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saxfiend
Feb 1, 2007, 9:40 PM
Post #1 of 18
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Registered: Dec 31, 2004
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“You know, Robert, I’m not going to do three-person multi-pitch ever again.”
Robert grinned at me from his perch hunkered down among the rhododendrons. It was closing in on 11 at night, and instead of sitting around a nice campfire, we were huddled around a tree slung with webbing and rap rings maybe 400 feet off the deck at Looking Glass Rock, NC. We were listening hopefully for Michael, somewhere in the blackness below us, to yell up that he’d found the next rap station.
The whole thing started promisingly back in December. One night at the climbing gym, Michael told me he was itching to get on Titties and Beer, a five-pitch 5.9 at Looking Glass once known as the “hardest 5.8 in the world.” Looking Glass was a crag I’d heard a lot about but hadn’t been there yet, so I was eager. Michael and I began making plans for a January trip.
By the time our trip date got firmed up, we had become a trio with Robert. A fourth climber was supposed to join us on our main climbing day (Saturday), but he couldn’t make it.
I’d climbed with both Michael and Robert before at the crags in Tennessee and Alabama, so I knew they’d be good partners. Michael is a strong climber, leading 5.10 trad, and he’d been to Looking Glass before. Robert is probably at his best as a sport leader, though I think it’s only lack of confidence that keeps him from leading at Michael’s level. Me, I’m solid leading 5.8, I’ve had experience with Carolina slab, and I knew I could follow anything Michael could lead. I still wished we would be climbing in pairs, but I was happy to roll with the flow.
The weather was looking good for our chosen weekend – sunny and highs in the mid-40s to mid-50s. We left Atlanta in time to arrive at Looking Glass around one on Friday; after pitching our tents, we headed for the Nose Area, planning to get on the Nose or Sundial Crack, saving Titties and Beer for Saturday.
In hindsight, I guess I could look at our start as an omen of things to come. From the parking lot, Michael led us off on a trail that started behind a park service kiosk. As I trudged under my heavy pack, I couldn’t help wondering why a climbing area as popular as Looking Glass would have such a vague approach trail. Younger and with better knees, Michael and Robert soon disappeared into the woods ahead of me.
It wasn’t long before I was stopping to figure out which way the trail went, or whether I was even still on it. About that time, I heard Michael’s voice in the distance: “John, we’re gonna just bushwhack straight up to the cliff.” How’s that different from what we’ve been doing? I wondered.
I finally caught up with the guys and we worked our way down the base of the cliff to the Nose Area, where we found where the real trail ended right at the base of Sundial Crack. Oh well, at least we’d know how to get back at the end of the day.
Since we were there anyway, we decided Sundial was the climb of the day. Robert had never been on Carolina slab before and was nervous about leading any 5.8 pitches, so he got the first lead on the (supposedly) easier 5.5 first pitch. We racked up and started off; it was around 3 p.m.
P1 was slow going for Robert. The famous LG eyebrows take some getting used to (I’d never encountered them either), and protection wasn’t as easy to find as on our familiar Tennessee Wall sandstone. In due time, Robert was at the nice bolted belay ledge and brought me and Michael up by around 4:30. It was my turn to take the lead.
I enjoyed leading P2, which goes up and right to the bottom of the vertical crack that gives the route its name. Honestly, I didn’t think this 5.8 pitch was much harder than the first pitch, and the protection seemed more plentiful. I zipped up to the hanging belay and belayed Robert up; to avoid a crowd, Michael decided to hang out at the P1 belay ledge until Robert had completed P3.
As Robert started up the crack pitch, I looked at my watch and at the level of the sun over the mountains behind us. The days were getting longer, but I knew we needed to pick up the pace if we were going to finish in daylight, so I told Robert so. It was now a little after five.
Like the first pitch, P3 took Robert a while. The temperature started dropping along with the sun, and I wished I had more than my light jacket. Michael decided it would speed things up if he bailed out, so he rapped to the ground on our trailing rope. Happily, he packed Robert’s and my parkas in a bag, which I hauled up on the second rope after Robert got to the top of P3. Newly fortified against the chilly wind, I followed Robert up to the anchor.
