My Epic Climbing Adventure

Some climbing notes:

• Some of the photos below are taken from Mountain Project and some from Seneca: The Climber's Guide by Tony Barnes and Kevin O'Brien.
• Routes are rated by the Yosemite Decimal System
  • Class 4: Simple climbing, with exposure. A rope is often used. Natural protection can be easily found. Falls may well be fatal.
  • Class 5: Is considered technical; belaying, and other protection hardware is used for safety. Un-roped falls can result in severe injury or death. Class 5 has a range of sub-classes, ranging from 5.0 to 5.15d to define progressively more difficult free moves. The classes are not linear — routes get much harder as you move up in rating. And outdoor ratings and indoor/gym ratings don't directly compare with outdoor being generally harder at the same rating because you have to find your holds. Indoors I climb 5.10 with some 5.11 but outdoors nowhere near that.
• Trad(itional) climbing: Lead climber takes gear (cams, nuts, etc., pitons are no longer used due to damage to rocks) up and places it in cracks, etc., to provide protection in case of falls. Rope goes through a carabineer hooked to the gear. Other two forms of climbing are top rope and sport.
• Belaying: Lead climber goes up taking rope while second climber (the belayer) holds other end of rope and stops the rope from sliding in case of falls thus catching the lead climber and saving them from a nastier fall. When at the top of the pitch, the lead climber builds an anchor and then the roles switch and the former lead belays the follower up. Follower cleans gear by removing it and attaching it to their harness. Now both climbers are at the top of the pitch with the original gear and rope in hand and can either start up another pitch or come down via rappelling.

I've climbed outdoors on top rope but never via traditional. Since I am definitely not qualified to place protection, Sean Taft-Morales, Director of Sportrock Alexandria, was my guide.

We took the 3 hour drive Tuesday April 30th to Seneca Rocks, WV. It's fairly isolated — no cell phone service — but with a climbing shop. It's well known as a trad rock climbing mecca and the highest Class 5 (see above) required ascent east of Devils Tower, WY. It tops out at 960 feet above the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River and has 375 mapped climbing routes. Here's a view of the town sort of facing west; Yokum's General Store and Motel is the brown building at the fork. The Forest Service Visitor's Center is just above the trees near the center. To the left of that is climber/hiker parking.
And of the crag (mountain) we're going to be climbing. We're seeing the west side. We will start climbing on the right hand (South) side.
Our day will consist of hiking along Roy Gap Road to the south end of the crag, up the Ecstasy route (routes are named by the first person to ascend) to Luncheon Ledge, hike (all on Class 4 and a little Class 5.0 terrain) over to the east side and up the Broadway Ledge to the Gunsight Notch and then up to South Peak (the summit). We'll then rappel down on the east side and hike back to the car. My lines are the dotted red lines showing how we went.
Here's what Sean's "rack" looked like as we started. He will be leading the climb and placing cams and nuts into cracks to provide protection; I'll follow and remove them and attach them to my harness. By the end of the pitch, my harness will be about full and his empty. Yes, the rack gets heavy. And he's definitely got a spiffy chalk bag (chalk helps your grip on the rocks).
The South End looks like this. Except the real rock doesn't have the letters of course. The left hand side of the rock is about 200 feet high to give you an idea of scale. You can see how many features the rock has here to grab or step on so this is a great place for newbies like me. There are many other Seneca Rocks climbs where there are far fewer features which requires more experience and skill. Next time.
The first climb was the first pitch of Totem 5.5 85 feet; dotted red line to the right in this picture of the south end. This was a warm up and training climb for me. At the top of the pitch are solid bolted anchors for attaching the rope to. When Sean gets to this point, he attaches the rope, lets me know he is tied to the anchors and "off belay". He puts me on belay and I climb up pulling the gear as I go. When I arrive at his stance, we rappel down. Now I'm good to go on something more sustained.
Sean took some photos of me working my way up Totem; that's the Southern Pillar in the second photo. We wear helmets in case we fall and bang into the wall and, more importantly, in case a rock is kicked off from above. The only thing that landed on my head was the rope as we pulled it down after our first rappel off the summit of South Peak! The wall is close to vertical.
Time to get real and we're on to Ecstasy 5.7 225 foot 3 pitch (100 feet, 70 feet, 55 feet) route. On this route there are no fixed bolts for the intermediate belay anchors so Sean creates them using the gear he carries. There's also no cushy space for standing while handling the belay so I lean back over the wall while tied into the anchor. Lots of air beneath me. Ecstasy is to the left of Totem.
I'm on belay and looking up where I'll be climbing the first pitch. Sean is up at the very top right behind the leaves having climbed up and is building the first anchor position because there are no anchor bolts on this route. This is wonderful rock for climbing.
I'm working up the first pitch to the anchor point. Sean's placed lots of gear to protect in case of a fall — you want multiple points tied to the rock in case one pulls out.
Working up the second pitch; you can see another climber waiting a turn at the base in the second photo (not with us). And you can see that this pitch is a nice traverse — meaning that you are going mostly sideways instead of up. And are in for a nice swinging fall if you falter.
And the third pitch.
Sean is waiting to greet me.
From the top of Ecstasy, we Class 4 scrambled across the ridge to the east face and northward to below Gunsight Notch. Until it toppled (with no one on it), there was a pillar in the notch which gave it the name. The Class 4 turns to Class 5 at the notch.
At the notch, we crossed over to the west side and joined the Gunsight to South Peak 5.4 195 foot (70 feet, 45 feet, 80 feet) route.
We'll be climbing up the arête to the right of the edge. The scale and photo angle always confuse things, but you can see the feature that sticks up in the previous, this and the next photos.
In the first photo I'm about halfway up the notch, about to move into the arête.
I topped out on the ridge and walked (crawling was an option there was no way I was going to take) to the summit where I signed into the registration book — my first Class 5 summit!
And just enjoying the view.
We met a party from Michigan who had chosen a different route to the top by staying on the west side. The guy in the black t-shirt runs a climbing gym in Michigan. He carries a DLSR on his harness!
Now it was time to get back down. We walked back along the ridge and down climbed to a bolted anchor, and then it took two rappels (first one to Alcoa Ledge) to reach Broadway Ledge (there are bolt anchors for both rappels).
From which it was Class 5.0 and Class 4 back to the road.
Sean on the last rappel.

We were back to the car about 6pm and I was home by 9pm; after a 14 hour trip.

Wow!