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By Daniel L
Brian and I met at Harpers Ferry yesterday to send some more routes.
I told Brian that I would meet him by the bridge across the river
between 9 and 9:30. I waited until 10:30 and then headed off into the
woods to explore the area by myself. Around 11:30, I hear footsteps,
and find Brian wandering about the base of the cliff also.
Apparently, he was waiting for me at a different bridge and had come
to explore by himself also. We packed up our gear and headed to the
ranger station to sign in, and then headed back to the main face of
Maryland Heights.
In times past, I have climbed to the top on one familiar moderate
route up through the chimney to the left of "the sign" ( the place has
few recognized route names ), but last time, I found the route
absolutely caked in pigeon crap, so I decided to try one of the so-
call 5.1 slab routes. I found little protection and it definitely
wasn't 5.1 the way I went, but we made it to the summit.
I explained to Brian that I wanted to explore the terrain at the spot
where there used to be a big sign painted on the wall. I set up a
solid four-pirece anchor in a horizontal crack and we rapped down.
For those of you taking notes, please note that there are two anchors
that you can lower to. If you use a 60m rope, you will *barely* reach
the lower one depending on rope stretch. Next time, I'm planning to
climb from the lower one and have the belay from the upper one.
Anyhow, the rock went down really nice and we had a blast climbing the
face. I can't wait to get back; I might be up for it again in a few
weeks ( I'll be out of town next week ). I found, much to my delight,
that a hornet nest that was there just two weeks ago has vanished.
I'd like to gear up and throw my cams into the cracks in the sign and
move up on to the terrain above, but it's a bit run-out and I can't
see if there is loose rock above. I'm going to have to make some more
trips out there before it goes down on lead...
Anyways, I climbed up under the massive roof up and above the sign to
the left and then decided I didn't want to take the swing if I fell.
I regret that. The swing would have been scary, but now I'm sitting
here wondering if I might have pulled that roof somehow.
As before, we made off and worked on some of the sport routes. I'm
getting the hand of some of the hard routes, but those sport routes
still haven't gone down for me.
So Shane, Andy, Brian, and the others interested in Harpers, I'll be
eager to go back soon.
Daniel L
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