South-facing quartzite cliffs with plenty of shade. Mostly toproping with bolts/rocks for anchors at the top (bring webbing/slings), but there is also sport/trad/mix available. Climbs vary from slab to overhanging with several roofs. Rock quality varies. Topropers be on the lookout for face bolt anchors that have been installed and use those whenever possible to minimize erosion.
Can get busy on the weekends, especially around Three Bears and Middle Walls, and very hot in the summer. Find the well-maintained trail in the SW corner of the parking lot and follow down through woods. Climbing area will be to your left with approach times from 2-10 minutes. Follow the stone trail down to Three Bears gully to access the base of the cliff. Staying on trail is critical to minimize the impact that 1.4 million visitors per year have on the park.
Climbers must register at the box in the parking lot for each vehicle in their party. The park asks that you avoid anchoring on trees and utilize bolts or rocks as anchors. All commercial, organized, or affiliated climbing groups of any size are required to have a special use permit in advance. The maximum group size allowed at Pilot is 14 people which includes guides, students, and spectators.
The old upper approach trail is closed and the Grindstone trail route is the new upper approach trail for the climbing area at Pilot now. More info here: https://www.ncparks.gov/pilot-mountain-state-park/home
Guide Services that can show you the ropes in this location (and many more).
Pisgah Climbing School www.pisgahclimbingschool.com
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Atlanta, GA
Go north on I-77 to exit 85 (268 Bypass). Make a right and follow this for 3 miles to a stop sign. Go left at the stop onto Rte. 268. Follow this for 20 miles to U.S. 52. Go south on U.S. 52 for about 4 miles to the Pilot Mountain exit.
I'm not a fan of driving through cities and found this to be a nice alternative. It takes about 5 minutes longer, but the speed limit is 55 mph. and you get to see some rural Cackalacky. Mar 21, 2008
Grand Junction, CO
Winston-Salem, NC
Santa Monica, CA
Charlotte, NC
We spent a couple days here this past week and really enjoyed the area for the most part. The convenient access from W-S makes it a popular destination. The first day was a cool sunny Sunday and the place was quite literally teeming with people and their babies. Hikers, climbers, dogs, cats, it was a very happy and well-mannered circus. Be aware of this reality and enjoy the outdoor gym in harmony.
On the first day, somehow we managed to snag a couple routes at the Three Bears to start then finished on some sport at the Amphitheater. The second day was windy and gray. Also being a weekday meant we were alone. We did the three long lines below the parking lot and then had to head out. These were all fantastic climbs on mostly stellar rock. Seriously, quartzite is so much fun to climb.
For all its beauty and convenience though, there are a couple strange things to note.
For one, the standards for bolting... It seems that the old-school establishment ethics have been drowned out by the gym-bred mentality of today, which has created a shift towards making routes more accessible. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this, except that there is no standardization for what is bolted and what's not. In general, longer routes that cannot be completely protected with gear are completely (or mostly) bolted. Sometimes a single piece of gear is required to keep the route safe. This is really silly, in my opinion, as gear is otherwise not necessary at Pilot.
Along with this, and probably more importantly, is that fixed hardware is also not standardized. For some reason I saw a wide variety of fixing types (5-piece, wedge, stainless, plated, etc) often all on the same route. The bolt placements, especially on routes like Black Rain and the Parking Lot area, are in places that require long reaches or seem to force you into contrived climbing. The bolts are often not tight (hanger spins), are slightly blown out in the hole, and have mixed material types - like the carbon steel bolts with stainless hangers and plated quick-links on Mild Mannered Secretary. This problem seems to be in the process of being resolved with glue-in bolts. Hopefully the area will receive more of these to replace those that were improperly placed in the first wave of re- and retro-bolting. Sep 14, 2017
Winston-Salem, NC
Glue-ins should have been standard at Pilot a few years ago when it was retro'd. Lots of issues to be solved in the near future. Sep 14, 2017
Italian Beefville, IL
Weird crag culture here. Definitely an outdoor gym vibe here. I'd just avoid three bears gully altogether. I've been to this crag three times already, and there is always some hammock hipster yankee transplant TR'ers giving condescending looks (dude we're all climbers here). Oct 28, 2020
Akron, OH
Charlottesville
Landis, NC