Fall Break

So this past weekend was the second leg of triple crown in Chattanooga, and it was a blast, as always. Chatt is an awesome town with good food, good people, and good climbing. I didn’t quite meet my goal of getting bumped into advanced, my project was wet, and it was hot, but it was still an awesome time. The golf course boulders were open again, so I spent a fair amount of time out there but did manage to make my way back into the boulders for a bit later in the day. Here’s the rundown of the day (beware of spray).

Witch’s Hat – V4 (on the fairway)
The Coven – V5 (on the fairway)
Titleist – V5 (on the fairway)
Right 45 – V4 (on the fairway)
Shotgun – V6
The Wave – V5
Unusual Suspect – V4
Big Mike – V4 (on the fairway)
Little Mike – V2 (on the fairway)
Gran Torino – V2 (on the fairway)

So all in all, not such a bad day. Would have liked to keep everything above V4 for the sake of competition, but what can ya do? I’m very excited to be back on sandstone as the temps cool down. Here’s a little vid of a George-style prob from Horse Pens 40 that I miracled my way up last spring.

Boogie Wonderland from George Evans on Vimeo.

If you were avoiding spray, you can start reading again safely now. We spent Saturday evening with our buddy Michael in Knoxville. Basically the whole time, we were preparing to bail on route climbing with him Sunday, and proceeded as such, breaking the news to him over a full stomach at Cracker Barrel the next morning as thunderheads rolled in over the Obed. With bowels gurgling we departed for Clemson for an afternoon round of disc golf and some quality grill time Sunday evening.

Monday I woke up, and realizing I was on fall break, started scrounging for somewhere to climb. I didn’t scrounge for long, quickly realizing that Boone was in the mid 50’s, and packed my things (which I really hadn’t even unpacked) and rolled out with Ethan, another Clemson bro. We hit some stuff on 221 in the evening, mostly getting manhandled, then slept through a hurricane and woke up early to get a morning Lost Cove sesh in. I finally did what might be the boulder problem I’ve been “trying” the longest of all, Patio Arete (V4). I remember pulling onto it 4 years ago and thinking it was impossible. Fortunately we’ve come a little way since then and it felt plenty reasonable at the grade today. Hyper-classic. After petering around for another hour or two climbing whatever I could still scramble up given the weekend’s events, we rolled out and headed back. The drive couldn’t have been nicer, the leaves are lookin’ sexy as hell right now.

So that brings us up to speed, I’m back in Clemson at work trying to keep from poking my eyeballs out while I wait on the wall to close so I can go home and watch SONS OF ANARCHY with my redneck roommates. Gotta love it. Happy trails.

Southern Ascents

Like all of my posts, I will start this one by apologizing to anyone reading for the lack of posts.

I finally finished editing some footage from last season just in time for a competition the American Alpine Club and Misty Mountain are holding during Triple Crown. Here’s the vid me and Adam are submitting, Southern Ascents (see what we did there?):

Southern Ascents from George Evans on Vimeo.

So this past weekend was the first leg of Triple Crown at Hound Ears and I was finally in (semi) healthy form and was able to climb some things I wanted to climb. Adam, Andy, and Greg all crushed, as did the rest of the crew. I’ll let you chase down their scorecards if you’re interested in knowing exactly what they sent (think of it like some sort of fun interactive blog post where you get to do more). The two highlights for me were the Heretic and the Claw (kind of totally different styles). The Heretic might be the most fun I’ve had in Boone. 20ish feet tall with a cruxy first move and a dicey move to the lip off of a crimp. It was excellent. The Claw was a nice face climb right behind Fuc Yo with really cool incuts up a tall face to an easy topout. Classic. I spent the rest of the day checking out the rest of the field and groveling falling off the Nudge, which is a terrible impossible v4 mantle that nobody’s ever done. Big shout out to those who put it on and make those events possible, they are awesome. The next leg (at LRC/Stone Fort) is next weekend, looking forward to it. I’ve got high hopes for that one. Happy trails.