SAdkClimber Blog

Way too much snow still on Crane. Ra and I escaped to the southlands for a chance to touch real rock. Little Falls is slightly closer than the Gunks, so that was the place to go.

We met Bruce Monroe there, already tuggin’ a line on Jeff Loves Eileen. This would be Bruce’s first climbing since the onset of a hip injury way back in September. He did fine, experienced no real problems, and even tied into the sharp end and led the route!

We saw a few other familiar faces there as well: Justin, the man who organized the Southern Adirondack Festival back in 2011, and Mitch, who seems to get around a lot, at least where climbing is concerned. We also met a couple new folks, Kevin and JP, who had come along from Mexico with Mitch, and were sampling a bit of NY-style climbing.

With rain and continuous 40-degree temps in the forecast, I’m putting the ice tools away. Soon, the wire brushes will come out of storage and I’ll be poking around Crane’s cliffs, looking for that next great project…

I’ve broken up the  two days & nights we spent at Table Rock into two parts. This first part covers the one long route we did here; the next part will cover what we did with the rest of that Saturday and our explorations before pulling out Sunday afternoon.

The rainbow at the end of a long and winding road…Table Rock.

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NORTH CAROLINA CLIMBING TRIP 2012

Robin and I are back from a week and a half in North Carolina. We spent a weekend at the Outer Banks, enjoying warmth, sunshine, and the ocean before turning westward and tackling a few of the myriad climbing areas the state offers.

I won’t bore you with the details of our first weekend, suffice to say we had a grand time on the Outer Banks. Most of you are interested in technical climbing, and there isn’t one iota of that out there.

For those climbers who plan to visit North Carolina, I will mention one caveat. Outdoor tourism-wise, the state can be divided into two regions: the coast, and the western Mountains. Between them lies a whole lot of driving past swamp, agriculture, and the occasional city. If you surf, it might be OK to combine both venues and deal with the 6 to 8 hours of driving in between. Otherwise, just head west. Asheville or Winston-Salem are good jumping-off points for vertically-minded travelers.

Gimme Moore!

Fully caffeinated, we drove from Durham to Moore’s Wall in about 2 hours. The weather was exceptional: cloudless blue sky, comfortably cool, and a scant breeze. Our directions were exemplary; with nary a hitch we wound around the access road, marveling at the view of the cliffs, and arrived at the climber’s parking lot.

Apparently, early to bed is mandatory in North Carolina.

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