A cat bite that turned into cellulitis landed me in the hospital for last Tuesday, and it wasn't clear that I was going to get out in time to actually make the planned trip to North Carolina/Tennessee, let alone climb. However, after two and a half days of IV antibiotics and hanging my hand above my head, I was cleared to leave, although with a warning that I probably wouldn't be able to climb. Screw that!

I left Friday morning to meet Joe up at the Gunks for what was originally intended to be a day of climbing, but turned out to be a hike around the undercliff/overcliff carriage roads as my hand was still quite swollen. Near the junction between the two roads, Rocky took off after something and didn't come back. Eventually Joe set off back down the trail to find him... down by Arrow! Stella and I had a nice nap by the bridge. We spent the night at Greg and Jen's, and set off around 6 AM the next morning. Skittles, G&J's dog, followed are car for a good 5 miles at a full sprint, and it apparently took 2 hours for Jen to finally get her back home. 13 hours later on the dot, we pulled in to Skip's place down in South Carolina, just in time to catch a beautiful sunset.

Skip is a climber whom Joe had met up at the bivy; about a month earlier Joe & Ian O. had gone down to visit him only to be pretty much snowed out for the whole week, getting in a day and a half of climbing up at Looking Glass. Skip's place is backed by a huge wilderness area, with a phenomenal view of Table Rock, SC in the distance. His wife epitomizes southern hospitality; no sooner had we rolled in to the driveway than we were greeted by huge plates of penne with basil and walnuts and a fridge full of beer.

Slightly hugover, we woke up Saturday morning to pancakes and the promise of a beautiful day at Looking Glass, accompanied by Skip and his buddy Tommy. We started with Sundial crack, 5.8, which gave us a pretty good taste of what the whole eyebrow climbing thing up there is all about. The climbing itself wasn't difficult; low angled slab with excellent friction and footholds. The problematic thing was the routefinding and the gear - though many of the eyebrows had cracks in the back that would take smallish gear (purple, blue, yellow TCUs), many did not - and there was no good way to know whether an eyebrow would take gear or not until you climbed right up to it. I led the second (5.8) pitch on the route; it took quite a long time as there was a lot of moving right and left, up and down, and flat against the rock (when the wind kicked up!) to find the best protected route up. Pitch 3 was a short, perfect hand sized, extremely friendly crack, and pitch 4 started with a commiting move off the deck and finished with more low angled eyebrow climbing through the whipping wind.

We next headed over as a group to Dum Dee Dum Dum (5.10b), which Joe led after taking a couple of falls onto a bolt attempting the direct (5.10d?) version. Nobody else followed cleanly. Cute name for a route at Looking Glass though, eh? We finished the day with an amusing climb up Peregrine (5.9), watching a couple on the nearby Nose. They couldn't have set themselves up better for rope issues if they'd tried, and indeed, by the time I was rapping down past them, the second's rope (trailing off the back of her harness) was hopelessely stuck, knotted around roots at the base by the strong winds. Too bad she was at the crux when it happened. My own ropes had been blown into a mess, but I got down soon enough and fixed her problem.... with the ropes. She still couldn't pull the crux and spent a good while moaning and groaning as she fell over and over again, which amused the boys to no end.

Monday was spent at Rumbling Bald, a long ridge that juts up out of the jungle across a valley from Chimney Rock - where Last of the Mohicans was shot. Greg and I did Fruit Loops, a nice 5.7 fingerish crach, while Joe and Skip did something right next to us. Greg and I then followed those two pitches while Joe moved over to do another beautiful arching crack (again, I forget the name) that was 5.10ish. The power laybacking unfortunately pumped me out and spit me off. We trundled around to the backside of the Cereal Wall so Joe could take a look at a 5.11is crack called Captain Crunch. With a huge amount of effort and questionable style, he got up it. Greg and Skip both gave it a go, both falling a couple of times and coming near the top. The first half of the climb, a weird, large off-width/chimney up to a blocky roof and balancy move to step around went with no problem, but the second half - the occasional bomber hand jams (I have small girly hands!) in a disjointed, overhanging crack proved too strenuous for me. The moves were all there, but the strength wasn't, so I needed a bit of an assist from my lovely belayer to get up to the top - someone had to clean the climb, after all!

The drive home became a quest for liquor; person after person that we stopped to ask gave us poor directions - including the old man on the easy-rider, totally chopped up mini-bike. A ridiculous sight, he rolled up to us to tell me that one of my tires was low. "Nice ride," offered Skip. "Yeeeeaaaahhhh......" was his reply as he rode off, his knees sticking out at comical angles.

Tuesday, Joe, Greg and I went back to the north face of Looking Glass to check out some routes, but it was a pretty wet day, as well as being Skip's wife's birthday, so it was an early day as well. Greg led us up the first pitch of Safari Jive, a nice climb with three distinct sections - a bit of crack, a bit of face, a bit of a roof - each really nice but only a couple of moves longs. Then we walked over to the Seal, an impressive arching crack through the massive granite. One could almost believe that they were in Yosemite - none of the eyebrows from the other side of the glass, and the massive vertical faces are mostly only aid-able. Once again, Joe got the lead, doing well until the second crux - an undercling traverse with no feet. Greg had issues with it too, but I didn't - Most likely because I'm considerably shorter than the boys and was probably able to get in there a little less awkwardly.

It was around this point that we decided that we wanted to give the Original Route (IV 5.10c A0) on Whitesides a go. Whitesides is one of the biggest cliffs on the east coast (perhaps Laurel Knob, NC and Cannon, NH are taller?) and even Skip - the local! - had not climbed the thing. He also had not heard of many out-of-towners attempting the thing and not epic-ing, so of course we decided that we were going to be up at 6 AM the next morning (it was about a 1.5 hour drive from Skip's) and give it a go.

Wednesday dawned grey and gloomy, so the Whitesides attempt was postponed and we went back to Rumbling Bald; this time the Commatose area. Greg was one move into the pitch when it started raining, I was too exhausted (hung over?) to even try, and Joe quickly cleaned the route as the thunder started, so we could head off. We bushwhacked our own trail back towards the car but eventually had to seek shelter under a large, overhanging boulder for about an hour. We huddled on the dirt, trying to avoid the little rivulets that were slowly creeping over the rounded edge of the rock. It was at about this point that I realized that the reason I'd been so tired and unmotivated all week was probably the antibiotics I was on. Hell, I'm STILL feeling wiped out. At least now I felt that I had an excuse for curling up on a comfortable rock first thing after getting to the climbs every morning!