New River Gorge - Trip Report
gh...@aol.com
Fun at the New River Gorge, WV - Friday after Thanksgiving 1996.
Well it was time for the annual slog to the relatives in Charleston, WV.
Thanksgiving dinner with nothing that tastes any good because everyone is
on
low fat/no salt/no fun diet. Somehow my wife was able to find some salt
at
my grandparents (it may have been road salt) things were looking up!
I had brought some climbing gear so I could top-rope solo some routes at
the
NRG if the weather was OK and if I was able to get out of the after-Tday-
shopping gig. All I needed to do was change the TV to the weather channel
for a couple of minutes. This was a lot more difficult than it sounds
between
listening to my relatives talk about how great WVU football is and
watching
football I had to figure out how the get the TV remote. Patience is a
virtue!
I waited until both the main game (Nebraska/Colorado) and the game in the
picture-in-picture (Syracuse/Miami?) had commercials then dynoing from
a chaise-lounger with a significant buzz to the sofa was the crux. Good
news,
the weather looks good!
I was able to get out of shopping (mail order rules!) and headed for the
NRG
at around 9:15AM. While driving down the road (Ames Landing??) toward
Junkyard Wall, I noticed a very dangerous combination of hunters dressed
in
BRIGHT orange, big guns with lots of ammo and more Mad Dog 20/20 than
I ve ever seen outside a well stocked liquor store. Maybe I should just
turn
around and head back to Charleston hmmmm, nah. Anyway, I drove down the
dirt road to the parking at the sharp turn. To my dismay, no other
climbers were
there less targets for the hunters. I figured I should wear my climbing
helmet
while hiking in even though it has NO chance of stopping a deer slug. I
also
figured I d better make some human sounds because I wasn t dressed in
hunter orange I actually was dressed in natural colors kinda like a deer!
Well, I was whistling "Dixie" for the next few hours.
The climbing went well enough. I climbed 7 pitches ranging from 5.7 to
5.11a
and most likely turned the 5.11 arete into something in the 5.12 range
after
pulling off a 3 segment of flake sorry. And that soloist device from
Rock
Exotica is great for TRing on vertical (or less) rock otherwise, bring
prussik
loops or jumars (as I found out on the 5.11 arete). I did all of this
climbing
in less than 3 hours, pretty much a full day for me.
I headed back to Charleston satisfied that it wasn t a wasted weekend
after all.
I wish I were in Dixie, Hooray Hooray
HMAN