Face Plant – Lilly Grace Von Doombringer
Great weather window and good coordination with friends and parents, I was off and up to the New River Gorge again for Labor Day weekend. With the Jeep, in good working order, after some hot date nights with Alexis at the Junkyard to pull off new parts I left Charlotte for the 3.5 hr drive to the bridge.
I pulled into the AAC late at night and slept in the jeep until morning where I could find Aaron and Matt. The ACC has seen a good bit a development, but it has lost a lot of its charm and quaintness from being overrun with bro’s and banning of personal fire-pits. All the amenities/facilities that where promised so long ago have still not appeared.
Aaron, Matt and I started the day with a nice healthy biscuit world breakfast, and took a drive by the Bubba City parking lot. The sport hordes were already out in full force, so we backtracked to the Junkyard for a day of trad and cracks. The 5 min approach was grueling and we only ran into 2 other parties. After rock, paper, scissors, I got the lead on “Rapscallion Blues”, which put up a good pumpy fight. The top held a secret sloping bulge, which almost bucked me off. However, I managed to wiggle my body into a cracked ledge for rest and reattempt.
Next, I setup a camera for Matt and Aaron on “Four Sheet to the Wind.” Matt ended up taking a really nice whipper off the top, when he traversed a little too far left. After that, we moved onto “The Entertainer” which forces you to use hand-jams at the start. Then I got talked into doing this dirty and horrible looking sport line, “Reachers of Habbit”. I thought it was going to be crap, with a high first bolt and washed down dirt all over the holds, but this was true gem with very cool moves and protected very well.
Finishing the climb, my parents arrived into town so I left to meet them at the visitor’s centers. Lilly Grace Von Doombringer had arrived too and was happy to see me. We did a quick tour of the center and went down to the swimming hole below the bridge. Here Lilly Grace got to swim with me in the refreshing WV waters (she was not too happy about it).
We went to eat at a Local WV bars and got to experience the local life. At one point at red light we saw a WV-firedrill. A guy got out of his truck at a red light, ran to the bed of said truck, grabbed 3 beers from a cooler in said truckbed and then ran back into said truck.
The next morning we had a nice breakfast at the Cathedral café with nice hike around the kaymoor mine trail. Lilly Grace ended up face planting into a nice size mud hole and my mom and dad where happy to see all the nature, but also were happy to be done with the hike.
They then headed home with the Jeep and left me the Toyota. I met back up with Aaron and Matt at the bridge buttress, but rain looked to be on the horizon. I found them on Chockstone, which was wet and mossy from last night’s downpour. After finishing it, we made our way over to some lieback 5.9. Aaron hated this route, and we thought he was going to rip the wall apart. Then the rainstorm came in and we scurried to the overhanging cave shelter were many other people were gathered. Matt hopped on the 5.8 finger crack that stayed dry and took his trusty spider wander up to do the 5.11 extension. Right before reaching the chains, a deluge came erupting over the roof to form a new waterfall. It was a cool time to grab some photographs. We finished the day up with face/crack system at the back of the cave, I gopro’ed both Matt and Aaron as there was some cool lighting.
We slept at Aaron’s friend’s farm again, same place where we stay during the 4th of July. The next morning, we aimed for somewhere where it would be dry. So we went back to cirque, Matt and Arron got on the 11’s at the beginning of the wall. I finally ended up doing the correct “Powerlung Traverse”, and not the weird “Powerful Canadian” and finally I burned myself out on “Skylore Engines”. The beginning boulder problem still felt impossible, but I hauled through it and played on the rest of the route. The route is pretty crazy, requiring all types of skills. It ranges from big sloping bread basket ledges, to technical liebacks and gastons, to all off points dynos at the top. I made it through middle cruxs clean, but the upper section worked me over pretty good. In the end, I got within the last bolt of the anchor, but could not hang on to the last dyno.
