Storied Rock - Uncovering High Country Climbing History
Storied Rock - Uncovering High Country Climbing History
Thank you to Mike Trew for speaking with me one afternoon in December and helping piece together some of this lore. Mike moved to Boone in 1978 and started climbing soon there after. He was President of the Boone Climbers Coalition and on the board of the Carolina Climbers Coalition for many years. He has dedicated countless hours to maintaining climbing access and supporting community in the High Country. Many of the historical events I share below were told to me or confirmed by him.
My first lead climb was at “The Dump,” A little roadside crag off of highway 221 about 18 miles from Boone, NC. The Dump receives it’s namesake from the piles of trash that sit downhill from the same parking area you use to access the wall. For years it was a spot that locals regularly dumped trash and other unwanted things. Despite the name, The Dump is home to some of the only true sport climbing in the High Country and comprised of some of the highest quality rock on 221.
I was a Freshman at Appalachian State. One of my best friends from college, Kelly, was there to belay me. The climb was a 5.6 that was a first lead for many Appalachian State students that came to college and found themselves mesmerized with climbing. It’s a slab, but easy, and littered with great holds and hands-free stances the entire way up.
A year earlier, it would have been hard to imagine I would find myself here, about to lead my first rock climb. In my last semester of highschool I discovered the movie 180 degrees South. A film about the quintessential dirtbag climber, Jeff, who teams up with some of the founding fathers of American climbing in an adventure to Patagonia. It’s easy to look back at this film now and critique it. Even though it takes a whimsical and lighthearted approach to following climbing that I can still appreciate, celebrating the “dirtbag climber” lifestyle above all else is a tired trope. But, at the time it was my first exposure to it - and it pulled me in.
I watched 180 Degrees South one evening on my laptop and then watched it again and again - with my family, with my friends, with anyone that was willing. I mentioned to my highschool girlfriend that I was interested in learning how to climb and she doubted my intentions. It sounds hurtful, but her skepticism made sense. It was fact that I was terrified of heights. When I was a kid I was even scared to go on escalators and in tall buildings. Once, on a trip to Asheville with my family I threw up in the car on the Blue Ridge Parkway because I was scared of how high up we were.
My girlfriend and I broke up. I went on to college and I carried my fear and infatuation of climbing with me. Both of these feelings played out the first time I went with my friends to the school climbing gym. With sweaty palms, I backed out of climbing because I didn’t have socks to use with the rental shoes. While socks were technically required to use the shoes at the gym, it was a rarely followed rule. The extra layer of fabric between your toes and the rock impacts your ability to be precise with your footwork. And, at the time it was purely an excuse; I was scared.
Somehow along the way I convinced myself to put a pair of shoes on, dawn a harness, and get up on the wall. I started going to the climbing gym often, then I made friends with some more experienced climbers and started going outside. I remember going to The Blowing Rock Boulders for the first time and being absolutely humbled. I couldn’t even finish the warm-ups.
I also went to The Dump several times and top roped the climb that would later become my first lead. I top roped other things too, but mostly flailed around as the moderate options are thin at The Dump. I slowly got more and more comfortable till I was ready to lead it on my own.
As I stood there at the base of the route, I had no idea of the climbing history the swirled around me. This route was originally a solo that people would climb up and down as a warm-up for the other routes at the crag. Nobody saw the need to bolt it. In the 90s an out of town climber bolted this route, and it was subsequently stripped of it’s hangers by a local. The person who stripped the route left the hardware in a pile at the base as a message - “Don’t do this here.” At some point the bolts were replaced with beefier glue-in bolts and have not been bothered since.
I had no idea that Unwritten Law, the crown jewel of The Dump that looms over the main terrace of the crag, lay just around the corner. It’s 45 feet tall, overhanging, and comprises of powerful dynamic moves cast of the highest quality rock at the wall. It ends with a dyno to the ending hold that you must commit to before clipping the anchors. All of the best climbers I knew in college had a phase of obsession with this line, and would spend hours trying to unlock its secrets. If you could climb Unwritten Law it meant something. Alex Honnold visited Boone for a signing of his book, Alone on the Wall, and climbed it when he was there. Even he couldn’t send it on his first try.
I couldn’t have imagined the access issues that played out just a few miles away at Grandfather Mountain in the early 90s. I didn’t know about the dozens of boulders and crags that littered the hillsides fanning out from Grandfather. Supposedly, the best climbing in the High Country lies within the state park boundaries, but no one will ever be able to climb there again. In the 80s it was a climbers paradise. All you had to do was purchase a backcountry pass, and you were free to explore the park and climb wherever you wanted.
A complicated rescue of a climber at Ship Rock shone too bright a light on what everyone was doing up there; it wasn’t long after that access was pulled. Climbers have been able to regain access to Ship Rock, but the rest of the mountain remains off limits.
