Nov. 5, 2005 - Promised Land
This time we have been a big crowd of app. 20-25 climbers that headed to Promised Land at the Prentice Cooper State Forest yesterday morning (11/5/2005). Some started already at 6 am because way in with driving and hiking is about 3.5 hours. The day started rainy around Chattanooga but as soon as we hiked down it stopped and later the sun came out. So everything dried out very fast.
The routes are beautiful face- or corner climbs. Some starts have been bolder starts up to small ledges. Mainly the routes followed along a crack up to the top. Because the area is not frequently climbed jet there are a lot of lose gravel and rocks on the holds. Especially the climbers in lead needed to be very careful with dynamic movements and have been challenged with more balance climbing.
We had a lot of routes set up pretty fast by various leaders.
- Satellite Flyer (5.9) lead by Frank
- Dust Up (5.10b) lead and bolted by Scott
- Easy Corner (5.7) lead by Trish
- Bag of tricks (5.10c) lead by Bryan
- Slim's Corner (5.8) lead by Denmark
- Emotional Rescue (5.9) lead by Jeff
- Pocket Rocket (5.10c) lead by ?
- Jerry and Lynn's Crack (5.9) lead by Jeff
- Grandma's Muscle (5.6) lead by Brian for Jennifer
- Scott's project (app. 5.8+), a corner with a nice crack that stops below a roof.
Thanks a lot to all who set up a route and made it save for less experienced climbers to climb on.
After a successful climbing day we drove out of the State Forest by night into Chattanooga for dinner. We found a table for 16 of us after some research in the crowded downtown area at a Mexican restaurant. The food was delicious but we had "3x chips replacement" waiting times for everything. Therefore we headed back to Atlanta at 10 pm in the night.