This place is a Ghost Town!

A buddy of mine was in town for his annual "guys weekend" and had not been on a rope in a few years because he has been concentrating on bouldering. He was looking to get some climbing in near Rumbling Bald and with Marcus manning the shop on Thursday we headed out to Hickory Nut Gorge. We had aspirations of climbing on the seldom visited Rumbling Bald North Face.
(Steve B. Hangin' with the guys)



We picked up Brian Williams, the CCC South Mountains Rep and local hardman, at the Coffee Crumb in Chimney Rock and he was pretty certain that with the late season snow fall and North facing aspect that it would be wet.
We decided to hit up a more or less "secret" area that has been getting some traffic lately and is known for steep crack and face climbing. The cliff is a mix of tall, exposed walls and satellite crags tucked into the bushes. We saddled up and headed west to see what we could get into.

Brian got into this chimney...




and got a little more into this chimney...
which eventually lead to a 5.10 First Ascent "Killer Cacti". As the sun rose higher in the sky, the black flies came out and nibbled away at us. No worries though because we climbed on ticking a few more pitches in what turned out to be a great training day. As we packed up our mountain hardwear and headed out we realized that on a Thursday this place truly was a Ghost Town... we never saw another party the entire day.
Have a great Easter Weekend!
the crew at Looking Glass Outfitters.

(LGO will be closed this Sunday the 12th in observance of Easter)