Rock Climbing --- 5/23/2008 - 5/26/2008 --- New River Gorge

Stopping back at NRG on the way home from Florida. Arrived Friday afternoon and met everyone at Summersville. It was their second day of climbing. They were just finishing at Orange Oswald when I arrived. We all went to DC Boulder where the climbs are far too hard for us. Mike did manage to get up All The Way Baby (5.12b) and I mostly batmaned up the climb to clean it. Then we retired to Stone Cliff to eat dinner and put fireworks in our campfire.

Saturday Katie's entire family joined us for the day, so we had a big crowd at Bubba City. I started the day by cleaning Mike's lead of Radial Rimmed (5.10c) which is a super awkward climb. Then I led Tongulation (5.11a) or something like what the Cater book calls Slip of the Tongue. Anyhow the climb was really fun. I nearly nearly nearly had the onsight. Got up past the last bolt with no falls. I feel like the crux of the climb was behind me. Just had to pull through the final roof. But I tried to go right on crimps when I should have thrown a foot far out left. So one fall, and then up to clip the anchors. Finished the day by climbing Exobubba (5.11b) on a toprope that another party was kind enough to let us use.

Sunday was a great day. We went to Sandstonia and I climbed everything! Started with a warmup lead of Butterfly Flake (5.7) and then led G-String (5.11a). This time I actually was on the correct climb. G-String has some very tricky moves and I didn't onsight the climb, but was happy just to finish it. Then I led Plumber's Crack (5.6) and followed Matt's excellent lead of Pay It Forward (5.9) which is a really stiff climb. Then I led Crescendo (5.9+) and continued up the Zeitgeist (5.10a) extension to the top of the cliff. This is a fantastic combo! Finished the day by climbing G-String on toprope to clean it. Got the climb with no hangs, so I'm certain I could redpoint it if I ever bothered trying to redpoint climbs.

It was everyone's final night in NRG, so we went out to dinner at a Steakhouse just south on I-77. Not much for vegetarians, but I was able to eat. Then back to the campground. One thing about West Virginia... there is coal everywhere. We picked up a few chunks on our way out of Sandstonia and used it to supplement our final campfire.

Was going to hang out and wait for Jason to get in another day of climbing, but the forecast was for thunderstorms. So Beth and I drove back to Ithaca on Monday.

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