What is the NRG Link to What is the NRG

If you enjoy outdoor rock climbing and live in the easter US, I highly recommend making a trip to the New River Gorge. It is a massive area with thousands of incredible routes amidst beautiful mountains. On rainy days, there are antique stores, escape rooms, dozens of local restaurants and breweries, plenty of waterfalls to see, and great hiking if you can brave the weather.

For me, New River Gorge is twice the distance as Red River Gorge, but the extra two hours are through more scenic mountains. I may be paying more to camp than I would at Miguel’s, but the amenities are better. I might be doing more driving to get around the gorge, but the roads are nicer and the hikes are shorter.

The Itinerary Link to The Itinerary

My friend astr came to meet me Thursday evening. Despite three inches of rain forecasted to fall over the next two days, we left at 8:30am on Friday morning.

The plan for Friday was to head to Kaymoor and climb at Rico Sauve. It allegedly stays dry during rain showers.

For Saturday, Orange Oswald wall at Summersville Lake was our main interest. It may be the busiest and most popular area in all of the NRG, but it’s for good reason. The climbing is smooth and you get to hangout on the banks of the lake for lots of sun and a good breeze.

astr was interested in trying some of the bouldering. After some digging through Mountain Project and YouTube, he found some videos of the V4s at Kelly Bean Boulderthat looked doable for us.

Friday Link to Friday

As we got to be an hour away, the rain picked up and we started seeing waterfalls off the highway. To give us time to reassess the situation, we went straight to Water Stone, the main climbing shop/coffee bar in Fayetteville. Shortly after arriving, we were witness to a group of guys coming in after escaping the rain. The employee, who we later learned to be the owner, was quite chatty and asked them about how bad it was. Their assessment of the weather was bleak. If we had arrived a few hours earlier, we would have had a morning of good climbing.

Seeing that the weather was not going to let up until 6pm, I led us on a disappointing journey through some of the small shops within walking distance. The antique shops and the Appalachia knick-knack store were cute, but we needed something large enough to wander. But it did give me a chance to make our camping reservations.

Getting Lost Link to Getting Lost

Eventually astr convinced me that we should head out to Kaymoor (the area for Rico Sauve) for some scouting. Unfortunately, we managed to get directions to the Kaymoor Slabsin the Endless Wallarea by mistake.

Still oblivious to our mistake, westarted the hike in and loved it. The views were beautiful <<add a picture here>> and the ladders and caves made it extra exciting. After climbing down a ladder into a cave and then down two more ladders, we failed to see the last ladder. Which proved to be a costly mistake. Nothing looked right, but we quickly learned that was because we were on the wrong side of the river.

Instead of driving back, we spent the next two hours scrambling through a minefield of fallen tress, boulders, and brush. The walls were mostly unclimbed, the GPS seemed to be acting up, and we had no idea what we were looking at. Eventually we started to check out some of the boulders before deciding to head back to the car. As we approached the ladders to head back up, astr noticed the other ladder.

We climbed down, and then it was obvious that we had found the actual climbing area. The Endless Wall has a ton of climbs and a great view of the gorge, but all of them was wet. We did find a dry bouldering route that was not registered in Mountain Project but had obviously been climbed, and after shredding our hands with 20 attempts each, we continued down the tail and found a dry patch of rock.

One route that we found looked super easy, maybe a 50 foot 5.7 sport climb. Since it was 5:30, we had plenty of time to grab our gear, climb the route, and drive to the campground before the office closed at 8pm. To our surprise, it was actually a 65 foot 5.10b: Exoduster. Not quite the weekend-warmup that we wanted, but it had some fun variety to it.

Camping Link to Camping

We made it to The Outpost with a half hour to spare, but we only stayed long enough to setup the tent. I had made food for our lunches (which we didn’t eat), but we needed dinner and breakfast supplies. After a hilarious penny pinching trip to Kroger (which didn’t have bath towels), we enjoyed some pan fried vegan hot dogs.

After dinner, we get out things setup inside the tent and got cleaned up. Well, astr was able to shower while I suffered from the bath towel drought. This is a situation I find myself in every so often, so I knew to pickup face wipes from the Kroger and use those instead.

The Evening Storm Link to The Evening Storm

Around midnight, the storm came back with a fury. Between the thunder, heavy rain, and forceful winds, we both went from fast asleep to awake and standing in the tent. It may have been the dead of night with thick clouds above us, but the lightning shone on our faces like a dim lantern. The worst of the wind came at this moment. A heavy gust slammed into the side of the tent, twisting and bending the poles in the wrong direction. If I hadn’t been standing there, I wouldn’t have been able to push back and save them from snapping.

astr attempted to shout over the wind, “I think I might go sleep in the car!” Which I responded to by handing him my keys.

I have had the joy of camping in only one storm worse than this. During my younger years in Boy Scouts, we were staying atop a large hill in northern Michigan. Our poorly placed tents were in the middle of a windy ally, but thankfully there were 6 of us staying in one large tent. Those winds were still enough to knock loose the stakes, lift the tent, and move us a few feet.

From that experience, I learned that you need to partially open all of the windows and draft vents in order to let the wind blow through. Doing this mitigated any damage that may have come from the wind we would see over the next four hours. Or at least, that’s what I heard from astr because I slept through the rest of the relentless storm.

Assessing Camp Link to Assessing Camp

One of the benefits of tent camping at The Outpost is the loud stream that runs behind the tents. The noise isolates you from any traffic noises you might otherwise hear from the nearby highway. It also feels a little too close for an evening where over an inch of rain is falling in a few hours.

The ground was soggy with standing puddles in the grass, but the stream did not break the banks. It was about 2 feet higher than usual and significantly faster, but we escaped any real flooding.