I’ve seen it on postcards. I’ve driven by it several times — a giant thumb of granite protruding from Pisgah National Forest. And I’ve read about it in tourist brochures – how it is the centerpiece of Pisgah, how it probably got its name from blinding ice-glitter on its stone dome, how thousands each year climb to its 3,969-foot summit.

But I did not appreciate the enormity of Looking Glass Rock until today, standing beside its bare vertical walls with a belay rope tied around my waist.

I’m about to climb the south face of Looking Glass, North Carolina’s premier climbing rock. Looking Glass’s popular “Nose” section offers challenging, multi-pitch slab climbs, while the north face has extremely technical, crack-climbing ascents rated 5.10 and higher. But the south face of Looking Glass is a good place to get the gray granite beneath your fingertips for the first time. It’s pockmarked with flakes and finger holds, as well as spider webs and bat dung and all the shin-scraping, vein-popping, vertical hang you could ask for.

It’s a Tuesday, and my climbing friend Terrell and I have the entire south face to ourselves. That’s especially good news for a first-timer like me — I won’t be holding up the line or embarrassing myself in front of anyone except Terrell. I’ve played around on a few indoor climbing walls, but I’ve never climbed real rock.

Terrell, on the other hand, has climbed every technical section of Looking Glass Rock, including the “Nose” and the north face. He spent three years climbing 14,000-foot summits in Colorado and currently works for a climbing outfitter.

Today, he is helping me climb along one of Looking Glass’s exposed granite outcroppings. The route involves three technical moves: a burly boulder scramble at the base of the cliff, a hanging arm walk along a horizontal seam of rock, and then the crux move — an all-out roof grab to the top of the ledge.

Terrell goes first. After yoga stretches and a set of finger-tip push-ups, he ties himself into the top-rope and begins climbing. He glides gracefully up the granite, swinging and pirouetting across the rock. It’s a boulder ballet, and the dancer loses himself completely in the dance. Athleticism becomes art.

He ascends the cliff, popping deadpoint holds and dyno lunges. With each lunge, his hands and feet completely leave the rock for a split second. He reaches for a golf-ball-sized chunk of granite above him, snags it with one hand, and pendulums toward the top.

He comes back down to earth, purified, and hands me the chalk bag.

“Your turn,” he says.

This is my first live climb, and I don’t have any of Terrell’s fluid finesse. I step awkwardly into my Swami belt — a hand-made harness fashioned out of lime-green webbing. Then I knot a few figure-eight loops into the climbing rope. Terrell is holding the other end of the rope, ready to take up slack through his belay buckle.

After calling out the safety checks, I start my climb. I pull myself up the first rock ledges, but can’t get past a big boulder. I dig my fingernails into a crack above the boulder, hang by my fingertips for a few seconds, then lose my grip. Terrell’s belay rope catches me, and I dangle in mid-air.

“You look like a white boy on the dance floor — all arms and no legs,” Terrell laughs. “Use your whole body.”

I climb clumsily back up to the boulder. This time, I kick my right heel over my head, and it catches. I focus all of my energy into my right heel, and like a lever, it lifts my body over the boulder. Terrell whoops and whistles and pumps his fist below.

Finger-cramped and jelly-armed, I continue picking my way along a diagonal crimp in the rock. I grab onto “eyebrows” — inverted crescent crevices in the rock face that provide solid holds. But just below an overhang, the eyebrows end. I’m stuck.

“Use your feet –  not your hands,” Terrell suggests. I smear the rubber soles of my climbing shoes against the boulder. It gives just enough grip to get me within arm’s reach of the overhanging prow. I pull myself up and brace against the rock ledge.

I didn’t think I’d make it this high. I catch my breath and look out across the balding treetops. The sun is burning away rags of fog above the river. A rocky creek squiggles down the mountain. I listen to the water.

The next two moves are the hardest, and I’ll need every scrap of strength I have left. So I stall for a few more minutes atop the rock ledge. I chalk my hands — bloody and blistered from the gritty granite — and shake my arms loose. Then I study the narrow flake of rock that I’ll be hanging from.

After a few false starts, I gorilla out along the flake and hang there, fingers pinched around the thin crack, legs flailing beneath me. Hand over hand, I pull myself across. I’m breathing hard and purse-lipped, like a weightlifter on his last rep of bench press.

“Breathe, baby! You gotta get O-2!” Terrell shouts.

The golf ball of granite juts out from the boulder above me. If I can grab it, I think I’ll be able to pull my body to the top of the face. My arms are shaking, my teeth are clenched. I’m in fourth grade P.E. class again, hanging from a chin-up bar.

“Hold on! One quick, explosive burst and you’ve got it!”

My fingers are starting to slip off the flake. But I’m an arm’s length away from golf-ball rock. All it takes is one more move, one last gutsy grunt to the top. I take a deep breath, let go of my grip, and lunge for the rock.

(Will Harlan writes about the outdoors. He can be reached at wharlan@hotmail.com)

 

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