By now, though, it was well after 6; the sun was behind the hills and dark was settling in. I wished the third pitch had bolted anchors like the previous two so we could just bail, but this was a gear belay. I wasn’t enthusiastic about a nighttime lead, but I was even less enthused about bailing on four expensive cams. So I racked up, strapped on my headlamp and headed out on P4.
I’d climbed by headlamp before on toprope, so I knew about the tunnel vision that comes with it. This was my first time leading in the dark, though, so my head was swinging back and forth, up and down, trying to find an eyebrow that had a placement. I knew that the guidebook said to head for the top of the Nose, but I had no idea where that was even if there had been any light. So my goal at this point was to move up and left to the bolted rap station that was somewhere on the right end of the Parking Lot, a flat expanse about three-fourths of the way to the topout. If I didn’t overshoot the Parking Lot, I should be okay. For the time being, though, I was just glad to be moving – the temperature had dropped below freezing by now, and I could barely feel my toes.
After a while, I came to a left-facing flake system that made for easy laybacking. I put in a cam and looked around; further to the left was the Parking Lot. I started moving up the flake, hoping the anchors were above and not below me. Suddenly, shiny bolts materialized in my headlamp beam. Cool! I clipped in, built a quick anchor, brought Robert over and we rapped down to join Michael, who was wrapped in a rope bag against the cold wind. I felt bad for him, but was glad he’d bailed when he did; even without a third climber to follow, Sundial (or Moondial, as we were now calling it) had taken us over five hours.
Heading back, the trail was obvious and well-traveled. When we got to the road, Michael looked back and laughed hysterically at his mistake: the trailhead was clearly marked with a sign that said “To the Nose.” “I did the same thing the last time I was here,” Michael said. “How could I have forgotten?” We headed into Brevard for a great meal at the Sagebrush Steak House.
In spite of the late hour and the cold, I’d enjoyed the climbing. It was cool to have had a little adventure on the first day, but we were all looking forward to getting an earlier start on Saturday and doing all our climbing in daylight. Little did we know . . .
The next morning, we slept in. With overnight temperatures down to about 20, we knew we didn’t want to hit the rock early in the morning, so we had nice leisurely cups of hot coffee and breakfast stuff before heading back to the trailhead. By the time we got to the base of Titties and Beer on the Sun Wall, it was almost one. In contrast to the previous day, the air was a nice and warm mid-50s, so we started off stripped to our t-shirts. Just in case, we had our light jackets strapped to Robert’s bullet pack – a decision I was monumentally grateful for later.
T&B was Michael’s pet project, so we agreed he would lead all five pitches. The 5.4 first pitch was straightforward, and soon he’d brought Robert and me up to the bolted belay beneath P2’s 5.9 crack. Placing a cam in a horizontal above the anchor to protect the start, Michael headed out again.
Watching him make the difficult opening moves, I felt like a sitting duck: if Michael took a fall here, he’d land right on me or Robert, trapped as we were at our belay stance. I scrunched myself down under a shallow bulge. Fortunately, Michael got to a good stance, slammed a cam into the crack and continued up. “I wish I’d taped up,” he said as he tried to take a rest on a hand jam.
Though we couldn’t see him any longer, grunts and occasional out-of-breath commentary from Michael made it clear that the going wasn’t easy. Finally, though, it was my turn to bring up the rear on the pitch. Unfortunately, Robert didn’t leave any gear in as directionals, so I had to be careful to avoid a fall that would send me skittering across the face to the left. After a false start, I huffed and puffed my way up the crack and arrived breathless at the P2 belay.
The 5.9 third pitch was what we’d all been looking toward with curiosity and dread. From the belay, it traverses out left, then up through what’s known as “Michelin Man” bulges. This is probably the pitch that gave T&B its designation as “the world’s hardest 5.8” (FA Bob Rotert said he just gave it that grade off the cuff when someone asked for the rating).
Michael started twice on the bulge move then downclimbed. Finally, using a pathetic sidepull and a high heelhook, he pulled the toughest move on lead that I’ve ever watched. Robert and I cheered as he got his footing on the slopey ledge and continued up and right to the belay.
The next half hour or so was uncomfortable in more ways than one. As I swung my arms and hopped from one foot to the other to keep circulation going, Robert tried the bulge moves several times. But the sequence eluded him, and he got spooked when a piece or two between him and the belay popped out of their placements (Michael had placed them for a downward fall, and Robert’s pendulum falls broke them loose). After some tense moments, Michael persuaded Robert to use prusiks to jug his way up, but he was so rattled that he had a hard time with that too. Finally, though, he made it through, and it was my turn.
