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Mike McClure on Golden Harvest

Of all the areas in the South we had planned on going to on this trip, I was most familiar with Rocktown. I had spent about 3 weeks there back in 2002 and was just breaking into the V8/9 grade range. Rocktown was perfect for this as there are so many problems in the V5/6/7 range and some really great problems in the V8/9 range. In the 3 weeks that I had spent there I sent most everything under V7 save for a few random problems here and there. I remember it feeling so great to get that much mileage under my belt at a grade that felt very hard for me a year or two earlier.

Coming back to Rocktown this year I planned on doing the same, repeating all the fun problems I had already done and finish off a few that I had left unfinished. As I mentioned in an earlier post one of those climbs was The Orb. I had come agonizingly close to sending it multiple times on my first trip but could never muster the power endurance needed to send. Luckily I walked away with the send quickly this trip. Here is the vid again:

After I did this I was psyched to show Tammy around and watch her quickly send many problems that felt very hard for me just a few years ago. One especially being Pythagorean Theorem, which she flashed:

The rock at Rocktown is very unique and somewhat more varied than the other areas in the South. The texture is generally perfect but the style of climbing ranges from Gritstone like slabs and Font like bulgesMike McClure on Big Bad Left

to Ibex like walls and Hueco like roofs:

Tim Deroehn on Turkish Resin

Alex Kordick on Turkish Resin

Two problems that are uniquely Rocktown though are Golden Shower which follows a beautiful golden face on PERFECT rounded sloper/jugs, and Rescue 911, a somewhat highball roof to bulge climb. Here is a video of each:

Tammy Stowe-McClure on Golden Shower

While we were at Rocktown Tammy and I met up with “Metro” Mark Avery and his girlfriend Alex Kordick. I first met Mark at MSU in Bozeman when we were both living in the dorms. We went out ice climbing on a few occasions, took a trip to Indian Creek in Utah to climb cracks and would climb trad lines at the local areas together. Ah how times have changed. We were now clear across the country in the backwoods of Georgia. It always amazes me how small the climbing world actually is, how the 7 degrees of separation is seemingly knocked down to only 1 or 2. It was fun to hang out with Mark and Alex and I hope to climb with them again soon.

I’ll finish this post with a collection of the Rocktown vids I have already posted: