Black Dome’s Asheville Outdoors Guide

By Matt Gentling

Here in Western North Carolina, we’re blessed with an incredible variety of excellent cragging. We’re surrounded by more fine routes than one can shake a stick at. I know –I’ve tried. My arms wore out, the stick broke, and I’m quite sure I missed a route or two, because it felt like nothing had changed.

We also have a lot of rainy days. So, how do you reconcile such as vast plethora of stunning climbs with such a lamentable paucity of sunny days? You must be selective. You must aim for just the right crag, the crag that will separate a day of climbing from just another swampy hike. Therefore, strike like a sniper! One shot, one kill!

Here are some tips to help you squeeze tens – if not hundreds – of glorious feet of dry stone out of your soggy summer season.

1-3: Location, location, location.

This is the important one. Duh. By location, I don’t just mean a spot on the map. Which way does the route face? Is it exposed to wind? What type of rock is the crag composed of?

Some suggestions: Hawksbill Mountain is always a first choice. You can go about anywhere on Hawksbill and have equal luck. It’s composed of well fractured rock, which drains faster and more completely than solid granite domes. Also, it has less soil and vegetation on top, so there will be less drainage anyway – soil collects rainwater like a sponge and democratically disperses it all over the underlying rock in a time-release manner. Like my grandpa, Hawksbill tends to be windy, which dries the rock very nicely. Lastly, the crag tends to be overhanging and sheltered, with positive edges you can reef on in desperation, even when wet.

Rumbling Bald is another possibility, as it features heavily fractured rock and catches its share of sunshine. But rein in that optimism! The bald is exfoliating granitic rock – it’s peeling layers like an onion, and each layer becomes its own little aquifer, anointing the lowest 80-or-so feet of rock with a rippling sheen of fresh rainwater. If you go here post-monsoon, aim for the sunny, thin face climbs, or pick out a couple of dry boulders. If nothing else, the area becomes a sauna after the rain, and you can sweat yourself down to the next weight class in wrestling.

If you must go to Looking Glass, you have two options: the Nose area or the North Side. Forget about the South Face, as it will seep for days after a storm. The Nose tends to run about midway up the first pitch, and again about midway up the second. Better yet, climb nearby Sundial Crack or Peregrine, as they dry faster. If all this sounds way too easy and you’re the type of person who tightens lug nuts with your fingers, go to the North Side. The first pitch of Invisible Airwaves (direct start, 5.11+/5.12-) and Waste Not, Want Not (5.18c/d+) stay dry in all but the most pounding drenching cataracts, and you can run a toprope on both with just one rope. Or…

4: Learn to climb wet rock; it’s more fun than it seems. First, pick an easy rock. Then learn Fats Domino’s “The Twist” to remove slime from footholds – to get the idea, watch someone grind out a cigarette butt with their foot. And don’t forget to sew it up on lead. You’ll feel like a hardperson! Or a mountaineer! Or an idiot. Regardless, it’s a good time, and it’s less crazy than going paddling. And finally…

5: Got to store. Buy beer. Go to Black Dome. Tell elaborate lies to make your sopping hike sound like an epic mountain conquest. We’ll more than sympathize – we’ll empathize. As long as you share your beer.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 23rd, 2006 at 10:59 am and is filed under Climbing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.