I’d like to think that if I hadn’t been hanging out at the anchor for so long, getting cold and stiff, I’d have made the bulge move clean, but who knows. Anyway, daylight was fading at this point, so after one attempt and a fall, I threw in the towel and jugged my way up. With two more pitches to go, we were benighted for the second day in a row.
“Okay, there’s no reason to hurry at this point,” Michael said. “So we’re just going to concentrate on staying safe and not making any mistakes.”
Luckily, it wasn’t nearly as cold as the previous night, but I was still glad to have my jacket. Robert and I watched as Michael disappeared around the corner and up a water groove. All the hard climbing was behind us, and Michael smoked P4; it wasn’t long before Robert was calling up to him “you’re out of rope.”
The final pitch, another easy water groove, went much the same way. As Robert started up to the top, I suggested that he send Michael off to look for the rap anchors while Robert belayed me up.
Glad to be moving again, I flew up the water groove, stopping occasionally to wait for rope slack to be taken in. When I got to the top, Michael was nowhere in sight, but we could hear him trashing in the distance.
“Jesus, this is unbelievable, I can hardly move,” he yelled. It turned out Michael had run into what seemed to be a solid wall of brambles, and resorted to jumping up and throwing his body on them just crush them enough to get through. “What the hell am I standing on?”
The guidebook said we should find a rap tree at the top of a gully a few hundred feet right of the topout, but Michael wasn’t having any luck. After a while, he gave in and clawed his way back to me and Robert at the anchor.
Since I was still roped in, I volunteered to lower and traverse over in search of the rap gully. I dropped down past a thick patch of rhodos on my right, then began working my way to the right over lichens, moss pads and seeping rock. Before long, I could see the gully, but the only tree I saw was far below a steep drop-off, too far for my rope to reach. I looked up and down the edge of the gully, but couldn’t see anything promising, so I called out to Michael and Robert that I was heading back.
“Look for some kind of break in the underbrush,” one of them yelled. I looked up into the rhododendron thicket and saw what looked like a bare patch. Climbing up to it, I struck paydirt: two cordellettes slung around a solid tree, with a rap ring and a biner attached. What a relief!
Getting the guys over to my new anchor was the next nightmare. I’d gone down and around the rhodos, but the rope was now going right across them. With a lot of hauling and praying that the ropes wouldn’t get hopelessly snagged, I finally brought Robert and Michael over to the rap tree. Now it was Michael’s turn to rap into the gully and try to find what we hoped would be the last rap station.
Waiting for Michael, I couldn’t help considering that things could be a lot worse. It wasn’t horrifically cold, and we were sheltered from the wind where we sat in the rhododendrons. It wasn’t raining; none of us was hurt or hypothermic; we had what we needed to get down even if it meant bailing on gear. I’d thought sometime earlier about the poor bastards who’d had to get rescued in December at Laurel Knob after hanging in their harnesses all night in sub-freezing weather. Now that was a real epic; by comparison, we were just inconvenienced.
The sky was overcast, but the moon was bright enough to give us some light through the cloud cover. Off to the south, the glow of city lights showed us where Brevard was. Far across the valley, somewhere above the Blue Ridge Parkway, an apparent forest fire made a bright orange smudge at the top of the ridge.
Periodically, we checked in with Michael: “Any luck?” “Nothing yet.” “How much rope you got left?” “Maybe 30 feet.”
Finally came the welcome news: Michael had found the rap station! It seemed to take hours before he finally got off rap for us to follow, but we soon found out why.
A dead tree had fallen into the gully below the rap station, and Michael had had to climb through its branches to get there. The rap station consisted of two trees slung with webbing between them. Michael grabbed the tree on the right and it broke off in his hand! Fortunately, the tree on the left was live and solid, so after backing it up to another tree, Michael was able to build a good anchor.
When we were all in place (after another three-person tug of war with the ropes), Michael was ready to crawl through the dead tree and start off on rap again. He was still freaked out by the broken tree, though.
“Guys, please hold onto the ropes while I’m rapping, will you?” he pleaded. “I want my son to grow up with his father!”
