Seneca Rocks, West Virginia
The climbing here is different from a lot of other places we've been to, in that instead of several cliffs 40-100 feet tall, this is one big cliff broken up by several big ledges. Most of the climbing is multi-pitch, meaning that the climb is longer than one ropelength (a "pitch"), so instead of climbing the entire route then lowering back to the ground, one must stop partway, build an anchor in the wall, and bring up your climbing partner before continuing up the climb. This process is repeated until you get to the ledge or summit where the climb finishes. This makes the climbing here more committing, and requires taking more equipment up with you, as well as water and snacks, and in many cases, and bags, shoes, and additional clothes you brought with you, as you won't be coming back down to the same spot you started from. All this extra stuff encumbers you and adds extra weight to haul up the rock, so generally you climb easier stuff. This is fun climbing though - maybe less demanding of muscle strength, but much more adventurous. The climbing is less physical, but much more mentally challenging, as you run into situations where what you need to do isn't hard, but it's a bit scary.
Meghan and I standing on the South Summit of Seneca Rocks
The easiest way to explain this is probably to just show you, so we strapped a camera to my helmet and took a video while we climbed. We linked together 3 climbs to get from the trail to the south summit - Banana (1 pitch, 5.7), Debbie (1 pitch, 5.7), and Gunsight to South Peak (3 pitches, 5.4) (the other dude in the video is a guy named Parin that we climbed with that day). Check it out - and tell us what you think in the comments section below.
Ghetto-style Helmet-Cam
Video - Climbing at Seneca Rocks!
7 comments:
The video only seems to want to load partway for me, then I have to move the position slider bar to get more of it to load - is this happening to everyone else too?
Hi Ian & Meghan,
Just watched your video. Interesting, but not something I could ever do.
The video loaded and played fine. You must have had a slow connection and had to wait for it to buffer part way through.(or it could just be that you are trying to use a Mac!)
Pretty neat! I thought the helmet cam was most effective from about 4:30 onward. Looks like you had some great weather that day.
The video worked fine. It was interesting and scary seeing how you actually do the climbing! Not something I would ever try!
Scary! My knees felt weak just watching it from my desk...
Video works fine on my Mac, by the way.
Hi Ian and Meghan,
Dudes it made me sick to watch that!
And Matt's comment is "epic video, nice editting, wish I was there" funny how two people can watch the same thing and one can want to puke while the other wishes he was there eh! :-) but seriously though it was impressive, you are much braver that me especially with that jump!!!
Keep being awesome guys,
Amanda and Matt
Dudes, nice vid, worked perfectly. Next time more Meg shots... wish I were there. Actually, wish you were here! FYI - I'm doing a lead course this weekend, so I can finally belay you (maybe). Also learning that doing a 6- in Norway isn't the end of the world, even though the grade just seems so low...
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