The next morning found us heading to Catherdral Cafe, in Fayetteville, the reccomended spot for breakfast. Plenty of climbers to be found around there, the food is good, and they have free Internet - so we both e-mailed home. We headed to the Bubba City area, with the express intent of not coming back in the dark for the 3d consecutive day. The weather was gorgeous, and the scale of the Gorge and the bridge was surprising. The climbing was mellow, all the climbs we did were right next to each other, and yes, we did not get back in the dark, although we came very close. All in all, a perfect day to start the season. I especially enjoyed Daisy Cutter .

Next day was supposed to rain, but we went climbing anyway. We checked out Endless Wall, which is an amazing cliff, with a number of outstanding lines visible from walking along. Angela was keen to raise the bar back up to 5.9, and she did exactly that by leading Upheaval on-sight. Good balancy crux at the second bolt, then pretty sustained face climbing through 7 more bolts to the anchor. We had been talking about doing the Kaymoor slab, a full rope length 5.9 route, which Angela really wanted to lead. May have been a good thing not to try it -- as it was not entirely obvious which line of bolts to take. It started to drizzle, and retrieving gear from that climb in the rain before driving home would have been a drag. We headed back up to the parking lot, and left Fayetteville as the rain started in earnest. The long drive home was just that, very long. I hope to return to the area, and I've even got my eye on a couple of 10a climbs that should be just right for later this year.

List of Climbs

• Bubba City all sport
  • Near Bear (5.6)
  • Gilded Otter (5.7)
  • Face climb with sketchy clip (5.8 *)
  • Climb near Bimbo Pie (5.8- *)
  • Eating Bimbo Pie (5.7) TR
  • Daisy Cutter (5.7 ***)
• Endless Wall
  • Total E-Clips (5.8 *)
  • Upheaval (5.9 **)