willstrickland

Ho mahn, so beautiful, yet so chossy. Nice work fellas.

Dastardly isn't particularly hard for 5.9 You boys just need to get out and live a little. It'd be 5.8 at Index...and 11b at Squamish ;^)

Yep, Scott is right. I was talking about the Deep south Climbers Companion or whatever it was called(my copy is sitting in my dad's place in Athens,GA not exactly handy for reference here in SoCal). It was what then became the DCA, Watford was a coauthor of DSCC and sole author of DCA as I recall.

That's one helluva trip!

The original Dixie Cragger's Atlas (single vol) was the source of much frustration and cursing for me any my buddies as n00bs. The info is strangely vague and lacking for how verbose some of the descriptions were. A good example is Heaven and Hell at Tallulah, a 2 pitch line with a fairly serious "R" rated first pitch, but the guide doesn't give individual pitch ratings. The route is 12a, but with only the guide you'd have no idea if the R section was on 5.12 ground or 5.6 ground (p1 is 5.10R for the curious). For Yonah, it is horrible outdated because at the time it came out, you could still drive the road to the top. At some point a gated community acquired some property and the road closed (I found this out the hard way many years ago on a brief visit back to GA to see the folks), no idea on current access. The two-vol DCA seemed a bit better, but I don't have tons of hands-on use of it as I'd already moved west when it came out. I think Chris wrote that one solo, where the first edition was with Rob as co-author. For the OP, Yonah is good stone, but not a particularly good climbing area unless you're into easy low angle slab. Tallulah Gorge is the premier climbing in North GA, multipitch trad lines on bullet quartzite. The main area bakes in the sun, and the quantity of routes isn't extensive, but the quality is pretty high. The Lost Wall/Rocktown combo (along with several caves, if you're into caving) on Pigeon Mtn near Lafayette is pretty choice. Great bouldering, a good quantity of trad cragging at a wide range of difficulties (good spread between 5.6-5.12), free camping, ripe persimmons in early fall. The real goods for a North GA climber through are in TN, AL, and NC. The T-Wall and HP40 are still two of my favorite areas. A little further afield, the NRG is as good as any cragging in North America in my book.

This is a fantastic route, and one of the better slab routes I've ever done. I think Fern linked p1&2 when we did it with a 70m and a little simul climbing. Hopefully one day I can get back up to D-town, Matt is a great host and tour guide.

Wow, I've been missing all kinds of fun over here at the CC.com shop. Whether straight scam, or breakdown of communication, I will never do business with this Mirko character. Out of literally hundreds of internet private-party transactions, I've had one single bad experience and 99% very good ones both as a buyer and seller. Guess I'm just lucky.

Contact me via e-mail, don't check in here very often anymore. Pics below. Building up your Creek rack? Poor student trying to get started? My loss is your gain. These are all MY cams, not some shifty hoodlum stealing gear, many here can vouch for me. One #0.5 JR, one #0.75 JR, two #1s, two #2s, two #3s. $245 shipped to the lower 48. All trigger wires in excellent shape. One of the #1s has seen pretty heavy use and has some wear on one corner of a lobe (the side that doesn't actually contact rock in a normal placement) where I had to work on it with a nut tool to clean it out of an overcammed placement, just cosmetic but I want folks to know what they're getting and be happy. That one has a new sling, new beefy trigger wires. Tried to show the wear in the closeup.

How come people keep talking about "soloing" a 22' boulder problem?

Sorry boys, the whiners were via personal e-mail. Seems that in their opinion the TR was not worthy of posting since I ultimately failed to send in the TR and have an overly large ego. So I killed it. There's plenty of TRs here though, you can go read the 400th one about the Dissapointment Cleaver instead.

Watts was the man, but if you didn't send, doesn't really count. Hell, I've "lead" the thing...it was 5.10 C1+ for me. But you do a great disservice to Mike Shaeffer, who got the second redpoint, by leaving him off your list. Skinner did not climb the full line, detouring around some .11 in the upper half...survey says, no send or send of easier variation at best. IMO, your list should go something like: Skinner: freed cruxes, failed to redpoint. Watts: freed cruxes, failed to redpoint. Hugh Herr: Sent, but controversy over prosthetic feet used. Shaeffer: First send with no controvesy.

Feelgood had some pretty shitty looking hardware when we looked at it years ago (or was that Green Dragon?). I've done both the Apron Jam and the 4th class corner to the left to get to Mr Nat. Both have their merits (Apron Jam is scary as hell with only one 4" piece but fun if you take enough gear and aren't effectively soloing). However you get there, Mr. Natural is probably the best fingercrack of the grade I've done anywhere. Bony Fingers at the Portal is close though.

