I mostly lay-backed, using good feet on the left wall, resting on bomber hand jams, and occasionally stemming out to good feet on the right face. Several times I thought about calling for a take (resting on the rope), but each time I pushed through it and, shortly, found a good rest. It was some of the most fun I've ever had climbing...and that's saying something! The next three pitches were less exciting, but still fun...a blocky dihedral followed by a couple of slightly steep, juggy faces.

Thursday evening, Kent headed out to go visit some family for the weekend, and I drove up towards Table Rock, and slept in my car at a trailhead parking lot. Friday, I drove into Linville Falls, checked out the falls (a 0.4 mile hike from the parking lot), which were not really all that impressive, and got my mail. I had had Melissa send me some stuff general delivery, and was pleased to find that it had arrived. After that, I drove to Winson-Salem, did a little grocery shopping, and hung out at a coffee shop journaling for a while, then drove up to Hanging Rock State Park, home of Moore's Wall, and ended up paying way too much to camp in the state park campground.

Saturday, I met up with Jeff Dillon, who I had met through rockclimbing.com, his daughter, Phoebe, and some friends of his, Kristie and Heath, plus a friend of a friend of his, Jonathon, and climbed at Moore's Wall. We climbed at a small crag above the Amphitheater area. I don't know the names of any of the routes. I led a fun 5.8, and TR'd a couple of 10's.

Here is Kristie, pulling through the initial, not very 5.8-looking moves of the 5.8. Very fun moves!
And this is Jonathon trying to pull through the crux of one of the 10's (the harder of the two).

After that, Jonathon and I went down to the Circus Wall and climbed Zoo View (5.7+), one of the area classics. A 5.5 first pitch leads to a belay at a large ledge. You then traverse left, past a bolt, to a crack system, getting some magnificent exposure, then climb up to a huge, super intimidating roof, which you pull through on giant, juggy horizontals. Truly a great climb.

Here is a view from the first belay.

We finished up and got back to the car with the sun going down, and headed into Winston-Salem for dinner and some well-deserved beers.

After dinner, I drove to Chapel Hill, to visit my friends Jae and Tracy. Today, the three of us went for a hike in a nearby state park. I'm going to sleep here again tonight, then, tomorrow I will head back to Table Rock to climb with Kent on Tuesday. Thursday, I plan to head on to the New River Gorge in West Virginia. Should be fun!

Route List for 4/15-18:

• Sundial Crack (4 pitches, 5.8) (Onsight pitches 1 and 3, followed pitches 2 and 4).
• Paradise Alley (4 pitches, 5.8+) (Onsight pitches 1 and 3, followed pitches 2 and 4).
• Unknown 5.8 (Onsight)
• Unknown 5.10a (TR clean)
• Unknown 5.10 (TR)
• Zoo View (2 pitches, 5.7+) (Onsight pitch 1 (5.5), followed pitch 2)