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

Tag Archives: Sport Climbing

Real Rock Tour de Charlotte

Real Rock Tour de Charlotte

Well, after a day at Pilot and a couple of days at Stone, we decided to round out our Holiday stay-cation by giving some dear friends from our old stomping grounds in Raleigh a tour of what our new locale had to offer, rock-wise.  So last Friday we all took on Red Wall at Crowder’s Mountain.  After warming up on Opinionated (5.9+), Steve and Sam explored Scramble My Feedback (5.10a), while Caleb and I tackled an unknown, obscure line that as far as I know isn’t listed in any published guide (yet…).  Everybody took a lap on this one, and…Read the rest of this entry →

Share

Dave the Dude 5.11d – From a Dudette’s Perspective…

Dave the Dude 5.11d – From a Dudette’s Perspective…

While every climbing trip we take involves fun and uniqeness, not every trip contains a moment like this one.  It’s 5 days later as I write this and my heart still skips a beat when I think about this line.  When I first sat down to write up my trip report from last week’s trip to the Red, I knew Dave the Dude deserved way more love than a brief mention in a weekend recap, so I decided to memorialize it as a Classic Climb. Just like the old adage that says you can’t judge a book by its cover,…Read the rest of this entry →

Share

Red River Gorgeous…

Red River Gorgeous…

Last week our crew made a pilgrimage north across state lines, where we spent 4 days frolicking around on Kentucky sandstone.  This marked our family’s third trip to the Red, but only the first in which we didn’t get rained on every single day.  In fact, aside from a few passing showers in the car on the way up, we didn’t even see a drop!  Since we had a fairly large group, we decided to all go in together and splurge on a cabin – considering that the lows were in the upper 20’s, it was well worth the extra…Read the rest of this entry →

Share

Rocktober-fest at the New River Gorge

Rocktober-fest at the New River Gorge

After a small string of crappy weather trips a few weekends back, I was starting to think our rain curse was back…but au contraire!  Despite both nights plummeting to a frosty 35 degrees, the daytime temps went from frigid to an ideal 60 degrees within a couple of hours of the sun rise, much to everyone’s delight.  Although we had a pretty big crew with a wide range of skill levels represented, I think everyone managed to get their fair share of pump and exposure, along with a healthy dose of fall color. We spent Saturday at Endless Wall, which is probably…Read the rest of this entry →

Share

To Stick or Not to Stick (Clip)…

To Stick or Not to Stick (Clip)…

What is long, collapsible, assembled from a seemingly random assortment of items from the local Home Depot, and always within arm’s reach of most bolt-clipping sport monkeys?  If you answered stick clip, you’d be mostly correct…add in the word MACK-DADDY and you’d be right on!  For my non-climber readers who think I’m talking about a strange way to interact with zoo animals, here’s a quick primer in Sport Climbing 101… A route is designated as “sport” if the line is protected by bolts every so many feet all the way to the top.  The first climber (leader) ties into the…Read the rest of this entry →

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