Hound Ears excursion

So I made an effort to go climbing a couple weeks back. My good friend Kevin rented his wife's family's cabin for a 3-day weekend and we chilled out BIG TIME. Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy most of the weekend, so my climbing time was limited. We watched movies, made great dinners, had some drinks, hung out in Boone and walked his cool Chesapeake Retriever a lot around Hound Ears. We drove around between Banner Elk, Boone, Blowing Rock, Grandmother and Grandfather Mountain, trying to get my bearings. Getting used to the disorienting nature of windy roads in the smaller mountains of the East again won't be easy.

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I did get to finally climb on Sunday although it was a whopping 27 degrees when I got out of the car at the Hound Ears garden dedicated just after the Triple Crown Event held there a few weeks back. I'm not sure how many resident/property owners in Hounds Ears will ever know about the climbing community's contribution, but there is a engraved tombstone-looking plaque commemorating the event. I managed to do 4 moderate problems on one block before the bone-chilling humid coldness got the best of me.

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If you haven't been there, the rock at Hound Ears looks like eastern granite, but it's really quartzite. Think Skyland with a bit of Ibex/Black Hills quality friction, and you've got it. The bouldering area is a small tightly-knit boulderfield at the top of the Hound Ears enclave. Most of the landings are decent. There is a selection of short, medium and highball problems. One resource I saw says there are 200 problems, but on first glance that appears to be overstating it. From what I saw, something closer to 100 decent lines and variations appears like a reasonable assessment. I look to forward to getting back soon to sample more of the goods.

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Unfortunately, I took no pictures all weekend. The rain, the cold, the 6 hour drives to & fro, blah blah blah ...