Cragmama "Not all who wander are lost…" JRR Tolkien

Tag Archives: Sport Climbing

Spring 2021: The Season of Redemption!

Spring 2021: The Season of Redemption!

With temps creeping up into the 90s on a regular basis down here in the Southeast, I think it’s safe to say that Spring is officially “sprung and done.” And with the first half of the year behind us, it’s a good time to look back and reflect on how the yearly goals are coming! I started this year with 2 very specific goals, but as the months went by, my spring climbing season quickly turned into a season of redemption on past projects! After coming up short on both of my season long projects last fall (Logotherapy 13a and…Read the rest of this entry →

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CragKid on the Sharp End!!!

CragKid on the Sharp End!!!

Despite the rocky start to our climbing year, our family has been trying hard to make up for lost time the past few weekends, and it’s been refreshingly awesome. Typically by this point of the year we are tired of melting off the rock and ready to exchange our climbing gear for paddleboards and kayaks. But after all the spring clovid closures, we have been far less picky with conditions than we usually are by mid-June! Not to mention, the weather has been seasonably tolerable, especially up at Hidden Valley, which is where we’ve spent the past couple of weekends.…Read the rest of this entry →

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Melrose Mountain Climbing

Melrose Mountain Climbing

One of our family’s first forays into post-quarantine climbing was Melrose Mountain, a small cliffline just outside of Tryon, NC. If you’ve never heard of this area, it’s probably because public access was just negotiated with the town of Tryon in 2019, courtehsy of the Carolina Climber’s Coalition and Blue Ridge Mountain Guides. Coming straight out of all the closures and having not climbed outside in months, a grade range of mostly 5.10 and under seemed like a good fit. And as a relatively unknown climbing spot, we felt pretty good about avoiding crowds. The weekend we went was hot.…Read the rest of this entry →

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Tweakend for the Weekend

Tweakend for the Weekend

“Mommy, what’s ‘bolt to bolting’ mean?” my 9 year old son asked me.  I hadn’t realized he had been listening to my conversation.  I was lounging at the base of the cliff, trying to summon the energy to give my project one last go before hiking out.  I was exhausted.  It had been a roller coaster of a day, hiking in to find ourselves in the midst of a foggy, misty drizzle that had made our slab warm-up a lot more exciting than we’d wanted.  Surprisingly enough, however, conditions on the 12 wall were primo.  The routes were steep enough…Read the rest of this entry →

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Labor Day at Hidden Valley

Labor Day at Hidden Valley

I’m not sure what the climbing conditions are like where you are, but around here it is still pretty hot and sweaty.  That was probably the biggest factor influencing our decision to head to Hidden Valley this past weekend.  Other factors included avoiding the throngs of people flocking to the Red and the New for the holiday weekend, as well as wanting to do some recon for the Hidden Valley Travel Beta series posts I’ve been doing. The good news is that we had success on all fronts – decent temps, crowd avoidance, and recon.  (Oh, and speaking of that,…Read the rest of this entry →

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“Not all who wander are lost.” —JRR TOLKIEN