Cast of Characters:
After less than an hour, we realized we had made a serious mistake. Even though Jay has no clue at all about GameBoy, he has to have it as much as Eric does. Jay whacks Eric with his fists while he's playing and we lecture Eric about how big kids can't hit little ones. He's heard this before. We survive the drive, but just barely.
We finally arrived at Ricks at 11:30. He's into playing host and completely abandons his 2 room apartment for us and sleeps in his truck. The next morning, Rick gives us the gift that keeps on giving: a knock knock joke.
Knock Knock.Eric latches on and the whole rest of the trip we hear impatient cows, chickens, Jays, and everything else. By the end of the trip, even Jay has this one memorized. Thanks, Rick.
Who's there?
Impatient cow.
Impatien
-- Moo! Moo! Moo!
Saturday is sunny but cold and windy. Our goal is Old Rag mountain up in the Shenandoah's. We have the R and I guide and are ready for some climbing. After hiking 2.5 miles (with almost 1500' feet elevation gain) we're at the rocks. Eric protests the hiking but does fine. Jay has fun riding but is getting too heavy (33 pounds) to haul around on my back! Rick has run ahead of the kid-bound hikers to find climbs. Unfortunately, everything near the trail is shady, windy, and cold. We regroup near the summit. I find a spring near the trail and we let the kids run wild. Rick goes off in search of sunny rocks while we hang out. Near the spring is a large low angle slab - I decide to turn Jay into a climber. He puts on the harness, I lower him down and he zooms back up. Five times. He's having a great time - first roped climb at 27 months!
Rick returns and reports that all warm crags are protected by a desparate bushwhack. Time to go home! We split up again and unfortunately Rick gets the harnesses. On the way down, we see nice slabs by the trail. Rick is nowhere around so I introduce Eric to the classic `bowline on a coil' for some toproping. It works OK but after a couple of short climbs he's had enough. Jay spends the whole time trying to jump off cliffs.
The trail is very rocky and rugged - lots of exposure in places and scrambling. Jay won't get in his pack - he's going to do it all by himself. I say "Jay, watch out or you're going to die up here!". All the way down, whenever he jumps off a rocky step in the trail Jay yells "Die!". Great. (We blame Gameboy - Eric is always going "I died again!"). We get past the rocky part and finally reach the car.
The next day is too cold for kayaking so we go to a local area with Rick. Some nice toproping and then it's time to split up. We head downtown to meet Alastair, who took the train and was browsing museums while waiting for us. We deparately cram him and his gear in the already stuffed car and head off to North Carolina. We crash near Roanoke in a motel.
Next day we continue on to Stone Mountain. We set up camp in a truely deluxe campground and head for the rock. This is the ideal kid climbing area: friction slabs just 5 minutes from the car. While the kids eat with Marti, Alastair and I head for the rocks.
Stone Mountain is legendary for runouts. 40 - 50 foot runouts are typical. Groundfalls are prevented by the `running belay' technique - the belayer runs downhill to take in slack during the slide.
I spot a single bolt about 20' up - part of a 5.8 pitch leading to Tree Ledge - a huge ledge about 150' up. No pro after the bolt till you get to a roof another 60' up but it looks easy. Right. Clipping the bolt is OK but we find out that this rock is really polished. No handholds at all. Not even crystals - everything is on the feet. About 20' past the bolt I contemplate a small headwall. How fast can Alastair run? Hmmmm. I think I'll back off.
Alastair has never climbed much on lower angle slabs and has a problem with forshortening. Everything looks close even when it's way up there. He thinks he can handle the runout but once above the bolt, the distance to the headwall looks a lot longer so he backs off.
We move left where there a few cracks and supposedly a 5.6. Actually, it turns into a fun pitch with adaquate protection and we're on Tree Ledge. Marti and the kids arrive and we convince Eric to tie on. He has no problems except at a small overlap and we find ourselves at the base of the Great Arch (5.6). This was written up in R and I (Climbing?) as a moderate classic and it really was a nice route. Alastair led up a huge dihedral with a good layback crack to a ledge about 120' up. Eric runs right up. The slab without the crack is 5.10 but just a little help from the crack makes it easy. We're confused about the route - looks like it could go either straight up or off right onto the slab. We choose the slab and I do a short lead to some bolts.
The top looks pretty close so I send Alastair on up. Only one bolt visible but the angle is easing up. Fortunately, another bolt appears and soon he's at a double bolt. There's still some rope left and Alastair is sure the trees above are "real close" so he continues up. I unclip and start to follow - when I'm 70 feet up he finally hits the trees. No harm done, though, and Eric undoes the anchor and climbs when the rope pulls tight. Soon we're all on top.
Marti and Jay are in the meadow below watching the tourons roll by. She has to explain that the crazy 7 yr old up their is her son and it's OK. The tourons think we're nuts.
We don't know the descent and Eric wants to rap. He's never rapped much. Last year he got his hair caught in the brake (that's with a crew cut!) and he had decided to hold off on learning to rap because of that. Now, faced with a long walk, he decides to go for it. Since it's just slabs I figure he'll be OK. Sure enough, he raps like a pro and handles the hanging transfer just fine.
Everyone has fun camping (even Alastair who has to share a tent with Eric) and the next day I'm ready for a classic. Alastair takes the kids and Marti and I head for Grand Funk Railroad (5.9-). The first pitch climbs up through some cat-scratch cracks to a bolt, then right to the dikes which make the railroad tracks the route is named for. I get a bunch of crappy wires in the cracks and reach the bolt. From here, it's pure friction but not too bad. The dike is easy and I'm at the belay. I convince Marti to take the second pitch (I could see a long runout!). I give here all the gear except the 1/2 tricam on my butt that I didn't notice - she points it out and I say "Don't worry! No cracks up there anyway!". Well, she clips one bolt, runs out about 40' in a groove and says "There's a tricam hole here - where's my tricam?" Damn. The only piece in the whole pitch she can put in and I have it. I'm in trouble again. After cursing me for a while she finds that the next move to the bolt is pretty easy so I'm forgiven (sort of). After clipping the next bolt, some delicate friction leads to a ledge with a rap station.
