The birthday challenge is a number corresponding endurance objective. I've attempted a birthday climbing challenge three times before and have come up short that many times. When I turned 25 I attempted to climb 25 routes at the Obed but I got rained out. For my 27th birthday I attempted to climb 2,700 ft in a day but ran out of daylight. When I turned 30 last November I tried to climb 3,000 ft in a weekend -- my "El Cap birthday" -- but arrived at a cliff encased in ice and gushing with water. I felt cursed, dejected, and disappointed. As we hiked back to the truck Russ and I agreed to come back to Table Rock in March after his 30th birthday but I was not hopeful.
Table Rock hosts a slew of low grade multipitch which makes it a perfect candidate for high mileage objectives. Accessible grades can make for crowded Saturdays but the road to Table Rock was still gated off for the winter so we figured we could avoid some of the circus-like conditions by backpacking in via the Table Rock Gap Trail. This was my first climbing trip that required hiking in the tent, sleeping bags, food, water, and the rope and rack. We packed light and smart but it was still heavier than anything I ever carried as a backpacking guide.
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| late night start |
We arrived at the Table Rock Gap trailhead at 12:30 AM and decided to hike up to the base of the cliff and camp that night. The TRG trail is steep, indeed very steep in places, but -- in my opinion -- beat the heck out of hiking up the paved road to Table Rock.
We woke up around 7:30 AM to powerful windy conditions that forced us to cook under the vestibule. A couple pouches of oatmeal and a shared cup of coffee later we hiked to the base of our first route -- Jim Dandy (5.4). Though we were alone at the campground we arrived at the route to find several climbers roping up ahead of us -- an Outward Bound guide training course. They promised a crowded cliff for the day and just like that, I perceived our goal already slipping away from us. However, they let us climb through and we managed to dodge them for the rest of the day. Huzzah!
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| Russ on the "Block Route" |
Jim Dandy + p3 of Cave Route AKA Block Route + Lightning Ledge Scramble (LLS)My Route was exceptional. P1 takes off from the Lunch Ledge for 150 ft to a cozy belay. Small enough to feel the exposure, big enough to sit and dangle your legs over the abyss, with views of the rolling hills of western North Carolina -- if I were to create a Top 10 list of things that make me happy, belay ledges like this would be on there. Russ took p2 which holds the mental and possibly physical crux of the 5.6 route -- an airy move out from the roof of the dihedral to a slab. It's so good! Finally, p3 (the sixth pitch at that point) takes you to the summit proper for a fun ride.
Jim Dandy + K-Mart Special + LLS
Jim Dandy + My Route
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| a little tribute to Kyle Dempster |
We escaped back to the tent for lunch -- tuna packets and tortillas and some instant "iced" coffee. Russ was feeling a bit disappointed that our objective felt so easy. I, on the other hand, who had hardly slept the night before, felt good but the sleepiness was creeping in.
The weather report gave us windy emojis and windy it was. Powerful and consistent gusts made the trees bend and move like those used car dealership inflatable tube men. (The nearest town recorded 27 mph winds.) But the eastern face of Table Rock had, thus far, guarded us from the gales. That is, until we climbed the North Ridge.
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| Russ coming up "My Route" |
The North Ridge (5.5) sits on the northern nose of Table Rock and catches a lot of wind even on a non-windy day. The friendly wind emojis of the apple weather app felt like fierce hurricane like gusts at the base of the route. In all my years of climbing, though admittedly very little in the alpine, this was the windiest I have ever climbed in. It was wild. The rope blowing beneath me. My fingers entirely numb. Completely incapable of verbal communication with my partner. A few gusts felt like they might actually blow me off the wall. It was as full value as 5.5 gets and we were worked.
The last route of the day was a repeat of Jim Dandy to Block Route to the Lightning Ledge scramble and at this point, with all the miles of running and/or hiking in between routes, each high step on the slabs felt like the last set of lunges in the gym. I was wiped but by the end of the day we had climbed 2,270 of our 3,000 ft. objective.
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| bed time at Table Rock |
Thursday night I probably slept a collective 2 hours. But Friday night, I crawled into my tent at 7:30 PM and didn't wake up until after 8:00 AM. We were less than 1,000 ft away from our goal and the next whole day ahead of us. But my body was feeling it. My quads were sore from the hiking and running. My calves were tight from the thousands of feet of slabbing. My back was wrecked by pulling and belaying hundreds and hundreds of meters of rope all day. The remaining routes would be no cake walk.
And they were not.
We started at Peek-a-Boo. Despite its mega-fun namesake move, the route had left a mysterious and bad taste in my mouth. The last time I climbed Peek-a-Boo was for my 27th birthday challenge. It was the route in which the increased risk of simul-climbing registered in my mind and I also had gotten off route at some point and I didn't remember where.
It's worth mentioning at this point, and probably worth a separate post, that for the last year my lead head has been wonky. Sometimes some things just freak me out. I get inexplicably scared and problem solving and decision making take longer than usual. All this sounds rather silly when discussing a one-move-wonder 5.5 route, but it happened. And it happened worse than ever before. Elvis leg almost pushed me off the p2 traverse. The crux "peek-a-boo" move crippled me. At anchors I even forgot how to tie my clove hitch. At summit, unroped, I freaked out when Russ stepped closer to the edge than I would have liked him to. He snapped a loving but emphatic, "dude! what is wrong with you?" I had, and still have, an idea what was wrong with me but I didn't want to discuss it there nor do I want to write about it here.
Upon further inspection, Russ and I had done the 5.9 variation of the second pitch, which might have eased the embarrassment of my freak out but that had begun at the base of the route
Despite my uncharacteristic panic attack, pitches 1-2 of Peek-a-Boo is a wonderful climb. The third pitch however, is a wandering, rope-draggy, licheny, forest fire scorched, vegetated horror-fest. If I could do it again, I would rap from the p2 anchors of Peek-a-Boo and swing over to the p2 anchors of Jim Dandy and run over to the Lunch Ledge to link up with My Route for a perfect day of classic and exciting 5.fun climbing.
Instead, we split p3 into two insufferable pitches which included a belay built -- as I found out -- in an ant bed. The thing tops out just to the right of the lightning ledge scramble and we made our way back down to our stash of water. We ditched the cams, packed a PBR, and more our way back to the east face.
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| Russ on p2 of "Jim Dandy" for 3756th time |
This was it. One more trip up the mountain. We wanted to finish with My Route and lead the pitches we followed last time but a party was on it with a party behind them. And since another party was on Block Route as well, we decided to finish with K-Mart Special despite its high first bolt through a sea of crunchy and slippery lichen. "Whatever gets us to beer quicker," Russ said.
And we were off -- the last pitch of the day.
The mental exhaustion started to get even to Russ who seemingly just realized how much space was between the slab bolt and the fixed pin in the roof above. He placed a red C3 that walked out as soon as he moved above it. The objective he thought would be too easy was decidedly more difficult than he expected. The physical fatigue had really set in for both of us. Huffing and puffing each 5.6 move like it was a 5.12. I scarce remember a time of being so worn out.
And that's exactly it. We weren't pumped, we were exhausted from hiking with heavy loads; from not sleeping great; from running and hiking 1.5 miles between every route; from slabbing up Jim Dandy a trillion times; from pulling rope after every pitch; from belaying every pitch; from thinking through route finding and dehydration, and wind, and a panic attack. It was the exhaustion of collective of variables.
As we coiled the rope at the Lightning Ledge and prepared to make our final scramble to the summit, I asked Russ if he thought finishing our goal would be anti-climatic. I don't really remember what he said but I think it amounted to "no."
I expected to crest the summit hooting and hollering, giving a resound "skee-yee!" as I often do when I clip the anchors of a proud send but there was no hooting and no hollering. There was only a solid high five, followed by a fist bump, and lastly a hug. We were done and it felt good. It was not an ecstatic finish as I expected but it was not the anti-climatic end I had wondered about a hundred feet below. Instead, it was the quiet contentment of accomplishing a long held goal with your best friend since second grade. And it doesn't really get any better than that. We shared the best tasting PBR I've ever had, asked a couple of hikers for a photo, and began our descent to our tent and finally to my truck. It really doesn't get much better than that.
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| *fin |
TL;DR
We used mountain project as our source for route lengths and figured the the Lightning Ledge Scramble to be about 100 feet. Ipso facto, Peek-a-Boo (400 ft.) + LLS (100 ft.) = 500 ft. If I could do it over again I would use another access route to the Lunch Ledge, like Cave Route besides Jim Dandy. I would rappel from p2 of Peek-a-Boo to Jim Dandy and link-up with My Route. And the MP forums have also informed me of a water source at Table Rock that would have eliminated hiking in so much water weight. Otherwise, it ruled.