Dade County

There are three famous sandstone areas in the vicinity of Chattanooga: Stonefort (Tennessee), Rocktown (Georgia) and Horse Pens 40 (Alabama). Of course there are hundreds of smaller areas, too, but these three somehow made it into distinct guide books and everyone we met asked us, if we would visit all three. Well, we had all three guide books and one point, but realized that we should rather spend the week, which we had planned for the Chattanooga area, on two areas instead of three, so we dropped HP40.

Rocktown is roughly 1,5 hours away from Stonefort. The last few miles are a heinous road uphill into the Crockford-Pigeon Mountain Park.

We arrived just before it got dark. The campground is very close to the trail head that leads to the boulder field, so we expected lots of climbers on the campground. We really hoped that we would get a free spot somewhere on a free campground next to a famous bouldering area. Well...the campground was completely empty. It was quite spooky.
We built a campfire and grilled vegan sausages for hot dogs and sweet corn above the open fire under a full moon. It was delicious.

In the morning we had a shower underneath a very old oak that had dropped lots of acorns onto our car during the night... Then we headed into the area. The first sector is called "The Orb". It contains several impressive boulders with great lines, one of which is the name-giving problem "The Orb", V8, which I could tick off the To-Do list.
Next on our list was the "Golden Harvest" block, which is 20 minutes deeper into the forest. It is one of the most iconic rocks of the South-East and contains two five star lines: "Golden Harvest", V10, and "Golden Shower", V5. The perfect block for Birte and me! We both had a project there! After an hour I stood on top of "Golden Harvest" and Birte had made some very promising links on "Golden Shower".
At the boulder we met Nathaniel, who had climbed the V5 just minutes before we arrived. He stayed with us for an hour and then showed us around. Together we went to the "Sherman Photo Roof", where I could climb the name-giving line (V7) and the line next to it: "Nose Candy", V6. That was a very nice and successful day! Thank you, Nathaniel, for a great afternoon!

The next day we went back to "Golden Shower" and Birte finished the project! 💪🏻

Rocktown was awesome. We discussed, which area we preferred, Stonefort or Rocktown, but we both couldn't really lean towards one or the other. Stonefort is very convenient, but its crowded and commercialized, Rocktown on the other hand is quite the opposite, but the road is rough and the boulders are spread out a bit more. The rock is similar to Stonefort, but there are way more roofs, a bit like Albarracin, some top-outs on the other hand are almost like in Fontainebleau! You can even find some typical fontainebleau-esque shapes in Rocktown!
We can safely recommend both areas to anyone, who thinks about going there. It is amazing. We wish we could also have visited HP40...Lue lisää