A day at Harpers Ferry Part II: Bouldering tour

After my pathetic morning display of roped climbing to belay Dan up his latest project, it was time for us to move on to the shorter challenges that were the actual reason for the day's visit.  Driving just up the road, we met up with Conrad Schaefer, long-time local climber and creator of the Harpers Ferry Climbing website. Although we had both been in touch with him sporadically online, this was our first face-to-face meeting.  We quickly found him to be a wonderful tour guide, whose love of the rocks was readily apparent, but also quickly found that his high regard for the place was far more than local pride.  While probably even in terms of quality with our other local quartzite areas, Harpers Ferry is certainly one of our biggest concentrations of rock around, and to explore the full extent would have taken far more than the single afternoon we had at our disposal.

Conrad chose to focus our tour on the Elk Ridge section, located on the Maryland side of the river, and home to the more well known toprope and trad climbing of Balcony Rock and Balcony Junior.  We started off walking around the Balcony Rock Boulders before heading up to the Outlying Area, including the beautiful spot known as The Cove.

Next we went to The Highlands, with the fantastic Starlight boulder sitting atop Balcony Jr.  Although I hadn't planned to do any bouldering that day, I couldn't resist taking a couple trips up Big Dipper, a perfect row of jugs traversing across a low roof.  After not bouldering for a month, I'm happy to say I did it with no injury!   Dan did another five problems on Starlight before we went further uphill to see what else the area had to offer.

From The Highlands, Conrad took us downhill to The Tiers, where he and Dan climbed John Brown's Body on the breathtaking slabby block.  Conrad also sent the left arete, calling it Isaac Smith Arete. Although my camera for some reason shut down when Conrad was on it, I did manage to capture Dan's ascent, and included it along with seven other problems in the video below.

We finished up our tour with a visit to the Underground Railroad Overhang, long and steep with good jugs on the right and more delicate crimps on the left.  Conrad made quick work of it in his street shoes before leading us back to the cars.

And with that our time was finished, but I'm looking forward to going back for more soon.  Thanks to Conrad for showing us around!

A day at Harpers Ferry Part I: Fear of ropes

On Friday morning I finally made it out to climb at Harpers Ferry, a beautiful area overlooking the river where Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia come together.  Long known for its moderate multi-pitch trad routes, as well as Maryland's only grade IV aid route, a few local climbers have recently braved the chossy reputation to establish several harder lines.  After months of following Dan's progress in establishing some of these routes, as well as lending my gargantuan #6 Camalot to the cause, I finally had an opportunity to see the area with him firsthand.

After pointing out the various routes to me, Dan led the way to his latest project, the base of which sits at the top of Whirlwind.  At somewhere around 75 feet, with a reasonable crux in the 5.10- range, this approach should have been no problem.  It was, however, the first time since November that I've been on a rope outside.  I don't know what it is about the presence of a rope that instantly triggers anxiety, but for some reason my first roped experience of the year is embarrassing to say the least.  I suppose I could write it off as a normal case of first-time jitters, that is if jitters can be said to involve clinging desperately to draws and making upward progress of roughly ten feet per minute, and on at least three occasions hanging from the bolt anchor above.  I could even make the excuse that I'm still recovering from injury, and had only the day before attempted any routes in the 5.10 range in the gym.  In truth, I know the recovery process had nothing to do with it, and I would have found myself just as nervous were I on 5.4 terrain.  My flailing was all the more embarrassing in light of the fact that for Dan, this was only the warmup for the imposing multi-tiered roofs waiting above.

I suppose the good news is that, while I'm always scared the first time I rope up each year, the second time is always business as usual.  In addition, I noticed that the usual anxiety I feel on my first multi-pitch belay was absent this time, as was any nervousness I usually feel on my first rappel.  I wish I knew how to get rid of the fears altogether, but small victories are still victories, and I'll settle for two out of the three.  I'll even take the bonus points for being willing to put my camera lens two inches below the black widow I saw later in the day.


Still, maybe some amount of nervousness is a good thing, if it keeps me aware of what I'm doing.  As my good friend Timm once said about racing, though I find it equally applicable to climbing:

I always associated nervous with prepared. My thinking goes, if you are nervous then you understand what is out in front of you. The flip side being of course that if you aren’t nervous you don’t understand the gravity of the situation. It’s when I’m not nervious that I worry.

 Stay tuned for more photos and video of the day in "A day at Harpers Ferry Part II:  Bouldering tour."