OutingClub:Trips:September 23-24, 2006
From Dickinson College Wiki
Intermediate Rock Climbing - New River Gorge, WV
Leaders: Kerry Browne and Cathleen Repholz
Description: Sport climbing, and toproping at one of the East Coast's best and most extensive climbing areas. The trip will probably leave on Friday night and return on Sunday evening.
Links for more information:
- Report
- : This turned out to be a great trip despite being fairly rainy. We drove down on Friday, stayed at Roger's (near Kaymoor) on Friday night and woke up to steady rain on Saturday morning. We relaxed in the morning and enjoyed some great eats (the smoked salmon, dill scramble is fantastic) at the Cathedral Cafe in downtown Fayetteville, WV. After brunch we visited the local rock climbing and boating store.
- By around noon, the rain had stoppped and we had hopes that the climbs would dry. Two of our group, Duncan and Drew went for a hike down to the crags at Kaymoor and had a good time watching the local hardmen on the 5.13's in "the hole". The rest of us headed to Summersville Lake in hopes that the Orange Oswald Wall would dry out in the sun. We were in luck. Jolion McGreevy (our rope gun for the day and Dickinson Alumn) setup a 5.10 called "Strong Arming the Little Guy". Most of us tried the route, but only Leann and Jolion were able to finish to the anchors. We also setup a 5.9 on the west end of the Long Wall which had a wet start and big reaches, but was good fun. By the time we headed back to the campground it started raining again.
- In the morning we woke up to relative dryness and decided to give the Junkyard wall a try. We strung a toprope on "New Yosemite", a 5.9 splitter hand crack that started out dry. By the time our third climber was shoeing up, the rain was coming steady, but we weren't deterred. All of us took a turn and many made good progress. Of particular note, were the heroic efforts of Duncan and Drew, first time crack climbers who demonstrated an unusual willingness to subject their hands to repeated floggings inside the bowels of this slippery crack. By the time we finished with this crack, the upper 2/3rds of the climb was soaked and water had dampened all but the bottom 15 feet of the crack.
- We got back to campus, happy, tired and bruised at around 6:30 pm after a 5 hour drive. All in all, this turned out to be a great trip despite the less than perfect weather.
-- Kerry Browne
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