Whitesides - Free'ing Traditionswoodzy | 20 October, 2007 20:44 It all starts on Friday... I suppose most good things happen on Fridays... Anyway we left Atlanta at around 8:45pm, and started up toward Cashiers. We were pretty paranoid about all the rain that fell all over the East on Friday. It would be pretty annoying to see water seeping all over the routes we wanted to do. But you always just gotta go, unless T-storms are 100%; cause you can always climb something. Anyway, I wanted to run up the "Original Route" but Andrew had already climbed that, and he convinced me that "Traditions" was just as easy. So we decided during the drive up that "Traditions" was going to be to the goal for Saturday. "Traditions" is nine pitches (with some weird traverses), there are two crux pitches one dialing in at 11a and the other at 11c. Both cruxes are sport climbing bolted, so its all good right? Heh at least thats the plan. I missing the NC 106 off of 441... that added many many minutes to our drive. Since 64 between 441 and Cashiers is the curviest road in the world! Anyway, camping at Whiteside's not allowed so since it was like midnight and I didn't want to drive all the way to Panthertown we just found a nice sized pull off and ran into the woods to find a kinda flat spot and camped away. I figured it couldn't go too bad since we were up and rolling before the sun was even fully up. Our morning started at 6:25am. It was kinda dewy in my bivy sack, but that was probably just due to me breathing all over the place. This early its still dark, and I knew I had thrown my headlamp into my sleeping bag/bivy sack somewhere but I just couldn't find it. So Andrew was up and moving and I gave up and slept some more. He got annoyed with me a headed down to the car to grab some breakfast. I decided to try looking for my headlamp again and found it this time, dunno why I missed it the first time. It probably had something to do with the kinda slopped ground we were on. I packed up my shit and headed down to the car. Got my breakfast on started and tanking up on water. We then headed to the Whitesides parking lot. We got there only a few minutes after two other groups. We just prayed they didn't want to get on the same route we were planning on. They were heading for the OR. Glad we decided on Traditions. We hike down the side of the mountain and watch the sun rising, and stare up at some of the more ridiculous routes on Whitesides: "Warrior's Way" and "The Matrix". The leaves were also turning, and the valley looked absolutely amazing in the red sunrise rays. So yeah... I had to take a few minutes to absorb that in. We get to the base on Traditions, and the commitment to this route happens RIGHT off the deck. Its really easy to get about 15 feet up, like you just follow a ramp, but the first bolt on this 5.9 slab is 25 feet up. Of course, I guess they're trying to set the tone of the route? BAH, thats just annoying. not to mention that there was a bolt at my eye level that had been chopped. That was just an omen of all of the chopped bolts we were about to see on this route. Anyway, you really had to commit to this crystal step and use those nasty slopers to get up to the bolts. So I stand around being annoying and not wanting to slide down to the ground. Finally I sack up and trust my feet. Do the three small moves to get onto some slopers that are kinda good to stand on and clip my bolt. Ah thank god. Sigh. I'm not gonna hit the ground anymore, probably. Now I run up to the little lip and plug a little piece of gear, do a quick mantle. This move was harder, but there was gear directly below my feet, so I was much more confident in my footwork. Now I get to romp up the slab (with no more gear) for 30/40 feet to a small "bowl" in the rock, throw some gear in there. Later I will realize I should have extended that piece about 10 feet more. The rope drag became ridiculous, and made some of the harder slab moves up high much harder since the drag was screwing up my balance. I studied one more for a good 10 minutes it felt like, trying to figure out how my balance was gonna react and being able to step up 10 feet to a crimp/slab jug (for our purposes here a slab jug is anything that is positive enough for tips to crimp on, heh). Slab really makes you think, anyway I get to the first belay and setup and anchor. Andrew runs up (almost literally) the slab. Passes the gear I placed back to me, and I'm off to attack the first crux pitch going free at 11a. It starts like right off the belay to the right a little. You clip a bolt and then the moves start. The 20 foot boulder problem was pretty awesome, there were three 45 degree rails that were kinda slopy and a little overhanging. You just had to layback these rails and basically sport climb for a little while clipping 3 bolts. Then run up some 5.8 sloping jugs for 60 more feet clipping two more bolts, and I think I got one piece of gear in near the top, a brown tri-cam. The anchor was only a single bolt however, I backed that crap up with a small nut in some hollow flakes, that "probably" would have held. This next pitch was wierd, the topo said something completely different than the route description, and I didn't see ANY bolts anywhere. The topo said there would be two bolts, pah, whatever. It was a good 140 foot pitch and I put 4 pieces of gear in. Yeah, it was 5.8 but there clearly could have been more pro. I had to run about 30 feet to the right of the belay before I even got a piece of gear, and even