Good evening everyone. So we were planning on going to Mt. Yonah this weekend after turkey day and I was wondering if someone could answer some questions for me. Weve climbed outside for about a year now but haven't explored the Georgia area since we moved to florida. Is the top of mount yonah accessible via hiking to set up top ropes. Or do they have to be lead? If this is the case that they have to be led can someone point me in a direction on where a good place to set up top ropes if Georgia would be. Thanks!
If I remember correctly, most of the climbs on the main face require leading/rappelling from the top to set up tope rope anchors. There's a good amount of climbs on the lower walls that can be set up for top roping by creating an anchor with the trees, just make sure to bring a fair amount of static line to extend your anchor over the edge and watch your rope for sharp edges on the climb. The X (or maybe it is the Y ) Wall has a 30' 5.11 climb with 3 bolts at the top that can be set up as a top rope climb really easily. As for good places to set up top ropes in the South, most of the crags in the S.E. have bomber trees 10-20ft from the edge, so you will find a lot of areas with no bolted anchors as the trees work fine. Just make sure to pad the trees and bring static line to create a good anchor.
Hey Ryan, Check the Yonah page to see the routes that can be easily top roped at Yonah. The White Wall has several in the 5.9-5.11 range. The main face has some really easy "sport" routes that have bolts every 3' on the left side. With a set of draws you could rig top ropes from the intermediate anchors pretty quickly. You may also want to look at Currahee for moderates with super easy access for top ropes. Have fun!
As a note, there are also cables on much of the main face (and at the lowers) that extend from the ground to the anchors, with bolts in the rock every 30 feet or so. If you have a good PAS (a dynamic one, of the kind they use on a Via Ferrata designed to fall vertically on a cable and still provide a soft landing), you could scamper up to the anchors on the cables alone and set a top rope. Otherwise, as already mentioned, there are some almost ridiculously easy sport climbs there.
At the lowers, the cables run entirely horizontally from a trail up the left side of the face. I've used it in the past to run a top rope when I didn't feel like leading. Again, make sure you've got a good PAS that can hop past each bolt (I use a purcelle prussik with two locking 'biners) and extend the anchor off the edge if you're going to be top roping a bunch.
Curahee has plenty of top rope routes too. I personally think the Lowers and other areas commonly top roped at Yonah are just terrible climbing on choss...main wall is great, but many of the routes must be led.
Brad Caldwell wrote:Curahee has plenty of top rope routes too. I personally think the Lowers and other areas commonly top roped at Yonah are just terrible climbing on choss...main wall is great, but many of the routes must be led.
I agree with Brad and will add most likely these routes will be super crowded. The first bolted routes on the main face are super easy leads. You can clip the first bolt from the ground. Couple of tricky bouldery moves off the ground and the rest is like easy 5.5. Great anchors at the top.
Wanted to thank everyone for their responses. We had a really good time out there, on Black Friday it wasn't busy at all which was great besides the hikers. Yall were definitely right about being crowded. On Saturday it was packed but we still got some good climbs in.
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