Lion's Head visit

[tomdarch]

Hey - specialed, myself and our buddy Adam finially made it up to Lion's Head last weekend. We all managed to get the same Friday off, so the 9ish hour drive from Chicago seemed reasonably justified. The weather was totally dry with highs in the mid 60s, so it was perfect.

The area was beautiful, and the rock was really nice limestone. For anyone who isn't familiar with the deal at this crag, you approach it from the top and rap in to hanging-belay anchors, then climb out. This is because there's a layer of crap rock below the bullet stuff, which creates huge chossy overhangs below. (Of course, you can always lower in and top rope out, which we did about 70% of the time.) It's best known for it's 11s and 12s, like a lot of limestone areas, but the 10s we did were great. (None of us really wanted to push ourselves or work a route when your belayer is in a hanging belay below)

All this rigging top anchors and doing hanging belays really slowed things down. Saturday was our one full day - with a fairly early start. We got in about 5 routes, and still ended hiking out in the dark. There is a reputation that it is really hard to find routes from the top, and that's totally true.

The town was nice, but the food was a bit bland and crappy. (nothing like Miguel's or Mark's Mtn. BBQ). We stayed in the town's campground, which was OK, but overpriced and more oriented to RVs. We'll find somewhere else next time.

Here's one of the shots I put up in the Gallery:

http://www.redriverclimbing.com/album_p ... pic_id=954

It's specialed leading out of some route that isn't Kiss of the Spider Woman. Some Quebecois lady was very helpful in telling us that it wasn't KotSW, but wasn't the least bit helpful in telling us what it was. Some other guy thought it was 10a/b, which sounds about right.

Here's a thread from last year about Lion's Head:

http://www.redriverclimbing.com/viewtopic.php?t=1325

[haas]

That place rocks and is gorgeous this time of year. I especially love climbing right over the water like that

[air canada]

Lion's Head is awesome! One of the most beautiful places I've climbed. Although you picked maybe the worst place to camp, although it is convenient. There's are a few other camp grounds in the area, Cape Croaker is the one I've stayed at most.

I think the climb in the pic is likely Maneline (10a), which is a couple climbs over from KOTSW.

There are a lot of 10s there, did you get a chance to get on Nimbus, probably the most exposed climb there.

Definately helps to have someone there who knows their way around. Once you get your bearings its not too bad, though.

What routes did you get on?

[Crankmas]

the rock sure is pretty