The next pitch is smooth until some dikes about 30' up. All of a sudden, it's bucket city and I start running up. When I get to the next bolts, I find there's no rap slings. Marti would rather rap so I decide to downclimb the pitch. It's easy except for the last 30'. I sling a horn for pro and arrive at the belay. We flip the rope but the horn has too much of a lip - damn. I climb back up, find a smaller horn, and try again. This time it flips off and we rap to the ground. All in all, a really fun route without the usual Stone Mountain death runouts.
Alastair and the kids have arrived and I talk Marti into taking Eric up the other easy classic there, No Alternative (5.6). The first pitch is the infamous Entrance Crack (5.4). Infamous because without a #5 Camalot you're soloing the top bit. Alastair led the whole thing without any real pro but it's not too bad. Eric and Marti followed while I took Jay.
Jay now fits into Eric's old harness and shoes. He had been wanting to climb so I decided to see how steep the far end of the face was. Turns out the right side is a bit lower angle - sort of like the part of Snake Dike after you unrope. Jay was ready to roll, so we suited up and went for it. The theory was to tie him to me on a short leash and basicly climb with him right under me. No need for a rack - the rock was totally crackless. We hopped on and started climbing. Jay did a great job. I kept my hand on his butt so he never slipped. The friction was fine and I felt completely solid. About half was up he said "we go down now" but I kept him moving - we were a long way up and wanted to meet Eric on top. The only crisis was when Marti caught sight of us. It's hard to tell that the angle decreases over where Jay and I were and she thought I was nuts. We pressed on and finally hit the summit area.
Fortunately, no rangers were around to arrest me for child abuse so we sat down to wait for te rest of the gang. We settled in a little island of trees (about 100' wide and deep) on the rock right where everyone else would come up. Since we were soloing, we went a lot faster than the others and had to wait quite a while. Finally everyone arrived and we found that Alastair had done it again! They had gotten a little off route and were on a 5.7 / 5.8 slab when Alastair thought he could keep going past a double bolt to reach the trees. Since Eric was in the middle of the rope, Marti had him simulclimbing with Alastair when the rope ran out. Eric was on the 5.7 and got a little spooked but everything worked OK in the end.
That was it for Stone Mountain - we hiked down and started the drive to the New River. We arrived late and decided to grab a motel.
The next day was really nice - warm and sunny. Eric had been whining that all we every did was rock climb so I promised him some kayaking. (We asked him what his idea of a vacation is and he told us it was playing video games with his uncles). Before jumping in the river, we grabbed some quick climbs by the bridge. Alastair and I started with Zag, a 5.8 right next to the road. This was nice but Alastair wasted his arms following. Then we hit 'the Mother', a 5.9 jam / layback. This was a fun lead but left me wasted. Alastair talked Marti into following and she did really well considering she couldn't reach my pro or rest in wide stems like I did. Alastair decided to give it a try and made it without much fuss.
Time for the river. Alastair decided to run the hair part with an outfitter while Eric and I did the mellow part in the inflatable kayak. Marti and Jay were the shuttle drivers. Everything went without a hitch - Marti worried about us but the hardest part was finding the biggest waves to hit. Quite a bit easier than what Eric and I do locally. Alastair did fine except for getting thrown out once, which was caught on film for Marti to see before he even got back to the outfitter. There was still a little daylight so Marti and I bagged one last climb before dinner.
That night we made a fatal mistake. We watched the weather and the forcast was for 5 days of solid rain. Crap. Wasn't supposed to start till noon so we hope for one last climb.
We got an early start and ran for the trail to the Endless Wall. I'd never been there before and it's a really beautiful place - much nicer than the bridge area. The trail out to the rocks was about 1/2 mile. The goal was Prowess (5.8+), a cool looking arete.
Marti and the kids decided to stay on top while Alastair and I climbed. The first pitch was way cool - a blind traverse onto a blunt arete with few rests and big exposure. Sort of like High Exposure. Unfortunately, I was in crappy shape and put in way too much gear. Even more unfortunately, just as I was almost up to the belay it started to rain. No way to keep going, too much gear to leave. I lowered and Alastair hiked up to drop the rope. I climbed while soaked and got all the gear. Great route - too bad the weather didn't hold. Once on top, I talked Alastair into trying it. When confronted by wet rock, I've developed the "honor of Scotland" method of forcing him to get just as wet as I am. It worked (this time!) - he lowered and bagged the route. We were both totally soaked now - nowhere to go but home. On the trail we meet Marti and the kids; finally we're all back in the car.
Time to pull the plug - even though we've got 2 days of vacation left we decide to head back early. That evening we suprise Rick. We go to dinner with Risa and Sandy - friends in DC - at a place underneath a huge kid-style arcade. We cruise around - mini golf, video games, slot racing, pool, lazer tag, and *two* climbing walls. What is this sport coming to?
The next day we play tourist at Harpers Ferry. Cool place with lots of civil war stuff. Alastair tries to figure out who was North and South and which side everyone was on and what they were fighting over. All very confusing! Finally, we roll on home. Constant gameboy and endless fights over backseat territory later we arrive home. Another vacation shot to hell.
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Impatient Jay
Impatien...
I want GameBoy! I want GameBoy!