that piece of gear wasn't amazing and required a non trivial move to get up to the good gear placement spot. Blah, maybe I read something wrong, but I certainly believe I followed the clear weakness in the rock and what the description seemed to suggest. I did find an old piton (which was in the description). The next pitch had better pro, but it was more of finding sloping jugs and climbing up on them with little gear. This takes us to the 5th pitch the second crux, 11c. Andrew starts leading at this point. The belay "fixed pins" for this also didn't exist, so I built an anchor in the best place I could see (probably were the pins used to be) and Andrew headed up to the pretty clear crux bolts on a overhanging/dead vertical slab. Those moves were hard as balls! I fell at least 5 times at the 4th bolt with the backpack trying to mantle onto little slopers off of some really small crystals. I ended up French Free'ing that move, I just didn't have the patience for it. Grabbed the jugs above the crux and kept going. There was literally no gear above the crux until the anchor; the fall was sorta clean unless you hit the ledge 40 feet down (cause you were at least 20 feet above the last bolt at the anchors). There were a couple really weird traverses at this point which lead to a pretty awesome 5.10 boulder problem that lasted 15 feet. That pretty much sums up the route. It was really inconsistent. Lots of 5.8/9 sloping jug pulling that was run out, and maybe 70 feet of 5.11/5.10 climbing on the entire route. Andrew linked the last two pitches and BARELY made it to the top with the rope we had available. There was plenty of run-outness on the last 5.8/9 pitches after the tree ledge with basically no gear. Although I was basically used to it at this point, its still just kinda annoying. I'm not sure I completely agree with the NC ethic. I have no problem forcing people to be bold, but if your gonna grid bolt the cruxes and have ridiculous run-outs in easier terrain, that just doesn't make sense. If your gonna be bold and "carry your balls in a hammock" then you should also chop the bolts at the cruxes. What your afraid people might need to aid it (like I did)? But not afraid that someone may fall, I dunno something is fishy about it. Anyway, a little bit of a rant at the end there. I certainly respect the NC ethic, but some of it seems a little contrived some times. We need to invent some kind of gear that will work without cracks/alcoves, that would be sweet. Then we don't have to scar the rock with bolts/pins. Whitesides is an amazing place that I must go back to. Its friggin awesome.
T-Wall Season Openerwoodzy | 14 October, 2007 09:10
I wish the weather were cooler, but there wasn't much I could do about that.
Shortoff Mountain - Linvillewoodzy | 07 October, 2007 00:49 Started the trip LATE on friday night. Got all packed for a real camping trip (no car camping here! awesome-ish) with all the water/sleeping thingies. We left ATL around 10:45ish. The following was the path we took... I-85->I-26->US 74->US 221->I-40->Exit 90 and follow the guide from there. This took 4 hours, So we're rolling into the gravel parking lot around 3:30. We decided we would do the hike that night, mainly cause we wanted to get on the rock as early as possible the day after. But shit, that hike is real. That hike up the hill all tired with all sorts of gear took us an hour and a hour and a fucking half. So at 5am, we get to the campsite, spend a good 20 minutes trying to figure out were the hell we are going to camp. Not only is it dark, we are also in a wasteland of completely burned forest. The Shortoff area had a serious fire during the summer months and this killed MUCH of the vegetation above the cliff-line and below. So little to say, finding a campsite that won't have trees falling all over you was not easy. But we prevailed, found a little oasis where the trees weren't dead. I setup my hammock and started dicking around with my sleeping bag and it starts drizzing. At this point I'm just pissed, I'm tired sweaty and its 5:45. So I throw on my sleeping back and then slide into my bivy sack to keep dry. I quickly did the sleeping after that even though it was raining a little. We woke up at 9am, so yeah thats not much sleeping and I felt it. We got the breakfast, said "hello" to the other climbers from ATL there and proceeded down the gully descent. Now this is a NO bullshit descent. Its much longer that Tallulah (although less technical) and your running over streams and the GREEN STUFF. Man that green stuff is slippery as hell! I took a good spill on the way down the first time, jacked up my shin in a couple places. We headed over to Construction Job, and started up the 5.8 section. Two pitches later we find ourselves at a belay, but that shit was the wrong belay. Of course we didn't realize that at the time and started heading up what we thought was the right way, which turned into some 5.10hard climbing that was clean, but then turned into 5.8 lichen covered MESS with NO gear. Damn my partner was kinda freaked, but we stuck it out and ran to the top anyway. Or I should say that I followed a rope up the sketchy things, and let someone else take that risk :). After that debacle, I was tired as crap it took us 5 hours to do those 3 pitches. So it was like 3pm, and my partner and I took a long nap until 7pm or so. DINNER TIME! We grabbed some wood, went over to the campsite with the other folks from Atlanta, who were awesome! So many quotable lines.
