Ascent Notes for: Great White Way - 5.9 popular Average Rating : 4.82/5

One of my favorite routes. It is just hard enough to make it interesting and easy enough to climb with no difficulties. This should be on every Stone Mountain visitor's checklist. For those expecting lots of bolts due to the close proximity of those down low, make sure you are ready for the runout because the bolts become less and less.

Needed a little confidence booster and this is always a fairly easy route. I lead the full route and combined pitches two and three into a single pitch. We rapped back down on a single 70M.

I was able to lead the full route with a sprained ankle that I suffered during a fall on PF Flyers last weekend. It was quite painful but not that difficult. This is another one of my favorites. I turned the second and third pitches into a single pitch. There is a little runout up high but the friction is great.

I did have a little trouble getting my head in the game since I was unfortunate enough to witness someone fall to their death the previous day. I have a trip to Laurel Knob planned in a few weeks so I forced myself to climb today to keep from losing my nerve.

This is a very fun route and the only difficult section is at the start. I started five or six feet left of the water groove and headed into the water groove around the third bolt, following the groove past two belays to the top. Then we made three rappels with a single 70M rope back to the tree ledge.

Lead Great White Way, White Way Direct, and Yardarm today. This was the most difficult of the three. The opening moves were the most difficult but were well protected by three bolts. I found no need for any additional gear even though there was some runout between the bolts. I would highly recommend this route to anyone that can climb slab. If you can get past the first three bolts, the rest should be easy.

I found the second pitch run out and frightening. In a fun way. I know there are worse routes at Stone. But this was my first 5.9 lead here. So yeah, scary.

The water grooves and dihedrals on this mountain are what make it awesome and this route is a really classic water groove. I led the 2nd of three pitches, but the crux is the first pitch.

Unique climbing, led both pitches (linked p. 2 & 3) with Mark B. Well protected first pitch, get in a dancing rhythm and run it out on the second pitch. I still don't know how to explain slab stemming but it works. Take a rack of five draws for this "trad" route.

Really interesting feature - cruxy start gives way to the groove.

fun, never outrageous (for stone standards)