Obed, TN Trip

The Obed
I drove out from the city of Charlotte in the Blazer for the Lands of Tennessee. My Destination was set, I was head for the shangra-la of the Obed.  My need to visit was driven by the overheard stories of overhanging sandstone walls, rushing water, and vibrant deciduous forests.

It took about 5:30 hrs to pull on to the Lilly bridge with no food stops. From here I got a quick view of the river gorge, however  a storm was a brewing on the horizon. I headed up to the Lilly Pad to get a understanding of how things worked in TN and hope to meet old man Del there.  During my introducition to Del, the storm hit and he invited me into the brewhouse to ride out the rain. Del fed me a several delicious beers called “yogapants” and “wizard something.”  There also was another stranded couple named Stevey and Butch who I quickly became friends with.  We talked about our lives and got drunker at the rains became heavier.  Eventually, my previously scheduled mountain project partner named Dan showed up.  Granted it wasn’t the best introduction with me being drunk off Del’s beer, but I sobered up with chugging a bunch of water and we walked to check out the South Clear Creek Crag while there was still daylight.  Off to a great start, we took the wrong trail down to the proposed area and ended up walking the entire Clear Creek.  Eventually,  we made it to the massive roof section called Stephen Kings Library.  Here I was able to drunkardly climb the 2 sloper fests of “Pet Cemetery” and “Gun Show”.  With beer sweating out my pours I decided to close out the day by pulling back into the campground and falling asleep as soon as it got dark.(I may have parked in the middle of the road.)

The next day, Dan and I got up early and hiked out to the Obed Wall from the Lilly Buff parking lot. The hike was very pretty abet long. We reached the ridgeline as the sun poked out to dry out the area. The section of the Obed wall we went to was called the Teiranny Roofs.  This section of the cliff had some massively protruding roofs. You kinda just sit under them and wander what is holding them up and when are they going to fall over. I almost got the onsight of the most classic roof line of the area, but my forearms exploded  just before getting to chain the anchors. So I took the big whip to start thing off.  Luckily, I was able to recover after about 30 mins and do it on my second attempt.  There also was a great route called “Tales of the Sperm” which gave great views of the Obed River as you pick you way up this corner system. Later that night I stopped at the brewery house and talked with a couple more of the locals.  One named BT, talked with me a good bit about fishing in the river.  I got the good scoop in-case I had some downtime to lay by the river. That night after drinking, a pack of dogs showed up and escorted me on foot/paw back to the campground. During our stroll we bonded through our different dialects of woofs and growls.  The pack lead me a campfire safely, and sniff me a good bye.  There I meet some fellow climbers from Clemson up for the weekend.  They offered me some  good vibe smores, which I consumed and I wander back to lair of the Blazer.

Wednesday morning was a bit slower going, after breakfast I met up with Dan again. We wandered down to the North Clear again, the goal was to climb “Saddam Hussein” which was 110 ft tall and 15 bolts.  This route took a little bit of plan and strategy, but it claimed my jacket during the climb (the clemson people would recover it later).  After crossing it of the ticklist, Dan had to head back to Asheville. I was no left alone in the wilderness so I decided to wander the cliff line to explore.  I eventually came upon the pack Clemson people. They were climbing “alpine dihederal” and welcomed me to hang around and give catches on a couple climbs.  The one interest thing that happened was that they were doing the route with only a 60m rope.  The route required a 70m, so they ended needing to do some rope magic.  After awhile none of the rope magic work so I lead a the preplace gear route again to clean.

As I got to the top the heaven opened up and the rain came pouring down.  I huddle in a small cave for a bit and the decided to send up one of the clemsonites named Sally. She wored 2 raincoats and trailed a rope to let us both rappel down in 1 shot.  The route really lived up to its alpine name.  After getting everything setup with a nice EDK, which we all drunkenly discussed the previous night, she rapped down 1st.  I rapped down halfway to set of anchor above a large crack and ten again to eliminate the possibility of getting the ropes stuck and prolong the alpine experience. I was now soaked to the bone, and decided to hike out and get some dinner. That night, the clemsonites and I pulled all of out food together and had 1 giant dinner.  We also worked pretty hard to get a raging campfire going in the rain. I even had to break out the car starting fluid to get the kindling to catch.  Again the blazer called as night progress and I slept the night away.

Thursday, the clemsonites offered to have me climb with them until they had to packup and leave. They were stoke to go back to the Obed wall and so I followed suit.  This time though they knew the backway into the cliff saving about 30 minutes of hiking. My memory wanders but some routes that stood out were “Jungle Jane” and some vertical deadpoint and dyno route. The day drew to a close and we parted ways. I had a serious craving for some  Mac and Cheese.   After completely destroying the bowl, I decided to go fishing down by the river.  I hid amongst some willows and caught a couple very healthy bass out of the river.  I release them back and decided that was a great partial rest day activity.  At night, it was just a group of Canadians and I at the campground. They were leaving the next day so I started to think about what I was going to do, read a book or maybe even boulder, gasp.  Just then some people from Chattanooga rolled over to the fire and introduced themselves. Bradley and Nathiely had climbed that day and just stopped making a massive dinner of sweet potatoes for their incoming friend. We sat and talked around the fire until their old friend Dave was able to make it in from Atlanta.  Dave told hilarious stories of his past where he was mostly naked and under the influence of alcohol. As the fire burned low,  I stumbled to the blazer bed after fangling my way into climbing with them tomorrow.

Friday, I woke up and they had graciously made me a extra serving of their breakfast.  They took me to a “new  to me” area called Y-12. This place was really cool and had a sweet ladder to descend down into the cliff band.  We climbed around a cool waterfall area that poured out of the middle of the rock wall.  Poison Ivy was ever vigilant in that area so you had to keep your guard up.  Eventually the convinced me to try hard and I got on “Barbwire and Lingerie”.  It looked like garbage from the ground, but after making 2 moves, I was woohoo’ing and grunting my way up the wall. That evening we made it back to camp just before sunset. They took me to a good spot to watch the sunset, but we may have broken up a marriage proposal as we found blankets, wine and maybe scented stuffs.  We wandered over to the Mushroom rock which I didn’t know existed. Here I may have had 1 too many beers as we sat and had a deep discussion on the expansion of the universe and how it will the eventually cold death. In-between deep thoughts we chucked multiple millipedes off the top of the boulder.  At somepoint, we wandered down to the redneck hot tub, which I did not know existed either.  Discussions started and then next thing we knew, we had fixed the inflow of freshwater from the spring and started to drain the old brown fluid. 1-2 hrs later we had the tub cleaned and filling up fresh water.

The next morning I wandered down in a stupor to the hot tub and took a look at the work that was down.  Crystal clear water was pouring into the rusty horse trough.  While we were making breakfast near the general store and we realized that we were covered in rust and mud still from last night. It probably look like we murdered and buried someone last night (probably sound like it to, there was lots of screaming and grunting while removing the gook.)  We eventually got the fire lit and roaring underneath the tub.  During the warm-up period, we wandered down into the stream for a quick pre-bath washed.  The clear creek water was cold and would be great and drastic comparison to the hot tub.   After a quick and enjoyable  soak in the hot tub, I called a end to my trip and fired up the blazer.  I settle my tab with Del and pointed the blazer back towards Charlotte and a new job.The blazer hit 190,000 on this trip.