This leg of the trip was the chance to visit somewhere that I’d been hearing about for a long time. Daniel, being the southern boy that he is, would tell me about the Triple Crown bouldering series that was held down in the South. Near Tennessee and Georgia, on the Southern Sandstone boulders, they’d have some of the best short-route climbers in the world come and show off.

So, I’m driving all the way down to Oklahoma and Arizona already… may as well hit Tennessee, right?

Right.
Monday, 01-Jun-2015

 

Rain makes Ben go slowly… and this morning was no exception. Seriously, I’m starting to think that I’m just dragging rain clouds behind the car as I drive… did I forget to disconnect the cloud-hooks or something? What the heck?

But since I had set up the tarp over the campground, I didn’t have too much trouble packing up. I took a break for breakfast (oatmeal again, with the last of the Vermont Pepperoni that Marla gave me), the finished up the packing and headed for a quick last visit to Stone Fort, aka Little Rock City.

The rain did let up as I drove, but the mist never did – I found myself walking through a primordial world, free of humans or any other modern interference. I mean, there were some trails, though they were really faint. And there was always the markings that boulderers leave behind; faint patches of chalk, and small scraps of athletic tape on the ground.

But it was all faint enough that I could pretend that a dinosaur could explode out of the underbrush at any moment. And that’s what matters, right?

And honestly, the climbing was amazing! Even with the spattering drizzle and ever-present fog, the routes were good. Like yesterday, I steered clear of any slopey climbs, focusing instead on cracks and overhangs; basically anything with a roof or with huecos. I had a ton of fun, and would easily have stayed there all day and not even scratched the surface of the real number of climbs in the area.

 

 

But I had a pretty long drive, with a few really cool stops, still ahead of me. So I packed up, said goodbye to the guy at the front desk of the golf course, and hit the road out of Tennessee.