Summary

Description

We took Friday off. We woke up around 4:30am, finished the last of the packing and loading of the car, and got on the road by 5:45am, heading to the mountains. The day didn't bode well as we drove through light-to-medium rain almost the entire way. The crazy part was that the weather forecasts looked good and the radar images were clear. We got to the Whiteside Mountain parking lot around 11:05am.

We hiked to the top where we met our friends and rappelling team and spent the afternoon doing some rappelling and ascending. It was very interesting because the mountain was in the clouds so the rope dropped off out of sight into the whiteout. Very odd when rappelling down and even more odd climbing up, looking up at a rope going up into nothing. (It looked like the rope was attached in the cloud with a skyhook.) We each got 2 rappels and 2 climbs. It was getting late when we made our second climb, so we boogied up the rope, not stopping for many breaks, and made the 600+' climb in about 23 minutes.

Dinner afterward at Carolina BBQ in Cashiers was fun and tasty. One of the women who worked there remembered me as the guy who had brought in the mini-keg the year before. (Cashiers in a dry county, but you can bring in your own alcohol to drink.) After dinner, Lisa and I got on the road to drive back east to go rock climbing the next day.