Robert and I looked at each other in disbelief. If that anchor went, only Superman holding the ropes would have kept us all from cratering.
“Don’t worry, Michael, I’m holding the ropes,” I yelled back.
Time passed. I whiled away the wait by cutting away some of the newer-looking tat from the dead tree and using it to reinforce the anchor. Finally, a faint voice came from below.
“OFF . . . RAP!” “Are you on the ground?” “I’M . . . ON . . . THE . . . GROUND!”
Before long, Robert and I joined Michael on the ground, with grins and handshakes all around. It was nearly midnight. We still had to find our way back to our packs in the dark before we could head to the parking lot and then to our sleeping bags, but that was trivial. All plans for climbing the next day were abandoned, and we headed for home Sunday morning.
Looking back on the whole thing, I’m glad about the things I learned – like, start earlier (duh!); climb only in pairs; bring more clothing layers just in case. I’m also happy about what I learned about myself: I was able to deal with unexpected situations, staying calm and not panicking or whining, not making mistakes that would make things worse. And I didn’t do anything to let my climbing partners down. So all in all, it was a great experience – and I’m making sure it never happens again!
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schveety
Feb 1, 2007, 10:11 PM
Post #2 of 18
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Registered: Jun 3, 2005
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Nice trip report!! Just gets me fired up as I am going to be moving to North Carolina in March. I didn't realize that Looking Glass was so close to Brevard (having not really studied the map yet). Sounds like you guys could have used an ATC Guide or other device to belay two people up at once!! We climb in teams of three often and sometimes teams of four where one person takes turns leading, then belays two people up and one person belays the leader while the other belays the fourth person, after a while, you get really quick at this!
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tradrenn
Feb 1, 2007, 10:20 PM
Post #3 of 18
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Registered: Jan 16, 2005
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Totally awesome TR
Glad everyone is OK
Thanks for sharing.
WR
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mekwise
Feb 1, 2007, 11:05 PM
Post #4 of 18
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Registered: Dec 9, 2003
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John,
Looking Glass is awesome...Glad y'all made it outta there alive!
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brent_e
Feb 2, 2007, 5:28 AM
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Registered: Dec 15, 2004
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tradrenn wrote: Totally awesome TR Glad everyone is OK Thanks for sharing. WR
^^^^ The same!
thank you for writing that!
Brent
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moose_droppings
Feb 2, 2007, 6:30 AM
Post #6 of 18
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Registered: Jun 7, 2005
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Thanks for the great TR.
It was a little cold so ya stayed in drinking coffee, made it to the wall around 1:00? lol
That and another good laugh; hold the rope for me. Funny stuff, probably not at the time though.
Glad you all made it.
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tradpuppy
Feb 2, 2007, 10:31 PM
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Registered: Jan 15, 2002
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Great story sax, welcome to the "sketch club". However, I do have one question: How in god's name did you end up at the parking lot after climbing Sundial?
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saxfiend
Feb 4, 2007, 3:35 AM
Post #8 of 18
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Registered: Dec 31, 2004
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tradpuppy wrote: Great story sax, welcome to the "sketch club". However, I do have one question: How in god's name did you end up at the parking lot after climbing Sundial?
Finding our way out from T&B was what Michael referred to as pitches 6 and 7 of the climb. "P6" involved picking what looked like a trail by the light of our headlamps and following it til we got back to our packs. It took a while and involved some dead-ends, but it wasn't too bad. The final "pitch" was finding the little cut-off trail from the Sun Wall back to the main approach trail. That was tricky, but Michael had made some trail markers at obscure turns on the way in and those helped a lot.
JL
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saxfiend
Feb 4, 2007, 3:43 AM
Post #9 of 18
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schveety wrote: Sounds like you guys could have used an ATC Guide or other device to belay two people up at once!!
Congratulations on moving to NC -- you're gonna love it!
JL
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saxfiend
Feb 4, 2007, 3:50 AM
Post #10 of 18
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mekwise wrote: John, Looking Glass is awesome...Glad y'all made it outta there alive!
There was never any doubt in my mind that we'd "make it outta there alive." It was uncomfortable and inconvenient, but I knew as long as we were methodical and did everything by the numbers just like in daylight, we'd get down eventually.
