Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 15, 1990 TAG: 9004160192
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: FAYETTEVILLE, W.VA. LENGTH: Long
That's too tame for Blacksburg's Kenny Parker.
Parker, 25, spends most of his Saturdays and Sundays 50 to 100 feet off the ground clinging like Spiderman to a sheer rock wall.
"It's very addictive. I try to do it every weekend," said Parker, who is studying wildlife at Virginia Tech and works part-time at Blue Ridge Outdoors sporting shop.
Parker says he is one of about a dozen climbers in Blacksburg who take the sport seriously enough to invest years of practice and thousand of dollars in equipment.
Many others are now getting into climbing. Some get hooked after going with a friend; others join Tech's Outdoor Club for its occasional rock-climbing excursions.
On a given Saturday or Sunday, provided the weather cooperates, Fool's Face at McCoy Falls on the New River is speckled with climbers crawling up its sheer wall and rappelling back down among a tangle of other climbers' ropes.
Places like McAfee's Knob and Dragon's Tooth also are popular climbing spots.
Tuesday night, Todd Skinner, who recently spent 60 days climbing part of El Capitan in California's Yosemite National Park, will demonstrate climbing and talk about it at Tech's After Hours Club.
And a new climbing wall is being built in the gymnastics room at Tech's War Memorial Gymnasium. When it's completed, Lynn Hill, one of the best women climbers in the world, is scheduled to give climbing clinics.
The point of all this: Climbing is getting popular in Blacksburg. To see what it's all about, a reporter and photographer joined Parker, his climbing partner, Blaze Davies, 25, of Giles County, and two others on a trip to one of Parker's favorite spots - the New River Gorge in West Virginia. The gorge is one of the premier rock-climbing spots on the East Coast - and in the country - Parker said.
Tucked in the hills many miles from any major city, the gorge contains miles and miles of sheer rock walls. The main attraction is whitewater rafting, but climbing has become more and more popular in recent years.
"The gorge has just been tucked away for a long time. Nobody has known about it," Parker said. "But . . . It's really amazing how much rock is really here. There's so much to choose from."
This particular Sunday was chilly, so there were no other climbers. After parking the cars, Parker and Davies stuffed packs with equipment and hiked a half-mile to the base of a wall.
They were joined by Alison Elward, 22, a math major at Tech, and Cindy Cook, 34, a bookkeeper in Blacksburg who lives near Davies. "That's all they talk about," Cook said. "So I finally agreed to go."
Parker and Davies wasted no time strapping on harnesses and tying the skin-tight, slipperlike, rubber-soled shoes. "You need to be able to really feel what's under your feet," Parker said.
Davies went up first. He tied two ropes to his harness, attaching the other ends to Parker's harness. Parker, the belayer, lay on his back beneath a tree letting out just enough rope to allow Davies to climb.
If Davies had fallen, Parker could have held the rope and stopped him from falling more than a few feet.
When he was ready to climb, Davies asked, "On belay?" Parker responded, "Belay on." Then, as he took a handhold on the rock, Davies announced, "Climbing." Parker responded, "Climb on." That exchange is a safety precaution to assure that both are ready.
For traction, Davies dipped his fingers into a chalk bag strapped to his waist. He found a tiny crevice in the rock and yanked himself up the first few feet. He pulled his legs up and his toes found a tiny ledge.
"This rock is cold," Davies said. Small icicles dripped from above.
It took only a few minutes for him to climb about 90 feet. His motions were fluid but deliberate. He chose his holds carefully - sometimes jabbing his whole fist into a crack before pulling himself up, sometimes balancing on an inch-wide ledge. But he moved quickly to avoid wasting energy dangling from any one position.
Along the way, he attached "friends" and "carabiners," metal devices that anchor the rope to the rock. At the top, he anchored the rope and rappelled down.
Davies made it look easy.
The route he took was called "Pine Trees and Hula Hoops." Every route is named and graded, according to difficulty, by the first person to climb it. Parker had named this one, judging it moderately difficult.
Parker said some European climbers - famous in the climbing scene - have come to the New River Gorge and named some new, difficult routes.
But Parker laments the new style of climbing called European.
That's when climbers chip away at cliff walls to make them easier to climb and break holes in the rocks to insert the anchors that hold their ropes. It's destroying some cliffs.
"Unfortunately, that's what's happening to climbing. People who aren't necessarily environmentally concerned are getting into it," he said. "The environmental ethic is not there. It's like anything goes."
Parker said people he climbs with believe in the unwritten rule that they don't alter the rock in any way. He said most climbers are outdoorsmen who respect the rock.
But many newcomers are in it just for the sport. "And that's fine. People should be able to do what they want, just as long as they show some respect," he said.
Parker first started "bouldering" (climbing 10- to 15-foot-high rocks) about seven years ago while still in high school in Charlottesville.
"We used to skip school and go climbing," he said.
When he moved to Blacksburg in 1985, he and Davies started investing in ropes, shoes, harnesses and other needed equipment.
He said climbing takes practice, patience and persistence.
"It requires a lot of mental control; knowing yourself and your abilities and your limitations," he said. "And when you achieve a certain level, to maintain that level you've gotta keep going out. You have to be aware of what all your limbs are doing. You really have to think about it."
When it was Parker's turn, he zipped up the rock face like a monkey.
"They make it look so easy," said Elward, who climbed about halfway before she pooped out.
Cook had it even harder. She tried a half-dozen times but never got more than 10 feet up.
"My arms feel like rubber," she said after she gave up.
They all collapsed in the dirt, leaves and rocks under a warming sun, sucked down orange juice and talked about which wall to try next.
by CNB