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I'm heading down to the Southeast for a week in early Feb' to do some rock climbing. Just curious who are Northern Georgia/Alabama Dry fans are.

Any cool herping stuff to check out this time of year down there?

Doug T
Doug Taylor Reptiles

Nothing but mountains by you, and you go to Georgia to rock climb? lol

This time of year, the mountains here are all tall and covered in snow, or wet from rain and I'm not too into that icey, wet stuff. I limit my climbing to more accessable cliff faces and leave that big adventure stuff to tougher folks than I.

There's some of the best bouldering (short & unroped) climbing in the USA down in Georgia and Alabama. Plus, I've only been East of the Mississippi one time. Honestly, inside the USA, I've only been as far east as Wyoming, with the exception of a week in D.c.

So I'm doing some domestic travel and hopefully some indoor herpin'.

Anyone out there?

Doug T

>>Nothing but mountains by you, and you go to Georgia to rock climb? lol

"Honestly, inside the USA, I've only been as far east as Wyoming"

doug -- you mean to tell me you made it all the way to devil's tower, but didn't go the slightly extra stretch to the needles area in SD? what about waco tanks, TX? or enchanted rock outside of fredricksburg, TX?

cheers,

matt

Never did make it to Devil's Tower. It was one of several places that I didn't make it to due to injuries. My Wyoming venture was for work only.

Hueco Tanks: Although not entirely closed to bouldering (3 hour tours only), it was effectively closed. This made Americans start looking for other nice winter bouldering spots. Lo and behold, Alabama and Georgia are starting to look like decent places to go. The rock is sandstone, the landings are nice, the locals are happy to have you there... perfect.

My climbing partner and I narrowed it down to either some roped stuff at Portrero Chico in Mex', or bouldering in the southeast. We've both been to Mexico a lot, but never to Alabama or Georgia. So off to somewhere different.

Fortunately for me, as many places I'd like to go, I'm lucky to have a supercoolawesome place to pull just 45 minutes from home, Index, WA.

A Little Climbing Video

fun crack, where was that taken?

matt

uh, that looks like [gulp] fun to me doug & serious fun at that. geez, i'd love to try that out sometime but i got this thing about my recliner, i like to sit on it....alot. lol! actually, i get paid to climb houses but you couldn't pay me to do that. have fun & rock on!!

Hey Matt,

That's a route called "Breakfast of Champions" (5.10b) at Index, WA. The first 15 feet are past vertical, then it backs off to just vertical on perfect hands.

So Matt, you climb?

Doug T

>>fun crack, where was that taken?
>>
>>matt

>>So Matt, you climb?

hey doug, i think it would be fair to say, yes, i used to climb. i haven't been on rock for a couple of years now. i tried it years ago at smith rocks in OR, but really learned when i lived in boulder, CO (flat irons), got better in TX (austin area), and started climbing less frequently when i moved to MN (lake superior, taylor's falls).

my wife and i still have all the gear, so we'll be getting our kids into it as soon as they can stand.

matt