JL
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wjca
Feb 4, 2007, 12:44 PM
Post #11 of 18
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Registered: Jan 27, 2005
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Nice TR, but you didn't learn anything from the first day about starting a bit earlier than the middle of the afternoon?
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schveety
Feb 4, 2007, 5:04 PM
Post #12 of 18
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Registered: Jun 3, 2005
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Yeah, I certainly wouldn't want someone belaying me up, never the less two people up, if they haven't used a device in guide mode. Two people takes some practice as it can get tiring going from one rope to the other (unless your ropes are skinny enough where you can pull both through at the same time) and lowering is difficult with two people if you're not in earshot.
And I am definitely going to love NC, I hear that there's some great sticky granite out there, and I am salivating just thinking about it. Too bad it's not as sunny as the west though, you wouldn't think you would notice the lack of sun, but you do! I've gone home to visit in Wisconsin and get depressed after 3 straight days of clouds - that rarely ever happens here!
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dynamo_
Feb 5, 2007, 5:10 PM
Post #13 of 18
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Registered: Apr 13, 2005
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Good TR.
Good job on keeping your head.
It's all about building on past experiences, right.
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markc
Feb 5, 2007, 6:27 PM
Post #14 of 18
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Registered: Jan 21, 2003
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Thanks for the report. I'm glad you three took your time and got down safely. I've done loads of three-person multipitch climbing, usually with only one person climbing at a time. Don't take this the wrong way, but climbing in a party of three wasn't your problem. I think your main issue was not adjusting your expectations given your party and your time constraints.
The climbing the day before should have given a general benchmark for your speed per pitch and the pace of change-overs at the belay. I realize you had a stronger leader on day two, but it sounds like your other partner's pace didn't pick up greatly when seconding more difficult pitches. If most pitches were taking between an hour to 1.5 hours the day before, I'd be surprised if you hadn't been benighted. To me, a bit of a brisk start in the daylight beats the hell out of racing daylight and losing.
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saxfiend
Feb 5, 2007, 11:53 PM
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markc wrote: Thanks for the report. I'm glad you three took your time and got down safely. I've done loads of three-person multipitch climbing, usually with only one person climbing at a time. Don't take this the wrong way, but climbing in a party of three wasn't your problem. I think your main issue was not adjusting your expectations given your party and your time constraints. The climbing the day before should have given a general benchmark for your speed per pitch and the pace of change-overs at the belay. I realize you had a stronger leader on day two, but it sounds like your other partner's pace didn't pick up greatly when seconding more difficult pitches. If most pitches were taking between an hour to 1.5 hours the day before, I'd be surprised if you hadn't been benighted. To me, a bit of a brisk start in the daylight beats the hell out of racing daylight and losing.
But I still don't plan to do any more three-person multi-pitch; I spent probably 80% of my time on the rock standing at belays and only 20% actually climbing. Going in pairs has got to improve those percentages.
JL
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markc
Feb 6, 2007, 2:46 PM
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saxfiend wrote: But I still don't plan to do any more three-person multi-pitch; I spent probably 80% of my time on the rock standing at belays and only 20% actually climbing. Going in pairs has got to improve those percentages.
I can understand that. I'm probably evenly split between climbing multipitch routes in groups of two and three. I rarely mind a third person as long as we dial back the expectations for the day. I know we're going to get in fewer pitches and that I'm going to have some good conversations at the belay. If you're really goal-oriented, it's not going to have much appeal. Especially in the cold, the waits can get old fast.
An 80/20 split is tough. I have one friend that's a slower leader (not that I'm fast by any means). It's a good reminder that even numbers of climbers don't necessarily lead to a balanced amount of time climbing v. belaying.
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coloredchalker
Feb 7, 2007, 7:28 PM
Post #17 of 18
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Registered: Jan 6, 2005
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Glad you guys made it out all right. Now I feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one who has SNAFU trips to new areas. Live and learn.
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weatherm
Feb 8, 2007, 5:38 PM
Post #18 of 18
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Registered: Dec 8, 2005
Posts: 89
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John,
Very good TR. Sounds like you were inconvenienced. I have been in your shoes twice this year already. I just hope it never happens again to me this year at least. It is all about learning so I'm glad you guys all got down. Ben and I are going to Twall in early march you should come!
Cheers!
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