Grounded

Written by John

“With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept…”

We had originally planned on visiting four more climbing areas in North Carolina. However, winter’s impending onset combined with unfavorable descriptions (e.g. “biggest, baddest, wildest, runout routes with tremendous exposure”) narrowed our North Carolina crag tick list to just Looking Glass Rock, “the best known climbing area in the South”. If nothing else, we had to climb the famous ‘eyebrows’.

The distinctive ‘eyebrows’ at Looking Glass

But first, we waited out a “100% rain” storm computing at the local library. The entire morning, afternoon and evening passed sans any rain drops from the clear, blue sky. We ultimately wasted a great climbing day, but the alternative wasn’t worth the risk: granite slab faces lack edges for foot placements, forcing the climber to rely on friction to hold the foot in place. Water reduces the static friction coefficient to nearly zero, resulting in glass-smooth footholds. The clouds rolled in shortly after the library closed and it rained all night.

The next morning we could see the water’s reflection off Looking Glass. A quick hike in – sans climbing gear – confirmed that the Glass was slimy and wet; a few climbs had active waterfalls trickling down their faces. More computing.

Waterfalls don’t make for ideal climbing…

The next morning several climbs were dry enough to climb. The eyebrows were horrible handholds from below, but excellent underclings from above. A couple pitches up, a 20′ blank section (i.e. without eyebrows) presented a distinct crux, as there were neither gear placements nor handholds. The climbing was enjoyable, unique and definitely worth the visit.

We met some other climbers a few hundred feet off the ground at Looking Glass, and they were kind enough to take a picture of Lauren.

While descending Looking Glass’ ‘Sunshine’ trail, I kicked a curved root hard, but after an initial sting everything seemed fine. On our drive back to TN, my foot hurt whenever I pushed on the gas with my toe. Before heading to sleep in the free parking lot at the base of Tennessee Wall, I glanced at my foot and saw a blood blister the size of a nickle… right on the end of my big toe, where a climber might – for example – place their foot on a hold while climbing.

My poor toe…

Thus, in the parking lot of the brilliant Tennessee Wall – which we’d visited a few weeks prior (and again not climbed, due to the rain) – we threw in the towel for 2015, dropped a pin on Austin and headed home. Even though we travelled through Tennessee at least seven times – not including the stretch on I-24 that dips into GA for a few miles just west of Chattanooga – we failed to climb at 11 top tier walls in TN, 2 in GA and 4 in AL. We also left a few ‘top calibre’ NC areas unvisited, but lament that less.