![]() ![]() I got lost on a mountain bike trying to link together an epic 35-mile ride from one end of the gorge to the other. I took my first climbing courses here, struggling up top-rope routes on the picturesque Bridge Buttress. I’ve been testing myself in the New, as it’s affectionately known, for almost two decades. Hell, you can even BASE-jump here legally one day out of the year (see Bridge Day, below). Shortly thereafter, the climbers came, testing themselves on the bulletproof sandstone walls and establishing superhero routes that now top out at 5.14b. After all, West Virginia’s New River Gorge has been pushing adventurers beyond their comfort zones since the 1960s, when paddlers first started rafting the Class IV+ whitewater that surges through the gorge. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised. ![]() Naturally, I was worried something terrible would happen-the rope would fail or an anchor would loosen-but mostly I was just proud to watch them get so far out of their comfort zone. ![]() So it was surreal for me to watch them lean back without a hint of hesitation and push themselves off. They were both only ten at the time I wouldn’t have blamed them. I thought they’d get to the edge of the cliff, harness and helmet on, take a peek over the edge of a 1,000-foot-deep gorge, and back out of their first rappel. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |