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| Malcolm savors the view midway up Maginot Line |
On Friday September 16, Malcolm and I drove up to Linville Gorge for a weekend of multi-pitch excitement. We spent the first night in Morganton, then drove up to Table Rock on Saturday morning. We had some trouble with the Mummy approach. After leaving our packs at the big flat rock, we proceeded downward just a few feet and took a left instead of backtracking up the trail a bit and branching off there. Our approach put us near the Mummy as desired, but at the bottom of the gully was some 5.2 scrambling that I wasn't super happy about. We both rappelled, and then I climbed back up and down to retrieve the rappel anchors. We later figured out that we should have stayed higher on the ridge line heading south (as discussed above) before dropping into the descent gully between the Mummy buttress and the main wall (where there are rappel rings at the bottom).
We climbed The Mummy (5.5) and it was a lot of fun. It felt like the perfect kind of route to be putting Malcolm on at his current level. We had wanted to climb the Daddy as well but didn't feel there was enough time at the pace we were going by the time we finished The Mummy. So, we traversed over and exited up The Prow. Again we had some trouble finding the actual "start". I ended up doing an extra pitch from down low which put us on the ledge where most people start The Prow. The last pitch of the Prow is money!!! It definitely gave Malcolm some excitement to finish the day. The entire climb was far better than I had expected based on the grade.
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| Malcolm near the top of The Prow |
It was dark when we got back to the car. We fixed some dinner and then started driving northeast on FS Rd 496. Halfway up we found a pull-off with a campsite and plenty of water in a nearby creek. We spent the night here, refilled our water bottles, and left in the morning for the 45-minute drive to Wolf Pit to begin our Shortoff Mountain day of adventure.
For Shortoff Zach's approach directions were on point. We didn't get lost at all this time, at least until we were at the bottom of the hemlock rappel. The rappel anchor could use some love. One of the fisherman's knots was starting to get chewed through, and I re-tied it on a cleaner section of cord. It also only had a single quick-link which I backed up with an (aluminum) locking biner which is still in place.
We had a bit of trouble finding the start of the climb, Maginot Line (5.7). The trail at the bottom almost doesn't exist anymore. Is trad climbing a dying art? So, we were bushwacking and not entirely sure we were going the right way. But the climb itself was made obvious enough when we arrived by comparing to photos on Mountain Project. This climb was spectacular. It gave Malcolm some of the most exposure he's ever experienced, and I think he was truly thrilled at the top of each pitch. 5.7 perhaps seems a bit like a sandbag, but hey, it's old-school, right? Finding our packs at the top was easy enough. Again, we didn't have time in the end to do two climbs (we had to make the drive back to Atlanta before too late), and I was a bit worried about getting stuck down at the bottom of the wall. Zach later told me that it is possible to climb out of the gully relatively easily. Anyway, we made our way back to the car and drove home.
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| Malcolm nearing the top of Maginot Line |
It was memorable trip for both of us. I'll be going back.