I made it to the top of Is this how you clip? without much incident and clipped the anchors, completing my fist lead climb. I don’t remember much about how I felt in that exact moment, but I’m sure I was happy with myself. If I looked over to my right I would have seen the anchors of Homegrown.
Homegrown was the older brother of the route I was on, and it certainly turned up the heat. Easy climbing leads you to the first bolt high off the deck and a few thoughtful moves stand in between you and the second. It’s conceivable that you could hit the ground if you messed up one of them. While the terrain lower is inconsequential compared to the top half, I still remember struggling with it while I lead it for the first time, roughly two years after my first experience on lead.
I got on the climb with the mindset that I would give it a go, but likely lower off near the top when things got tough. My roommate, who was belaying me, had a different plan. When I got to the first tough move of the climb, a tricky mantle after clipping the third bolt, I asked him to lower me and was met with a firm “no.” I’m sure If I had kicked and screamed he would have let me down, but I wasn’t planning on resorting to that to get to the ground.
I slowly worked my way up, unlocking one move after another, falling many times, and making my way to the chains. Once I finally stood up on the quarter-sized crystal in an otherwise blank area of the route, and could reach the anchors, I was exhausted. I was too tired to pull up the rope and clip into the quickdraws. Unable to reverse the previous move and lacking any good holds to grasp, I started to lose my composure. My leg standing on the tiny crystal started to shake like a sewing machine needle. I started sweating and cursing, un-prepared to take a real whip. Then, I slipped off and everything was okay. Much to my surprise, I shook it off and pulled the same move again. This time, I clipped the anchors.
In those first few years I was totally enamored with climbing and everything that surrounded it. I often found myself frustrated in the fear I had (and still have) that none of my friends seemed to share. But, I was always just happy to be there. I was happy to spend the day touching cold stone, standing in the sun, and sharing the bonds you form with friends after being tethered on opposite ends of a rope.
As I hung around climbers I started to pick up the little pieces of lore that are woven into every aspect of High Country climbing. I listened whenever someone mentioned a boulder field or rock face I hadn’t heard of. I wrote down those names in a notebook, intent on visiting them all one day. I would also google each one of these locations, and often find no results.
As a budding climber this always frustrated me. How was I supposed to find these places, and how would I know what I was about to get on if I ever did find the crag?
Now, I understand. All of these places remain secrets to preserve the access.
Perhaps nothing characterizes climbing in the High Country more than access. It’s the reason why Joey Henson, one of the best-known figures in High Country climbing opposed publishing a guidebook for Grandmother Mountain and other notable fields in the area. The size and quality of Grandmother rivals any of the locations on the Triple Crown Circuit, but parking is scant and proximity of the boulders to a housing development keeps access tenuous. The crowds that a guidebook would bring could put it in further jeopardy.
Joey had spent time with John Sherman, an early pioneer of bouldering, and originator of the V-scale - the most popular rating system for bouldering in North America. He saw how quickly access was restricted when John’s home boulder field, Hueco Tanks became popular. Joey had also seen the loss of Howard’s Knob and was likely eager to protect the rest of the High Country’s boulder fields.
Eventually, it came down to a meeting of many of the climbers in Boone to decide the fate of a guidebook. They held the meeting in the student union at Appalachian State. Both sides had a chance to speak, and then it was put to a vote. The group voted to not create a guidebook. This decision was respected, and these boulder fields still remain open to anyone adventurous enough to explore them.
Another reason I’ve come to respect the minimal information about climbing in the High Country is because it preserves that sense of adventure that wouldn’t be possible with a guide.
In my last year of college a friend showed me another “off the books” crag near Linville Gorge. This particular spot has upwards of 50 routes, and we didn’t know a damn thing about any of them. We spent a beautiful, sunny day in April there and hardly saw another party. We hopped on climbs without knowing the grade or name or what gear we would need. I got a little in over my head on a spooky slab route, but I lived to tell the tale. In a world where so much information is accessible through the internet I appreciate the uncertainty and excitement that comes from finding your own way.
I know others feel this way too, including Pat Goodman, a prolific climber who developed some of the hardest test pieces in Boone. To close out an article he wrote for DPM Climbing he says “What ties all the climbing in the High Country together—and what makes it stand out from other would-be world class areas—are the value of accomplishments and the aggregate currency of adventures inspired through the word-of-mouth dictatorship. A guide book, though a valuable resource, tends to cause prescription in a climbers routine, inadvertently stealing adventure. Sure, the climbs get forgotten, names changed, and the second first-ascent dilemma tends to run rampant—especially considering the chalk-erasing weather in Boone—but one thing remains constant: the rock and the unyielding drive of those keen on finding their own journey.”
Perhaps some things are just better left unwritten.