New River Gorge - Part 2

Climbing Day 2
Apple cider never tasted so good! Perfect on cold mornings for those of us who are not coffee drinkers!

Stella was off to work this morning, so we were left to our own devices. We borrowed a Cragger's guide and planned a misguided attempt to get some climbing in. The book suggested a spot of rocky outcropping below the bridge, so that is where our adventure began!
Drive down the curvy road. Onto another curvy road. Watch out for cars on a road where it is nearly impossible to pass. More curves. Finally make it and grab a parking space. Super short hike with stairs up to the trail, follow the signs and guidebook.
Not being yet comfortable enough to lead climb without Stella, we set out to find routes we could top rope. Good thing we had Joe and Mike with us to keep us from being too ambitious. We first picked a 5.8 because it was open and in a shady spot, and got our butts kicked. These are not Tennessee rocks. plus we did not understand yet that there is a huge difference between top roping a 5.8 face, and a 5.8 crag.
Next route, a nearby 5.7 that was more the speed of everyone in the group. Not to mention it gave Mike a chance to take some awesome pictures!

 Everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame!

When we were worn out and a bit beat up, we checked out the museum, learned about the local area and enjoyed the breathtaking views. Also, we did a little exploring and were not disappointed. The possibilities are endless!

After our lunch time adventures we headed back to the crags to see if we could master any other top ropes. Sure enough, one opened up that was crag, face and shelf in one. Quite the 5.9, but a ton of fun. On top of that, Joe managed to make quite the discovery. Lodged deep in one of the crags was a lost and lonely cam! What are the chances of that? In an attempt to return this rather expensive piece to its owner, we quickly made our rounds of the rock face, but could not find anyone to claim it. I guess it is going back with us. Maybe Stella will know what to do with it.

After all the excitement from the day, we are thoroughly worn out and ready to head back to camp. However, our adventures for the day are not yet over!
Once back at camp, we decide to attempt a two mile hike, that like most of our adventures tuned into a 6 mile hike! After finding some mining ruins at the top of the trail, we hiked. We hike down, then we hiked up, the we hiked straight. This is what we found.

It was scary to hear the tale that this is actually a sniper's perch during the previous day's yearly bridge jumping event. Curious why a sniper would be needed for this event. Even more curious is why he would be perched so far away. Draw your own conclusions. In the rapidly fading daylight, we decided to up the ante and scale down to rocks, just to explore a bit. We didn't consider the path back up as much as we did the path down. It took some of our newly acquired rock climbing skill and sheer dumb luck to get back up! Then we had to work out the kinks in our sore muscles with a brisk hike back to camp in the dark. Tonight's recipe: campfire mac-n-cheese, with hot dogs. Shared with friends of course!

Day 3 up next, same bat time...same bat channel...