Twall in November
Chattanooga has been in the back of my head since move down into the southeast. Fables and whispers are told of sandstone gorges that house massive roofs and overhanging walls, with splitter cracks in between. A spare weekend and good weather was all that was need to chase down these tells of rock.
On Friday evening, Alexis and I left around 6pm but Charlotte traffic held us up an hour, so we didn’t get to Chatty until midnight. We found a hotel on Priceline, and ended up at the downtown Marriott – which was great, free breakfast, great view, and forced interaction with the ANIME culture (Anime convention was in town). We experience a fire alarm in the morning, which went on for a few seconds but then turned off. So we continued with our business. Twenty minutes later when we decided to head down for our free breakfast, we arrived on a floor full of angry anime people in the lobby and a deserted restaurant. Apparently – some people took the fire alarm seriously and breakfast wasn’t happening for us. We were headed to Tennessee Wall, so on the way we stopped by a local fast-food place, Krystal, across from a Koma’tsu factory.
We got to T-Wall and quickly figured out the parking situation since the small parking lot was filled up. We hike up to the base of the cliffs passing a large group of young’ens. We got to the base of the cliff and roped up on the first thing that was open. Nappy was nice full dihedral system that ran a full 100 ft to the rim. It was great warm-up and full climbing. The young’ens where initially trying to get on this climbing so after ticking the route off, we relinquished it to them. Walking further down the east T-wall Cliffs, it was apparent that everyone had arrived. The wall quickly grew packed with people and rope up on everything. We did have the pleasure of being at the T-WALL during the prime time season; not hot, not cold, and all the leaves were changing colors.
We walk down the cliff using the MP app as guide and found a couple classic open way down the cliff line. We hopped on Golden Locks which we be a great focus on crack climbing. Alexis never liked crack climbing on the few climbing outside where she experienced them. Here she had to focus on the skills of cracks, no more face pulling. Since it was a proper crack, she got to have her very first pair of tape gloves (I think this made her experience much better). Once she got established in the crack she floated up the fissure, by shoving hands, knees, feet, elbow, and all other body parts in the crack. The last climb of the day was ART, which had a train on it, when we first arrived at the cliff. Solid, (maybe sandbagged) 5.8 had great overhang exposure with huge holds. In the crux (fingertip lieback), little lizards would dart out beside my hands and just stare at me, as I tried to fiddle gear in. Alexis cleaned my gear and grunt up the wall, sadly the lizards did not give her the same stares.
With the slog back downhill complete, we arrive on the road and saw about 50+ cars, all stacked along the road. We made our way down the hill and packed up the civic again. We hauled out of the winding road and stopped at a Dunkin Donuts to formulate a plan for the night, and take pictures of the awesome KOMA’TSU dealership. I wish they had a free demo unit to play with.
That night we explored downtown Chattanooga, we stop bye and walked around the “Chattanooga Choo Choo”. It had a awesome tall arched lobby, and several train cars parked out back. We also got to see the real Chattanooga choo choo, which hauled passenger before the turn of the 20th century. From there, we used their awesome public transportation system of downtown. Hoping on and off Electric Trolleys, during one stop we saw their new climbing gym which looked amazing. It even had walls to climb on outside. Dinner was had at the Terminal, after a long wait. It was neat 3 stories old hotel, which was turn into a brewery and restaurant. Full on beer and tasty soup, we finally settled into bed and slept about 12 hrs.
The late start in the morning, had me slightly worried that we would not get a parking spot at the SUNSET PARK trailhead. There are only spaces total and 2 of them are hourly only. However, when we pulled in, we were the 2nd car there. We walked briskly down to Sunset Rock and saw the Chattanooga Valley, below were a major civil war battle was fought. Cold and west facing we walked around the cliff trails until finding the Treasure Chest Climbing Area. (South-Sunset area is pretty hard to navigate without a guidebook). We found a gritty corner system and made some quick climbs. Alexis darted in and out of several small cave systems formed by the large leaning rocks.
After climbing, we headed out early and stopped at Point Park to get our history lessons. I got to close to a old famous paint and set off several alarm systems. Once the beeping stop and no federal officers arrived, we started our exodus of Chattanooga. On the downhill drive, we saw little shack which sold knickknacks and views of the incline system. Buried in the cooler of the shop we found some white-lightning fudge. It wasn’t until later that night that we realized it was real moonshine fudge, which was probably made in some back holler in TN.
We took the less interstate-y drive back to Charlotte by cutting across western NC. Along the drive, we follow the Ocoee River for a good ways. During the winding river drive, we saw several of the TVA dams in action. 1 section appeared almost completely dry, due to the flue system above on the hills. Then further up river, we stumbled upon the 1996 Olympics river section. It was a neat park, were you could get and walk around the area and river banks.
More winding road and hill country lead up pass the Nantahala river gorge section. By now it was starting to get dark, so we pushed on further until our stomachs growled. This was only cured by a stop at a burger and milkshake shop.
