I could kick myself

Why? Because I lived for four summers in Washington DC without knowing about Carderock and Great Falls! This past weekend I drove down to do a little climbing with Regina and I loved it so much that I'm driving back down to climb again on Friday. I headed south immediately after work on Friday and made it just in time to catch the 5:00 service at National Community Church, then stayed the night at Regina's house. We got an alpine start Sunday morning, and due to some confusion as to the location of the crag we got on the rock at about 8am...2 hours earlier than we expected!

Carderock was unbelievably crowded with groups, but we managed to get a top rope up on a 5.7 crack climb and we each climbed it twice to get warmed up. After that we hiked to the other end of the cliffs to see what else the area had to offer, but there were so many people that we couldn't get on anything else until after lunch. Even still, it was great to be outside on such a beautiful day. The second climb we managed to get a rope on was on a slightly positive face with a lot of possibilities, although nothing over a 5.4. Since it was the only thing free at the time we decided to run a few laps on it and try to climb it as many different ways as possible. We actually ended up climbing the entire route with no hands to work on foot placement and balance, which resulted in some extremely sore legs the next day! Things started winding down around 4 and we were able to put up a top rope on a crack that we had originally eyed as a warm up. We climbed it twice (once in tennis shoes) then decided to swing over and do the face climb right next door. At this point we were feeling too lazy to set up another anchor somewhere else, so we wrapped up the day with some bouldering with our new friends Scott and Dave.

Regina had to work until 3:30 on Monday, so I spent the morning hanging out at the Panera in Alexandria, did some browsing at REI then met her at work to go straight to Great Falls. After some searching we met up with Scott and Dave and managed to squeeze in two good climbs before the sun went down. Once was a diagonal crack and the second was a flake to an overhang. Not sure what they were rated but they were definitely more challenging than the stuff we had seen on Saturday. The area was decidedly less crowded than Carderock, probably because there is a $5 entrance fee...but the scenery and the quality of climbs was totally worth it! We finished off the day with an impromptu picnic provided by Scott...fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, mango and a baguette!

Overall it was a fantastic weekend and it was over much too soon. I wish that I had known about these places while I was still living in the area, but as far as I'm concerned Great Falls is not an unreasonable day trip. I wouldn't drive three hours just for Carderock, but it would definitely be a good place to take a beginner or go to work on technique or endurance.