Epic on Fox Fire

[Steve_BSU]

On Saturday March 30, my friend and I tried climbing this route. We became so off route idk what we climbed. We did the first pitch fine. We then worked right on the traverse. After the traverse we went up what seemed 5.7 face climbing. We then traversed far right by mistake and came to a nice looking crack into a face climb. I led this pitch which felt 5.9 R. went up a thin hands-hands crack for about 20 feet to a ledge. then traversed far right, place a BD #4 cam in a horizontal. I then worked right up a small ramp that i placed a #2 cam in the crack that followed along the wall of the ramp. I then traversed about 10 feet right of the piece on face climbing, Then climbed 10 feet up and then 20 feet back left. I ended up on a ledge with some rhodos and a tree at the end of it. i then worked up a small gully like feature with a tree at the top of it. the gully was maybe 20 feet. The hiking trail was about 2 feet back from the edge where I topped out at. Has anyone done this before or was this an FA? Also what is the best tree to rap off the top of. we double rope rapped from a tree about 10 feet back from the edge. Came down to find out there was too much friction to pull the rope, had to climb back up the rope a bit to pull it for the next rap. Has anyone had this happen to them before? Also there is a sweet dihedral that looks finger to thin hands with the final moves going into the roof and then top out. there were small vines growing out at the bottom. Has this been climbed before? we are wanting to go back and clean the start to climb it. will it be an FA?

[Willy]

Sounded about right to me. The best tree to rap off is the one at the top

[der uber]

Dave Hume did all that a long time ago.

[Steve_BSU]

Sounded about right to me. The best tree to rap off is the one at the top

sounded about right for the rap or for knowing the route?

[Steve_BSU]

Dave Hume did all that a long time ago.

Do you know what the diehedral goes out? My friend and I are wanting to clean the vines out and give a go at it

[dustonian]

I'm sure you are not the first person to go off-route on Foxfire. Next time consider just walking off Eagle Pt. Buttress instead of rapping without slings. It is a pleasant 5-10 minute walk, and pulling ropes wrapped directly around trees is really hard on them.

[Cromper]

On Saturday March 30, my friend and I tried climbing this route. We became so off route idk what we climbed. We did the first pitch fine. We then worked right on the traverse. After the traverse we went up what seemed 5.7 face climbing. We then traversed far right by mistake and came to a nice looking crack into a face climb. I led this pitch which felt 5.9 R. went up a thin hands-hands crack for about 20 feet to a ledge. then traversed far right, place a BD #4 cam in a horizontal. I then worked right up a small ramp that i placed a #2 cam in the crack that followed along the wall of the ramp. I then traversed about 10 feet right of the piece on face climbing, Then climbed 10 feet up and then 20 feet back left. I ended up on a ledge with some rhodos and a tree at the end of it. i then worked up a small gully like feature with a tree at the top of it. the gully was maybe 20 feet. The hiking trail was about 2 feet back from the edge where I topped out at. Has anyone done this before or was this an FA? Also what is the best tree to rap off the top of. we double rope rapped from a tree about 10 feet back from the edge. Came down to find out there was too much friction to pull the rope, had to climb back up the rope a bit to pull it for the next rap. Has anyone had this happen to them before? Also there is a sweet dihedral that looks finger to thin hands with the final moves going into the roof and then top out. there were small vines growing out at the bottom. Has this been climbed before? we are wanting to go back and clean the start to climb it. will it be an FA?

Damn did you have a pen and paper to write all this down while y'all were climbing?

[dustonian]

The video will be out soon on DPM's "Stash"...

[Syphur]

Sounds like you zigged when you should have zagged. Totally missed the BVD Traverse. Shoulda went left after pitch 2. Crawl the ledge around left and the rest woulda been obvious. Pitch 2 and 5 are the best ones.

[Steve_BSU]

Sounds like you zigged when you should have zagged. Totally missed the BVD Traverse. Shoulda went left after pitch 2. Crawl the ledge around left and the rest woulda been obvious. Pitch 2 and 5 are the best ones.

yes i know i was off route and know where we went wrong. I'm trying to figure out what it was that I actually climbed

[Ascentionist]

Larry? Wanna comment on the FA?

Foxfire has a long history of people getting off-route. If you haven't been off-route on Foxfire then you haven't really tried. I guarantee that whatever you did wasn't an FA.

[LK Day]

"Steve,

I wouldn't know if what you've done is a first ascent or not. It's been over 30 years since I was on the route and don't remember a lot of details. I would imagine that people have wandered around a bit up there. I know there's a much harder variation to the original line off to the left and I once did a variation to the right of the original line, but I took off to the right quite high on the route, not down low like you did. In any event it sounds like you had a good time. You might want to go back sometime and do the original route. It's a lot of fun.

What with almost all climbers in the gorge being into sport climbing there must be literally hundreds of unclimbed lines available for first ascents. You might want to scour over some topos looking for contour lines that come together or maybe Google Earth would be a good resource. We found the stuff we did back in the day by just hiking into areas that looked like they might be a likely source of new routes. There are at least a few people out there that are really going after new lines. You might consider getting together with them. Finding and climbing new lines in the RRG was some of the most fun I ever had rock climbing. Keep it safe and have lots of fun out there."

[TradMike]

We do that route differently everytime we do it. You can zig left and avoid bvd, just avoid the large loose blocks. Our first time, we wigged right before the bvd. That thing is a blank canvas.

[potts]

Trees atop a climb are stingy about giving back your rope after rapping off. A piece of webbing and a quicklink left behind beats re-climbing to retrieve your rope.

[dustonian]

Not to mention it trashes the tree.