BURSTStone Mountain sits in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, a great grey granite dome rising 600 feet above the surrounding country. From a distance it looks almost benign. Up close, as you snake your rope, don your harness and tie your bowline, it becomes something else.
The mountain is a vast sweep of exposed granite slab, brown and grey, weathered smooth in places and covered elsewhere in tiny crystals and imperfections. There are few cracks and few features that look as though they should be climbed. Your feet matter more than your hands, and the ability to smear, edge and trust friction become your Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The crux of each route is often a confessional in this high church of Eastern American slab climbing.
From the upper slopes there are long views across the forests and ridges of North Carolina. Below, the mountain spreads into woodland and open country, Whitetail deer dot here and there and the sounds of the mountain are peaceful; wind in the trees, water on rocky streams, the swish of a birds and of cheeky squirrels foraging for a meal. while above, the granite continues in great unbroken sweeps. It is a beautiful place, but beauty is not what makes Stone Mountain intimidating. The climbing demands a soldier’s resolve. You look up at a seemingly blank expanse of granite, locate a few bolts disappearing into the distance and commit yourself to the battle.
Climber’s describes Stone climbing as a dive into one’s own mentality. Each route becomes a conflict of the mind. There is no enemy to fight and nothing to conquer except your own hesitation. Once you leave the ground, retreat is often harder than continuing. Jason Bryant knows the fight and battles there regularly.
A Mountain From Childhood
Jason grew up about thirty minutes from Stone Mountain and still lives on part of the family farm. As a boy he came to the mountain for picnics, hiking to the summit and visiting the waterfall. He remembers feral goats that had escaped from a nearby landowner and taken to the mountain. One climber later told Jason about watching the goats scamper up a 5.8 route in front of him without the slightest concern. The goats are long gone, but Jason still thinks of them when he climbs there.
He was only vaguely aware of the climbing as a child. It was not until he was 48 that he began climbing himself. Before that he had spent years as a competitive mountain and trail runner, but after stopping competition in his mid forties he spent several years looking for something that could replace that obsessive side of his personality.
“Rock climbing quickly became a perfect fit to fill that somewhat obsessive side to my personality. Climbing was also a great new way to get out experiencing the mountain environment.”
Stone Mountain was the obvious place to start. Some people now think of Jason as a slab climber because of the amount of time he spends there. He sees it differently.
“I say that I am a rock fondler, in that if it’s rock, I want to be out touching rock.”
Stone Mountain’s climbing history began in 1965 when The Great Arch was first climbed. During the 1970s more routes appeared, with climbers including Bob Rotert, Jess Tucker, Paul “Thor” Pelot, Vince Davis and Kenny Hibbets helping establish the character of the mountain. Its heyday came through the 1980s and 1990s, when climbers regularly moved across its faces and sticky rubber gave consumer confidence.
Today the traffic is much thinner. Of roughly seventy routes on the south face, Jason says only eight receive regular traffic and another six are climbed periodically. The rest see very little attention. The north face has another twenty or more routes and is visited even less.
“There are significant areas that I’ve never seen anyone there that was not with me.”
That emptiness is part of the attraction. Jason began with the routes everybody climbed, but soon found himself looking elsewhere, drawn towards forgotten lines and routes that had become too uncomfortable for most people to bother with.
“I am drawn toward new routes and routes that are not typically done. Thus, I quickly began exploring the lesser traveled areas of Stone Mountain climbing.”
Partners were not always interested in following him, so he began lead rope soloing the easier routes. He worked his way into the 5.9s and eventually scared himself badly enough to change tactics. The harder routes were initially top roped, then later led once he had learned the climbing.
The Old School
The climbing culture at Stone is old school North Carolina. Most routes were established ground up, with bolts hand drilled on lead and protection kept to a minimum. Twenty to forty feet between bolts is common, with some routes running more than sixty feet. The hardest climbing can arrive while the next bolt is still a long way above.
That ethic belongs to the generation that opened the mountain. There were no convenient stances waiting for the first ascentionists and no power drills. They climbed the slab, found whatever oasis footing the granite offered and hand drilled their protection from where they stood. The result is a style of climbing that has largely been preserved rather than softened for modern expectations.
Jason spoke to Jess Tucker about one bolt that seemed almost impossible to have drilled from the stance available. Tucker told him it had taken thirty long minutes. The bolt is slightly off route because that was where the stance was. Jason was also told that climbers would sometimes put a wire around the drill bit once it had been driven part way into the rock, giving them some protection while finishing the hole.
The original bolts were generally shallow quarter inch bolts. Jason has replaced several that had remained untouched since the 1970s and 1980s, but the routes themselves have generally not been retro bolted. The ethic is to preserve the character of the original climbs, even if that means preserving the fear. It is one reason so many routes are no longer climbed.
Stone’s granite teaches its own techniques. High stepping, pinching tiny crystals, edging or smearing on pea sized features, stacking fingers into shallow depressions and finding obscure forms of friction become essential. Stick it dude. The grades can be deceptive. The 5.8s may be technically straightforward but mentally uncomfortable. The 5.9s can become sharply harder, while the 5.10s are distinctly difficult. By 5.11, comparison with ordinary sport climbing begins to fall apart. Jason said, “At 5.11, I don’t understand how a 5.13 friction slab could even exist.”
