Sunday Fun-Day @ Moore's Wall

After climbing at Linville Gorge on Saturday I had asked the fellas (Eddie Medina, Robert Hutchins, and Tim Fisher) if they were going climbing on Sunday. Tim asked me where I was headed and I responded that I was probably headed to Pilot Mountain State Park so that I could find a random someone to climb with. Unless one of them wanted to climb some where.

Moore's Wall

Tim said that if I wanted to climb, that I should climb at Moore's Wall. I told him that I had only been there once with Robert and I didn't know the area well. He told me he would pick me up in the morning from Robert's house at eight am.

Eight am came awfully fast for a certain someone who made have had a little too much to drink the previous night.  Luckily, that someone kept waking up dehydrated in the middle of the night and made sure to chug lots of water during several of those woken up moments.

It was fun getting to converse with Tim one on one on the way to Moore's Wall. Pick up a guide book with Moore's Wall in it and you'll be sure to learn a little about Tim Fisher, I did :-)

The previous night, Tim and Robert were trying to figure out which route to haze me on. However, on Sunday Tim decided to veto the original haze and hazed me instead with a good old fashioned sand bagged route which he told me was (5.7).

Funny because on the way to Air Show (5.8+) we bumped into a couple of his old friends. They asked where we were going and Tim told them that he was taking me to Air Show.  As they walked away one of them said, "...that's a great 5.5". I retorted, "Is everyone in on the hazing?" That fella's name was Sandy. After we bumped into him again on the way back to the North Side of Moore's Wall, I told Sandy that he would now be referred to as 'Sandy Bags'. So if you ever run into a guy named Sandy at Moore's Wall, be wary of asking him for information.

It was all in good fun. Besides, in my mind, Tim already told me it was a 5.7 (I didn't actually know what it was rated until Tim told me after we climbed it that it was (5.8+).  Didn't matter what it was rated, because Air Show is such a beautiful, well protected, exposed, climb. Definitely a Classic.

At the base of the climb Tim said, "Place nuts when you can and save some bigger cams towards the top".  He later said that my two cam placements were the sketchiest of all my placements and that it was funny because the rest of my pieces were nuts.

As we scrambled down a 5.3/5.5 route, we were met half-way by a couple of climbers on their way up. They asked us if we knew where to rappel from. Tim smiled and said that we were just scrabbling down. They looked shocked to say the least.

We continued our day by heading to the north end. Tim said he was going to take it easy but apparently our definition of easy is different because he led Nevermore (5.11b), Vascular Disaster (5.11b/c) and then had to top rope VD again to remove a brass nut that I had failed to retrieve. I tried to remove that thing for what seemed like 15 minutes. Tim took it out first yank...I apparently don't have enough following experience.

I top-roped Nevermore and Vascular Disaster with no falls, but as punishment for my lack of cleaning skills I was told I had to down climb VD. Of course they were joking but I did it anyway, at least until I fell on the boulder start. I finished my day by top-roping and cleaning Mighty Mouse (5.11c), also with no falls.  All of these climbs were amazing and I look forward to someday leading them.

Overall, I had an amazing Labor day weekend. Friday at Crowders, Saturday at Linville Gorge, and Sunday at Moore's Wall.  I hope everyone reading this also got to make some amazing memories this weekend.

Cheers and until the next Climb!