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

Category Archives: Other

Any climbing area NOT included in the others!

Parlier’s Project: A Documentary of Grayson Highlands State Park

Parlier’s Project: A Documentary of Grayson Highlands State Park

Last summer we spent a good deal of time bouldering up at Grayson Highlands, VA.  Its an area that has seen smatterings of activity for many, many years, but only in small pockets of the park.  In recent years, this park has seen a resurgence in development, due mostly to my friend Aaron Parlier, who we met out at Grayson last summer.  Aaron is in the process of writing a guidebook for the area, hoping to have it in the hands of the publisher by the fall. On the day that we met Aaron, we also met Daniel Caudill, who…Read the rest of this entry →

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A Perfect Fall Weekend in the Highlands

A Perfect Fall Weekend in the Highlands

Great friends, stellar rock, and perfect weather all add up to a wonderful weekend in Grayson Highlands, VA!  We arrived late Friday night to the campground, and were pleased to find out that it didn’t get nearly as cold overnight as the forecast had predicted.  After enjoying a nice breakfast with Manbert, we met up with a hodgepodge of folks at the Contact Station before heading to the Olympus/RockHouse area. We warmed up on Cherokee Dihedral (V1), which felt kinda heady for a warm-up, but was a really pretty line up a dihedral with an interesting transition onto the right…Read the rest of this entry →

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Four Days of Dirtbaggin’ in Tennessee

Four Days of Dirtbaggin’ in Tennessee

With Canaan’s arrival this spring, Steve and I were way too busy to plan a big summer climbing trip like we usually do – so when our friend Christie said she had a few days off from grad school coming up in October and wondered if we’d be up for heading somewhere to climb, we jumped on the opportunity!  Steve had a business trip to Charlotte planned for the beginning part of the week, so on Wednesday afternoon, Canaan and I hopped in the car with Christie and Doris and made our way to Hickory, where we met up with…Read the rest of this entry →

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Mama’s got a brand new bag (and Cragbaby’s packin’!!!)

Mama’s got a brand new bag (and Cragbaby’s packin’!!!)

The past few weekends have been really busy for us, but long weekends with spectacular weather are just too tempting to pass up, so we were off to VA again for some more bouldering fun.  After spending a fun evening with Canaan’s grandparents (both sets!) we were off bright and early the next morning to meet Manbert at Grayson Highlands State Park.  The low humidity and highs in the upper 60’s felt amazing – and I sure was glad that I had bought Canaan some fall clothes right before we left! This was a landmark trip for us, since it was the test run with our…Read the rest of this entry →

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Grayson Highlands Bouldering…..

Grayson Highlands Bouldering…..

……is spectacular!  I can’t believe we never knew about it til recently!  Our journey started out on Friday afternoon with a small hiccup – as we were packing up the car, our friend that was supposed to be showing us around on Saturday texted us that he had to bail due to having kidney stones….hmmm, I GUESS that’s a reasonable excuse and we’ll let it slide… 🙂  Anyway, we hurriedly printed out the problem descriptions from Mountain Project and jumped in the car, hoping for the best… And the best it was!  Steve even said it was the most fun…Read the rest of this entry →

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