Summary

Description

We had a fabulous day of climbing at Stone Mountain!. The forecast was for mostly sunny skies , with little or no wind, and a high near 60 degrees. A perfect day to get outside.

We didn't get the alpine start that Lisa was originally thinking because I wanted a chance to sleep in a little then we were a little sluggish getting out of the house, leaving around 8:40am. We saved a little time by already having bagels at the house so we didn't have to swing by Brueggers which is our usual climbing day-trip MO.

We made it to the parking lot around 10:50am. While we were picking and packing what gear we wanted to take, Emil drove up. We chatted with him a bit while continuing to get ready. He was there by himself and planning to free solo some easy stuff. We invited him to join us if he wanted to.

We got to the base of the rock a little before noon. Another group got there just before we did and headed to the same point. We chatted with them about what they were going to get on. They were planning to climb the Block Route which was fine with me since U Slot was free, and I was jonesing to get on it since it had been a while since I was on it. Emil decided that he'd go ahead and solo, but we agreed to meet him back at the base after we climbed U Slot, and we'd all head over to climb something a little harder. (He climbed U Slot then No Alternative to the top.)

I lead U Slot in about 30 minutes. It went well. I placed good gear and felt good on the rock, working up a sweat when I got up into the sun with my two thermal shirts on. When I pulled up rope to put Lisa on belay, I was surprised that there was only about 10' of slack in our 60m. The pitch is longer than I realized. Lisa made short work of the route, climbing it in about 15 minutes and having a good feet day. We were just dicussing whether to rap down or go on and climb the first pitch of the Great Arch when I spotted Emil back at the base so we rapped back down.

The three of us headed over to the base of Grand Funk Railroad where Lisa and I had our sandwiches, and we all got ready to head up. Emil led, leaving the ground sometime around 1:30pm. (He took a few pieces of small gear from my rack, but he he never ended up using any of them.) The first pitch looked like quite an attention-getter with the first bolt about 30' up and cracks that might take a brass nut or two (which we didn't have). Emil made fairly short work for the pitch then belayed Lisa up who also did a great job. Through the traverse and subsequent more vertical section she just kept saying "wow!". I climbed well, although I felt a tiny bit gripped on the first section off the ground and then especially on the traverse right from the first bolt across a fairly featureless face. Just had to place the feet and trust in the power of friction.

Emil offered me the lead for the second pitch. I wasn't quite there mentally, and the first bolt looked a long way off so I let him take the second pitch as well (which goes at around 5.8). He led off with Lisa belaying and me doing a bit of rope management at the belay. Ended up that there was a much closer bolt that I hadn't seen which was good. Emil got a little off route up to the left of the anchor. We called up to him a couple times letting him know how much rope he had left. He was contemplating building a gear anchor when he spotted the belay bolts off to his right so he downclimbed a little and traversed over. He belayed Lisa up while I continued to do rope management with the second rope.

When I climbed the second pitch, I ended up heading up a little higher than where Emil and Lisa had traversed left across a dark water streak. I got into some rock that had more obvious holds, but it was a little more friable which was freaky because rock coming off as little ball bearings doesn't help with the friction. By the time I was looking at traversing left, I had mostly missed my opportunity for the easiest spot so I continued up the black water streak. That was also insteresting because the white rock nodules within the black streak were pretty polished (i.e. slippery). I made it to the anchors without incident. If I were to lead the pitch, I'd definitely plan to traverse left across the black streak earlier/lower. (Plus that gets you to a spot above the second (and final) bolt where you can sling a chicken head.)

I did end up leading the third (5.7), fourth (5.6), and fifth (easier terrain) pitches. None of those were bolted and they were all roughly 100' long. On the third pitch, the only gear I got in was one sling around a natural thread-through. It looked like I could have placed gear another time or two if I had looked, but I felt good, and it was fairly easy so I just kept climbing. The most interesting part of the third and fourth pitches is that there was water running down the water grooves. Not a flood, but enough sp that you could see it moving. That made the footing a little more interesting, and I had to step over a "stream" on the fourth pitch.

We all got to the top around 4:30pm, coiled the ropes, and walked off. The walk off was mostly on the hiking trail with the last section a shortcut that comes back in on the road below the cabins. It was fairly steep in spots, and my feet were tired from all the time in climbing shoes. When we got to the cabins, we dropped all the stuff we were carrying and left Lisa to watch it while Emil and I went back to the base of the route to retreive our packs. (Lisa had worn all her stuff in so didn't have a pack to retrieve.) My legs finally started complaning while going to get my pack.

We hiked out then headed into Elkin to the Mexican place with Emil for a good dinner. Lisa and I were listening to Peter Gabriel (the "Rabbit Proof Fence" soundtrack) and going over what a fabulous day it had been. It was great to run into and get to climb with Emil.

Seems like half the people out at Stone were friends we knew from back at home. We saw Matt Z (climbing with his friend Natalie), Jon, Derrick, Scott, Fred, Kerry. I saw most of them initially when I got to the top of U Slot and they were all up a pitch or two above the tree ledge. We saw most everyone again once we got up to the top of the third, fourth, and fifth pitches of Grand Funk since it angles its way back left over to the main and popular face where they were all climbing.

U Slot is almost 200' long. Grand Funk Railroad seems like it's close to 600' (first and second pitches are about a full rope length, third through fifth pitches are about 100' each (some more, some less)). So we got about 800' in for the day. Quite a calf and thigh workout on the slabby stuff!