The trip so far has been simply amazing. I finally arrived, after driving through two mountain tunnels, to the small town of Fayetteville, west virginia. First stop was the local climbing shop, waterstone outdoors, to pick up a new guidebook for the area. by the way, the new guidebook is sick! anyways, I then tried to figure my way to the small dot of hico, west virginia, which would hold as my home for the next month. After much confusion, I arrived at Ray's Campground and went in to talk to my soon to be boss, or so I thought. She said that they have had a slow summer so far and that she doesn't know if she would have that much work for me now and that I should go check out class IV, a rafting/camping/mega shoobie complex. Her advice served good though as I went there and got an interview with the grounds keeping crew for a couple of days. Mainly splitting wood. I then proceeded to go to walmart to pick up a few food things, which turned out to be quite interesting. I learned that there are rednecks everywhere, and they get better the farther up north. To put it in perspective, if the collinsville trade day and the world biggest flea market/fireworks store had a baby, that would be the Fayettville walmart. Anyways I then went back to Ray's and they were super nice people in not only getting me a job but also for staying the night for free. It's so nice to camp in the quiet, and also to take 2 hot showers, and have electric hookup. After being spoiled I woke up early, packed, and headed off to meet with the "Bear." Surprise! the "Bear" was a woman. After talking to her, I pretty much had the rest of the day to myself, to climb. As I stared at the guidebook trying to find the most crowded place, as I was flying solo today, I decided on the summersville lake area. I pulled into the parking lot around 9:30 and was the lone car. I begin to start making lunch for the day and finally a group of two couples from utah showed up. I began talking with them and ended up heading down with them to the orange oswald wall. I cannot begin to explain how beautiful this area is. I was literally ten feet from the lake shore and all of the climbs were exposed with only the lake at your back. My whole goal for the day was to get on some super fun, super easy, and meet some good people. I would say that I was truly blessed to have climbed there and as much as I did. I have two pictures of the view from this area to post but sorry for not taking pictures, I too obsessed in this beauty. Anyways, I then headed over to the coliseum area, right next to the lake, which reminded me a lot of my home in little river canyon. This huge roof housed my project for the trip, Apollo Reed (13a), and also a sweet little cliff and swimming area. I met up with some people I had met at waterstone, which was nice to see a happy familiar face. I then caught a belay from some north carolina locals on some classic 10s and even onsighted this 30 foot boulder problem, Do it (11a). I then caught an evening swim and headed over to this free camping area I had heard about at the base of the lake. As I begin to cook dinner, a familiar face from the day came over and talked, taking away the loneliness that the night had brought. They were both from Pennsylvania and also let me borrow some of their ice. I ended up going over and talking to them during dinner. We begin to talk about trad, traditional, climbing and they even invited me to run along with them tomorrow. That brings me to this morning where as I now sit, ready to embark on another day of the greatest place on earth, the New River Gorge.
Here is a list of the Routes for the day:
Orange Oswald Wall:
Orange Oswald 10a-onsight
Barfing Butterflies 11a-onsight
Moon Pie Deluxe 10c-onsight
She Got the Bosch, I Got Drilled 10a-onsight
Chunko Goes Bowling 9-onsight
Voodoo Surfing 10b-onsight
Strong Arming the Little Guy 10b-onsight
Baby has Bolt Gun 10c-onsight
Gun Wall:
How'Bout'em Apples 10d-onsight
All Ears 10b-onsight
The Deficit 10d-onsight
Gun Lust 10c-onsight
Do It 11a-onsight
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