Moore's Wall Rock Climbing: Apr 17th 2007

After backpacking around Mount Rogers, dodging rain around Durham and hiking around Hanging Rock State Park under a wind advisory, it was finally time to do some rock climbing. We'd scouted out Moore's Wall the day before (during said wind advisory) and had hopes that the rock would be plenty dry by now.

Of course, a few other distractions occurred before we left the campground. There was the constant wind all night which kept us from sleep as we wondered if the tents were bound for flight. The troop of raccoons throughly investigating our campsite also kept sleep at bay. Once the morning rolled around we discovered a flat tire on Christina's car.

So 11 am saw us hiking up the approach trail to Moore's Wall. Once there I scouted around a bit more to reassure myself that I'd found the climb known as "Easy Hard". Before roping up, I spent some time explaining to Christina how to remove the various stoppers and cams that I would place to protect the climb and how she was to belay me differently than in a climbing gym.

I finally justified bringing along that 40 pound duffle bag of climbing gear when I began climbing up. Protection was easy to find and there was no one obviously line, so I wandered about a little bit, extending all my slings to reduce the rope's drag.

Around 30 meters up I came to a some overhangs and decided to traverse right into a large corner system. A large rock was wedged into the huge corner crack and 3 cords were tied off around it. Other parties had bailed at this point, rappelling from this rock. I later decided that this point was about right for rappelling on one 60 meter rope, doubled to pull it down and retrieve it afterwards. I was hauling a second rope behind me, so we didn't need to head down right away.

I built an anchor off three TCU's and clipped into to the rappel cords as another backup then called for Christina to come up. She climbed quickly but struggled to remove one or two pieces. One wedge in particular I had her leave behind and hoped I could work it out on the rappel down.

Once she arrived at the belay I got to introduce Christina to her first hanging belay, leaning back from the wall and trusting those TCU's that she'd been wary of when I demonstrated all my gear a few days before.

After recoiling the rope and re-racking the gear she'd collected, I continued up the crack, unsure if I was really on the "Easy Hard" line or had drifted into "Head Jam". Only 15 feet up I found a huge ledge and a confidence-inspiring rappel anchor consisting of two chockstones and one tree.

Christina was surprised when I said "off-belay" so close above her, but our time was running out (we had a 2+ hour drive and an evening flight for me to catch). Christina managed to climb up smoothly and we set about tying the ropes together through the anchor and tossing the ends down.

Besides being her first time trad climbing, on a multipitch route with a hanging belay, I was demonstrating to her how to rappel from the ledge with over 30 meters down to the ground. I went down first to make sure the ropes weren't tangled and managed to retrieve that stuck stopper before reaching the ground.

Once down I could also serve as a backup for Christina, stopping her descent by pulling tightly on the ropes. She came down with a little less grace than she had going up, but made it down safely.

All obstacles were vanquished once the ropes pulled down cleanly without the knot hanging up. Quickly we re-packed our bags and headed down the trail for a 10 minute re-packing session before beginning the drive back to Durham and my flight home.