It's a good tool, when used sparingly. I go through 2-4 hangboard cycles per year, always with 2 full days rest between and with NO other climbing/climbing training aside from warmup and cooldown (don't consider cardio or core work "climbing training", just stuff that stresses fingers/shoulder/back). I do between 8-12 workouts in a cycle and just completed my last cycle on Sat. Gains are usually about 5lb per week on each grip and usually about 50lb for the cycle. Returning to the board after a full training cycle, I have been starting with what I'd used in workout#3 from the previous cycle. SO expect to lose some pure strength as you train through power, PE, and rest phases. I've found that less volume (literally the only climbing related thing I do during my hangboard phase is hangboard) is crucial for proper recovery and injury avoidance. I might go solo 5.easys or something on an off day, but nothing resembling training. My workout is roughly the same, the grips and weights will change, but the bulk is this: 4-8 grip positions, 1 set for each grip. A set consists of 5 repetitions of 10sec hang/5 sec rest. Two minutes rest between sets. I've also done it multiple sets for each grip, gradually increasing the weight for each set, usuing 7x 7sec on/3sec off, then 6x 7/3, then 5x 7/3. these days I'm back on the 1 set of 10/5. Works great, 50lb stronger over this cycle and no nagging bodyparts. I can't take any credit for this workout, it is almost verbatim from Mike Anderson's "Making of a RockProdigy" training article. Which, btw, is the best short piece on climbing training I've seen.

Hard routes at Ozone is an oxymoron.

Ahh, got ya. Figured maybe I'd just overlooked stuff, never climbed there alot. Yeah, did Wrong Gull a long time ago..2001 maybe?

Damn son. Put some carriage returns between those side-by-side pics and you might be able to actually read this thread.

Really? What else is there? Say real 5.10 or harder (i.e. not a .10c stemming route with a 10' 5.7 wide section or an overrated 5.8 pitch that people call 5.10 cause they don't know how to climb wide cracks.) Hit me with a tick list.

Got a swami? Not kidding at all. Not having a bulky harness with gear loops and crap on the back, and being able to rotate your tie-in knot to the side can be very helpful in the squeezy stuff.

Haha, that pitch was hard and teh suck. I faced in, rather than out, still sucked. Give the DNB a whirl, that first pitch might change your mind on what's the hardest 5.7.

I don't know what difficulty you want, but Jam Session (.10b) and Cream (.11a) are two of the finest wide cracks in the valley, and are only about 30' apart. Both splitter cracks on really good rock, kind of a PITA approach, but worth it. Energy Crisis (.11+, basically a full pitch of rings and finger stacks)is also right there and is a SUPER pitch in a pumpy enduro fashion. Those three pitches rival anything of similar style, and if the approach was more straightforward they'd get tons of traffic. Jam Session gradually widens all the way up, Cream is a little steeper and has some classic true Offwidth size (i.e. too big for fist, too small for knee). Crux is fairly low, widens further up and gets easier but may feel a tad run up there. Mental Block and/or Power Point are good for multi-pitch too. (You can always rap PP after the wide if you're not down for the 11+ face crux up top). Another you might try if you're in the Reeds Pinnacle area is Copper Penny 10a 6" behind a flake, on the Five and Dime wall right below Reeds. (Five and Dime is also fantastic at 10+ with a rings crux and some pumpy wide hands up top, a classic for sure).

Doggie Do is really kind of a shitty route in a way and isn't good for training at all. I mean, it's a clean crack on pristine granite and worth doing once, but it's really really easy climbing to a 2 move crux that is frustrating and arm-length dependent. I led it twice and followed it once in a 3 month span when I was living there a couple years ago. Some people TR it since you can walk to the top, but you can put gear anywhere you want it and it's short so you only need a few pieces, just lead it...pro at your face at the crux. For training, probably better to put something like Chingando on the list.

Which GoLite windshirt...is it the "Gust"? Pic?

I did the route last summer, $0.02= Generator is a great practice crack, also Ahab, but the best practice pitch specifically for SS is probably Entrance Exam. Do Midterm while you're there too. Doing 1096 right-side-in would be good training for the Wilson Overhang (and way longer/harder than Wilson). Sacherer Cracker is good training for anything. Moby Dick center is similar size/angle to (but harder than)the 5.8+OW pitch in the first half. Best long route prep would be NEB. Elevator Shaft is similar to the easier back-foot style chimneys on the upper pitches. Cruxes are very short, but the ratings (updated supertopo ratings) are pretty bang-on and on par with other valley stuff of same rating. The first pitch is a good indicator of how the rest will feel, mostly cruising with occasional 10ft sections of hard fought ground. The two manky old rivets on the crux pitch below the narrows were replaced earlier this year by Brutus (RIP). Someone said train fists, but I disagree. I can only remember one pitch with any fists and it was the one after the rap, maybe 5.9 with good stemming and a variety of jamming, definitely not a sustained fist crack or anything. If you can get up Ahab and Generator without issues, you should be more than fine, those are both way harder than anything on the SS. Biggest deal with SS is that pitch after pitch of fairly physical climbing adds up over 15 or whatever pitches. Great route, feels like an alpine rock route more than a valley route.

gone

Well, if you have to pay for it, that's your business.