The weather forecast didn't bring good news for the weekend and with the recent phenomenon last thursday, so a day trip seems just perfect to try out a new climbing are near by: Deep Creep.
I joined my climbing partner, Scott Cox, who planned this trip with two other climbers. Two hours after leaving Atlanta we were hiking how a gorgeous trail to the "deep" creek.
The warm up was crazy hard! We didn't send any of the routes and Scott even left a locking carabiner behind to bail out from a 5.10d that had a lot of loose rock! We moved to a more solid section where we had to sweat a lot to get to the top of the routes: it was hot and humid!
After this second,and more successful warm up, we decided to try the real stuff! But the real stuff was hard! Very hard!
Deep Creek - Main Wall
This 5.11c we tried, called Keep Deep, was the easiest route in the section we were at, but it was the biggest "sandbag" in the wall! A sandbag route is a route which receives a much lower grade than deserved. The route was at least a 5.11d, maybe a 5.12a... but the hot weather could the one causing the problems, so we decided to cool down for a second!
Scott Cox at the swimming hole
The cool thing about climbing in the USA is that most of the cliff are in creeks, so there is always water and, most of the times, swimming holes! Some are deep, some allow you to jump, some you can even deep water solo (which was not the case here, but Scott tried).
Scott DWS in the moss
The cooling down lasted until 5pm and we didn't feel like going back to climbing. Also, by this time, everyone realized I was going to be the designated driver, so everyone just got drunk! What happened next had nothing to do with climbing, but it was as eventful as you can imagine, specially if all these drunk people have to hike up the creek with huge backpacks. We decided to have dinner in Chattanooga, so we were driving around town, with the minivan doors open. Stopped at the Crash Pad, a local climber's hostel for it's 3rd anniversary party and ate a burger at the Urban Stack. It was about 10pm when the designated driver (me) drove back to Atlanta with the 3 climbing partners sleeping. Long drive for me but very short drive for them.
It was an EPIC day trip to the Deep Creek that got everybody excited and wanting to come back! Let's do it... but next time with more climbing and less drinking :)
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