We made some hotdogs on the fire, threw the cheese on there and some buns. It was delicious! Called it a night. Got up at 7:30 the next morning, and were climbing by 8. We ran up the first pitch of Toxic something, and then the second Pitch of Dopey Duck. Two pitches and about 350 feet. Thats the kinda of climbing I'm talking about. No crazy epics, and just a nice serene walk off the top. That is infact the absolute best part of this cliff. The walk off at the top. I've forgotten what rappelling is, fuck that. I hate rappelling, I just want to walk off everything. Its hard to capture that emotion, but its basically, climbing to actually climb! When your done climbing your DONE, none of that bull crap. Walking at the top is fantastic. Anyway, we got some foods, and waters. It was a nice little break, until noon. We then headed back down the gully trail. We were gonna climb some stuff in the shade, but Maginot Line was in the shade and occupied. So we headed over to Straight and Narrow. And hell yeah was it straight and narrow and some fantastic climbing ALL around. The 5.5 200ft approach was even good. The money pitch was the next one though, and I dominated it, just completely. I had some onlookers from Maginot Line that took some fantastic pictures that I can't wait to see! I read both the cruxes perfectly and just ran through it. The gear felt great, the climbing felt great. I was on cloud nine! My hands are still sweating about how awesome it was. All about the five stars. I'm glad we got the beta about climbing it in two pitches, if you climbed it in three, it would be way less cool. We finished that guy around 3 and headed off. We did the descent hike in 30 minutes though heh. Yay downhill. On 221 we hit the "Legal Grounds" restaurant in Rutherfordton. Bad ass bar/restaurant/pizza shop/coffee shop/local hang-out. I had a Hamburger Steak, all of that protein was fantastic!
Hiking - North of Talluah on the Chatoogawoodzy | 30 September, 2007 00:53 Sassafras! Thats the word of the trip. This was a fantastic hike. It was the first hike were a carried my food on the hike with me. I don't even know when the last time I had to carry my food and water with me was. I'm pretty sure it was at least May or so, but before that it must have been years, 3/4 years. The hike was fantastic, right along the river, good variation, good speed, lots of campsites. The campsite we stayed at was right next to some AWESOME rapids that I dicked around in for at least 45 minutes. I love hiking and camping.
Fosterswoodzy | 08 September, 2007 23:44
Did some Fosters with Steph & Chad. Almost fell on that awesome 11a/b, but I pulled that through and it was awesome. It was also very sweaty.
Fosterswoodzy | 18 August, 2007 23:43
Ran around all the nine's w/ Steph.
Spain Sport - Cuencawoodzy | 07 June, 2007 23:41
A couple awesome routes (one really hard one) in cuenca, man these europeans can pull on some limestone.
Nostalgic BCN Tunnel Visitwoodzy | 04 June, 2007 23:39 Climbed a few routes at the tunnel, fell around on some of them, but it was hot. Reclimbed the first real route I climbed there, also climbed a couple "projects" I had back in the day.
Mont Blanc & Mountaneering school w/ Clintwoodzy | 23 May, 2007 23:37
quite an attempt on the aguille verde. But too much snow, and met some awesome spaniards.
France - Chamonix - Slab Dealywoodzy | 10 May, 2007 23:31 Some Crazy slab near chamonix a couple routes near the city chamonix
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