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

Tag Archives: Hidden Wall

Family Climbing to End/Start the Year

Family Climbing to End/Start the Year

Last week there were two gorgeous sunny days in a row smack dab in the middle of the week, which amazingly enough fell on days that the Crag-Daddy had off work – New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. And what better way to spend the END of 2014 and the START of 2015 than at the crag with family and friends? NEW YEAR’S EVE: We wrapped up 2014 with a day at Rocky Face, which was an outdoor staple for our family during the latter stages of my pregnancy .  For obvious reasons – the routes start less than 50 feet from…Read the rest of this entry →

Share

Hidden Wall: Where the Party’s At…

Hidden Wall: Where the Party’s At…

A lot of folks climb for years at Crowders Mountain without ever venturing over to the “dark side.”  Accessed from a completely different parking lot than the Main Area, Hidden wall is a small sport crag with a handful of short, classic lines, along with about a dozen link-ups and variations.  Most of the routes feature bouldery cruxes with long, burly moves on barely-there feet.  Local developer Wade Parker likes to refer to these scrappy grunt-fests as “blue-collar routes” – ie, for the working man (or woman 😉 ).  No room for dainty, tiptoe-ing technique – you’ve gotta be willing to fight for a…Read the rest of this entry →

Share

Slabster’s Lament 5.12a/b – The Lament is Over…

Slabster’s Lament 5.12a/b – The Lament is Over…

Every now and then a route deserves to be memorialized by a post all to itself. In the case of Heresy (5.11c) out at the Obed, it was because of my first impression of it when I first laid eyes on it, several years before I was strong enough to even think about sending it. With Dave the Dude (5.11d), it was because the line was just that good – not only was it a classic in every sense of the word, but it was a culminating finale to a fantastic trip in the Red River Gorge, and thinking about…Read the rest of this entry →

Share

No Send Saturday (aka How I Scored a Sexy Black Boot)

No Send Saturday (aka How I Scored a Sexy Black Boot)

At the risk of spoiling the suspense, I’m just gonna go ahead and tell you that this story doesn’t have a happy ending.  What started off as a jovial weekend with good friends ended pretty abruptly for me with a hard smack against the wall and searing pain in my left foot.  The bad news kept rolling in over the next few days as my foot expanded to almost elephantitis status, and several X-rays showed a small fracture on my talar dome (or in layman’s terms, the pointy top part of my ankle bone that meets up with my lower…Read the rest of this entry →

Share

A Mid-Week Respite at Crowder’s

A Mid-Week Respite at Crowder’s

One of the perks of having local rock is the ability to get out mid-week, so whenever any of my climbing partners can arrange to get out on a weekday, Cragbaby and I try our best to join in on the party.  I was pretty psyched to be able to get out two days in a row last week, especially since by the time the weekend rolled around the unseasonably warm fair weather had turned frigid and rainy.  We spent our first day at Hidden Wall, and our second at Crowder’s Main Wall.  Oh…and sorry for the lack of pictures,…Read the rest of this entry →

Share