He once had a friend, Drew Hellams, following, Impossible Dream (5.9). Drew has climbed several 5.13s, regularly onsights 5.12 and is comfortable leading bold traditional routes. He told Jason, “I would never lead that 5.9!”
The Battle in Your Head
Jason’s understanding of the mountain came sharply into focus on January 1, 2022. He had decided to rope-solo Taken for Granite, a seldom-climbed 5.9. Comfortable at the grade and having already soloed several routes at Stone, he moved into the second pitch and realised he was off route.
The climbing was harder than 5.9. He was twenty feet above the anchor, and the first bolt was another twenty feet away. Above him stretched 140 feet of climbing protected by two bolts, with no options for placing gear.
He had bitten off more than he could chew. Downclimbing was a poor option because he was not good enough at downclimbing slab to trust it. Falling meant potentially more than forty feet. He stayed where he was as his calves began to tire. Then the isolation settled in. Nobody else was on that part of the mountain, and no one was there to make the decision for him. Jason shared, “A little bit of panic started to creep in.” I think something wet began to seep out.
His mind began calculating. The higher he climbed, the longer the potential fall became. Sixty feet or more. The idea of taking the fall returned. Still a no.
Eventually, there was only one option. He started climbing, found the route again and reached the first bolt. The reward came later. During the climbing, there was no revelation, only fear, calculation and the need to keep moving. Afterwards, he understood something about what Stone Mountain was giving him.
“It is the opportunity of being totally alone with no one to save you, experiencing fear growing exponentially in your head. You evaluate the risk and determine that risk as imminently real. You have left yourself with only one feasible option. Embrace the fear, it won’t just go away. Move confidently with the fear.”
Slab climbing is proof that fear doesn’t need gravity. It just needs a tiny foothold and someone saying, ‘You’re fine.’ Jason puts it more simply. “Fear is not the enemy, merely a teacher if you’re willing to listen and learn.”
The Climbs That Matter
That idea runs through the routes that have become important to him. Face Value, 5.11d R, was initially almost incomprehensible. Jason first tried it on top rope from the shared anchor of a neighbouring 5.10. Session after session he returned to the hardest section until he found a sequence beginning with a left foot on a quarter sized nub, followed by a right foot and a series of tiny movements. What had seemed impossible slowly became climbable and eventually he lead rope soloed it.
“To experience the transformation from impossible climb to clean lead was metamorphic to my climbing.”
Orange Blossom Special, 5.11a R/X, is seventy feet of 5.10 with no protection on the first pitch, followed by 100 feet with one bolt on the second and another eighty feet of easier climbing without protection. The crux demands dry rock and low humidity.
Amtrak, 5.10 X, is tracking 140 feet with no bolts. Jason spent sixteen sessions on it before leading it, rehearsing the route in his head for months and sometimes panicking simply at the thought of it.
On the day he climbed it, he had already decided not to lead. He was thinking about what he would tell his friends after bringing them out for nothing. Then the mental calm arrived.
“The struggle to find the appropriate mental place for this one was brutal, but then the mental calm came and the lead happened.”
Afterwards he climbed Orange Blossom Special. “These are definitely in my top two climbing days ever.” Jason said.
Toilet Bowl, 5.10c, is another favourite because it compresses so much of Stone Mountain into a single pitch. The route moves around and over a huge hole in the granite, from a large flake to a solid .5 cam, then into a runout section of friction and pea sized crystals before gaining a dike. There are polished dikes, another flake with gear and finally friction slopers over a bulge. Jason knows of no other confirmed leads and believes it should be climbed regularly.
Mercury’s Lead offers a more accessible introduction to the mountain, with a 120 foot first pitch protected by two bolts. Purple Daze, 5.11b, remains unfinished business. Jason has not led it or managed to top rope it cleanly without hanging, despite having successfully top roped most of the routes on Stone. “It is the hardest slab route that I’ve been on regardless of it being graded 5.11b.”
It is on his list for the coming season.
No Holds Bared
Jason has set himself the task of climbing every route on Stone Mountain, not because he believes he is the strongest climber there, but because he likes goals, exploration and doing things that others are not doing.
There is something fitting about that ambition. Stone Mountain is not a place that gives much away. The routes are old, the bolts are sparse and the granite rarely offers the kind of reassuring hold that tells you everything is going to be all right. The mountain asks you to keep moving when every instinct is telling you to stop.
Perhaps that is why Jason keeps coming back. The attraction is not simply the climbing, or even the routes themselves. It is what happens inside your head when the next move is uncertain, the protection is distant and the only thing you can trust is a tiny piece of granite beneath your foot.
The goats never had that problem. They simply walked up the mountain. For everyone else, Stone Mountain remains a place where a 5.9 can frighten a 5.13 climber, a blank wall can become a serious objective and a tiny foothold can hold the weight of an entire decision.
Jason is still working his way through the list.
There are plenty of routes left and plenty of fear to ponder. That’s the making of a stone cold resolve.
The post The Climber Exploring the Forgotten Slabs of Stone Mountain in North Carolina appeared first on Gripped Magazine.