Category Archives: Climbing

Posts about…you guessed it – climbing! Trip reports, anecdotes, and musings about my favorite recreational pasttime.

A Weekend Escape to the NC High Country

Jun 14 2016

Although we’d had plans made for the past few weeks already, I was pretty pleased when I saw that our weekend getaway to the NC mountains aligned with Charlotte’s first (of what will hopefully not be TOO many) 100 degree days. This particular escape was one of my favorite types of trips – a hybrid family/climbing/hiking weekend that makes for all sorts of fun and variety. After enjoying a gorgeous Grandfather Mountain view with our morning coffee, the CragDaddy and I headed up to the Linville Gorge for a “crag-date” at Hawksbill Mountain. (Thank you to Bebe and Papa Joe for…Read the rest of this entry →

Hawksbill Round 2: A New Personal Best!

May 24 2016

Though my spring climbing season got off to a slow-ish start, these last few weeks have been unseasonably cool, and have allowed me to string together some hard (for me!) sends. Since the CragDaddy had spent most of the previous week in NY on business, our family opted for the day trip this past weekend. After accumulating some sending momentum at the Red the week before,I was psyched and ready to try hard on my project at Hawksbill Mountain. I wrote about Tips Ahoy 12d a couple of weeks ago , when I hopped on it while a friend of mine was…Read the rest of this entry →

A Red River Gorge Sending Spree!!!

May 17 2016

“Some weekends everything falls together and you send. Other times you work your ass off and walk away empty-handed. But those “work” weekends are what make the “sending” weekends so magical.” Those were my words exactly one month ago, after a hard-fought battle with Jesus and Tequila 12b, one of my (many) unsent projects from the New River Gorge last fall. The “moral” of that post was that investing hard work into a project will EVENTUALLY reap successful dividends, even if you currently have nothing “on paper” to show for it. That particular weekend was a “work” weekend. So was the…Read the rest of this entry →

New Project at Hawksbill Mountain

May 10 2016

For our family, the month of May marks perfect sending conditions at one of our favorite crags – Hawksbill Mountain in the Linville Gorge. The sending season here is short – if you come in April your hands will for sure numb out due to a frigid combination of chilly temps, shady rock, and brutal wind gusts. But if you wait much past early June, the humidity makes for pretty manky crux holds, especially by late afternoon once the sun comes around. Although we can be at the crag parking lot in 2 hours flat, the hike is pretty intense, especially…Read the rest of this entry →

New River Gorge: The (Almost) Day of Reckoning

Apr 18 2016

If you follow our family on instagram (@cragmama1), you may have noticed a family photo taken along the Endless Wall Trail on Saturday morning, with a caption entitled -“Today is a day of reckoning out the NRG…let’s do this!” It was my first (and potentially only) chance this spring to send Jesus and Tequila 12b, the mega classic sandbag that I’d came heartbreakingly close to ticking off last November as the fall season closed out. After some annihilating circuit work in the gym, along with recent success at both the New and the Red in recent weeks, I was feeling…Read the rest of this entry →

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