Hyperbola
5.10a R,
Trad, 550 ft (167 m), 4 pitches,
Avg: 3.7 from 48
votes
FA: Percy Wimberly & J. Seay, @ 73 FFA Grover Cable, Dave Black, Diff Ritchie, & Direct Finish Bob Rotert & Tom Kimbrell, @ 75
N Carolina
> 1. Southern Mou…
> Looking Glass Rock
> Nose Area
Description
This was one of my favorite routes, for the grade, at the Glass. It was originally called Five Easy Pieces by the first ascent party that did it as an aid climb. Sometime afterwards we started calling the route Hyperbola and the name stuck.
My recollection of this route is it has a very hairy first pitch that involves some thin, hairball, 5.9 Carolina slab climbing where a fall would not be good for the leader, to reach the base of the arch. To start the route you climb up on some large flakes that are below & to the left of the arch. The tricky slab climbing starts off of the flakes and heads up & right to the base of the arch crack system. Since the first ascent, a harder, but better-protected direct start has been added. Getting thru the hairy slab climbing is the psycological crux of this route. A rest can be had afterwards at the base the crack system. Here the leader can rest & recoup for the pumpy technical crux under cling & pull-over move to reach the beautiful arching dihedral finger crack. Be sure your pro is set good before heading up here.
On one memorable ascent, a good friend of mine, was launching out on this move when his pro pulled out while in the middle of the crux pull over. Cams were not on the market at that time and he had only placed this one hex to protect the undercling. This left nothing but the bolt on the slab as his last protection and he was caught looking at a potential 50-plus-foot ground fall. He looked down at me, trimbeling, wild eyed, like a deer caught in the headlights!! I shouted out my encouragement and sent up all the positive energy I could thru the rope that ran between us. Shaking, scraping, and breathing like a locomotive he managed to barely pull over the crux move!! "Are you alright Peter!!??" I called up. After a quite a few minutes, where I think he was digesting seeing his whole life flash before his eyes, he replied "Yea!" He finally regained his composure and, like the true hard man he was, finished up the rest of arch.
Most folks will rap from the top of the arch, but there are 2-3 more pitches to finish the route to the top. Second pitch being around 5.9 with one, guide book says two bolts, but I only remeber placing one for pro and the crux moves would be getting off the top of the arch. The third & fourth pitches follow an indistinct line and are probably 5.7-5.8. Dave Black and Grover Cable did another route going further right from the top of the arch.
Location
About 300 feet to the right of Sundial on top of some large flakes below the very obvious beautiful Yosemite-looking arching crack.
Protection
Light Looking Glass trad rack.
![Eddie Begoon tightens the first bolt on Direct start to Hyperbola,Sea of Brows by The Waste Side & The 1988.]()
[Hide Photo] Eddie Begoon tightens the first bolt on Direct start to Hyperbola,Sea of Brows by The Waste Side & The 1988.
![Hyperbolic trip to the moon!]()
[Hide Photo] Hyperbolic trip to the moon!
![Dave resting after taking the big swing off the traverse. He was forced to climb the top of the direct start]()
[Hide Photo] Dave resting after taking the big swing off the traverse. He was forced to climb the top of the direct start
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Broomfield
Anchorage, AK
It was a typical hot, muggy, thundershower-interrupted Transylvania Co. summer afternoon when Dave, his fiance, Kathy, and I arrived at the parking turnout for the Nose. As usual, we got there mid-afternoon and had to wait out a rain shower or two. I think we intended to do Odyssey but ended up on Hyperbola. The tribe of copperhead snakes that used to sun themselves all over the slab below the starting ledge had mysteriously disappeared after the unusually cold winter of '76/'77. Jeep and the Hun will attest to the added objective danger of venomous, irritable copperheads. So we didn't have to sweat the snakes. We farted around on the first pitch, swapping leads. Dave made it on his last try to surmount the left-leaning flake, above which is the ledge at the bottom of the main dihedral. Suddenly we were committed to go to the top despite the lateness of the afternoon and Kathy doomed to waiting alone for us in the woods or at the car. "Drastic Dave" was (and is) a superb climber but not naturally gifted like Jeep, Bobby, et al. Dave was very athletic, intelligent, & stubborn /irresistible when willful --gifted and handicapped by incredible will. More of the Joe Myers/Henry Barber type that attracts or induces epics. He spent an hour wandering around the featureless section at the start of the second pitch: he actually went right few feet -- maybe four or five -- and managed to stay on the rock as he worked his way up. He was on the edge of falling every second for 30 minutes. As I understand it, Bobby took the route more logically straight up from the top of the first pitch --- and placed a bolt (he later regretted, I heard) several feet above the start of the first pitch: and understandably/justifiably -- the first part of the second pitch is intimidatingly featureless, a long fall both likely and unhealthy. I don't think Dave could have even placed a friend where he meandered. I'm not sure friends were even available then. Dave wouldn't have bought one anyway: he religiously stuck to his 1960s rack of hexes and a few wired stoppers -- fine for Tahquitz, useless for most of the Glass. Thank god he didn't place some protection out there in the middle of nowhere so that I would have had to go that way to retrieve it -- I went straight up. There were no bolts on the route before and just after we did it. Dave wore an ancient pair of Kronhoffer "climbing shoes" (a cross between blue Royal Robbins boots,Chuck Taylor high tops, and gray Hush Puppies) and I wore a cruel pair of EBs. Anyway, it was nearly dark when I arrived at the upper ledge with Dave belaying me up. We 3rd classed to the top and coiled our ropes in the dark. We yelled down to Kathy that we were at the top and on our way down -- wouldn't take long. We were on the/a trail for about 100 ft then lost it for the rest of the night. The next 4 hours was an epic bushwhack off the top of the Glass in pitch black darkness, crashing through cat briars, rhododendron hells, falling off boulders, and nearly stepping off into the black void once or twice. We stumbled out of the Stephen King National Forest and onto the dirt road not far from the fish hatchery around 3 AM. All along we thought we were descending the north side somehow. Some crazy sob and saint gave us a ride back to our cars(and a frantic Kathy) around 3:30 or 4 AM. No doubt Bobby and Tom's descent several days later was done in better style.
Grover Cable
Chapel Hill Sep 21, 2007
Decatur, GA
JL Sep 21, 2007
Broomfield
Colorado Springs, CO
Winston-Salem, NC
Great route, definitely exciting and probably warrants a PG-13 rating. Apr 20, 2010
PORTLAND, OR
London (sort of)
The crux for me was after the first bolt, where I screwed up the feet and blew the on-sight. After getting the feet right the move felt normal 11- to me and I on-sighted the rest of the climb. Another 11- move after the second bolt, this one more straight forward but still hard. Get bomber gear and locks in the short splitter finger crack, then get bomber gear below the roof and the 10- move. 5.9 after that and lotso fun!
This was the first route of the day so was planning on doing the original start (5.9R), but after seeing the fall potential I decided to do the direct start. Way more fun and not nearly as scary! Oct 7, 2011
Phoenix, AZ
Johnson City, TN
Zebulon, GA