Mountain Project Logo

Gear Review: Carolina Rocks: – The Piedmont (guidebook)

Original Post
saxfiend · · Decatur, GA · Joined Nov 2006 · Points: 4,221
North Carolina’'s newest guidebook breaks new ground in completeness while building on its predecessors.

Carolina Rocks: – The Piedmont, by Charlotte climber Erica Lineberry, focuses on four of North Carolina’'s most popular and accessible crags: Pilot Mountain, Crowder's Mountain, Stone Mountain and Moore’'s Wall. This well-thought-out volume, long in the works, finally hit the bookstores earlier this month.

Where prior Carolina guidebooks have striven for breadth, Lineberry has instead gone for depth in her first guidebook. She has wisely chosen four areas whose inclusion in other guides has mostly skimmed the highlights (e.g., Selected Climbs in North Carolina), if they are included at all. Carolina Rocks, by contrast, is surely the first volume to include all known routes at each of the four crags.

Given the . . . shall we say, “eccentricities” of the Carolina climbing community, it was something of an act of bravery for Lineberry to take on this project. When the planned guidebook was announced, it was greeted very negatively by some, due to fears that it will lead to overcrowding or (gasp) a diminishing of the “adventure” of climbing. Lineberry addressed these concerns with grace on MP forums and elsewhere, then went ahead with her plans.

The result is a guidebook that will be highly useful to any climber travelling to these crags. While it’s not without its flaws, Carolina Rocks will give you everything you need to know about Pilot, Crowders, Stone and Moore’'s. It’s chock full of photos, anecdotes and of course route descriptions.

In evaluating any guidebook, I can’'t help comparing it to others, and in this regard, Ray Ellington’'s Red River Gorge Rock Climbs is the model I judge other guidebooks by. While Lineberry’'s Carolina Rocks doesn'’t quite reach that high standard, it certainly comes close. And it’'s a vast improvement on the Selected Climbs guidebook, in terms of completeness, graphics, readability and accuracy.

The Pilot Mountain section is perhaps the best in terms of layout and content. It includes multiple cliffline topos, photos with clearly-marked routes and well-written route descriptions. It also includes numerous informative and/or entertaining narratives on Pilot and its history; a highlight for me was a detailed reminiscence on Pilot'’s lovable curmudgeon, the late Lloyd Ramsey.

The Crowder's section benefits from a nice full-page map showing the layout of the crag. With its fragmented nature, Crowder's can be a difficult maze to navigate; the map and abundant photos are a big help. It would have been nice to have seen more of these maps (zoomed in to the cliff at hand) throughout the rest of the Crowder's section; as it is, you'’ll find yourself flipping back to the main map page maybe more than you’'d like.

Moore’'s Wall also starts out with an excellent overview map that will go a long way toward orienting both newcomers and old hands at this expansive cliff. Moore’'s is a traditional destination in every sense of the word, and perhaps because of that, documentation has been less complete and detailed as some NC areas. Lineberry’'s volume fills in the gaps very nicely.

Like Crowder's, Moore'’s suffers from not having as many detailed cliffline topos as it could have had. While areas such as Nutsweat and the Amphitheater have useful cliffline maps, there are none at all for the Central Wall or Sentinel Buttress. On the other hand, the photos in the Moore'’s section are some of the best in the book, and a great two-page photo of the Circus Wall (including route diagrams) does a lot to make up for the omitted topos.

Stone Mountain is one of my favorite places to climb in the south, so I was looking forward to this section of Lineberry’'s guide with much anticipation. I’'m happy to report I wasn'’t disappointed. The Stone Mountain section has a nice variety of route photos, topos and great climbing photos. It’'s also quite inclusive; in addition to the popular South Face climbs, Carolina Rocks also details the more obscure North Face. The colorful history of climbing at Stone is also given its due in various accounts by some of the mountain’'s old hands, along with some historical photos.

The Stone section also features terminology that raised my eyebrow. In addition to the usual terms “"sport"” and "“trad"” for the routes at Stone Mountain, Lineberry introduces the designation "“friction"” (which not surprisingly constitutes the majority of the routes). My experience of climbing Carolina slab at Stone Mountain and other destinations is that it'’s just trad climbing (that is, routes that went in on lead) that’'s more runout than usual; I’'m not so sure a new term is necessary.

If I could wave a magic wand to make one improvement to Carolina Rocks, it would be to change the typeface of the text. Lineberry (or her publisher) chose a sans serif font that combines with a fairly small type size that makes it slightly difficult to read. The roman typeface in the Ellington books is much more readable, in my opinion. But this is a small quibble, especially for younger climbers whose vision is much better than mine.

In summary, Carolina Rocks: – The Piedmont is an excellent addition to the bookshelf of any climber who plans to visit any or all of the four crags, – especially if straightforward navigation at the crag trumps having an “adventure” figuring out where you are.

Carolina Rocks: – The Piedmont, by Erica Lineberry, is published by Earthbound Sports, Inc. in Chapel Hill, NC. It is available online and in climbing stores.
Cunning Linguist · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Feb 2007 · Points: 1,200

Good review. I'll be picking this one up.

Ryan Malloy · · Raleigh, NC · Joined May 2014 · Points: 1,177

My partner just ordered this for me on Amazon as a gift. I went looking for reviews and found this post. Super helpful! Thanks for taking the time to write this!

Russ Keane · · Salt Lake · Joined Feb 2013 · Points: 392

Is there a guidebook in the works, for Moore's only? Building on Erica's info but going further? Or maybe I am "mis-remembering".

saxfiend · · Decatur, GA · Joined Nov 2006 · Points: 4,221
Russ Keane wrote:Is there a guidebook in the works, for Moore's only? Building on Erica's info but going further? Or maybe I am "mis-remembering".
I'm not aware of any such plans, and can't imagine why anyone would feel the necessity to do this. Given that Erica's section on Moore's is comprehensive, what exactly would "going further" look like?

JL
Russ Keane · · Salt Lake · Joined Feb 2013 · Points: 392

I am not familiar with how comprehensive Erica's book is. If it accounts for 90+% of the Moore's climbs, then yes -- What would be the point.

Perhaps I heard wrong, or the person was referring to her book, as it is quite new.

It's a very nice book. I had a chance to look at it briefly.

saxfiend · · Decatur, GA · Joined Nov 2006 · Points: 4,221
Russ Keane wrote:Perhaps I heard wrong, or the person was referring to her book, as it is quite new.
That sounds plausible. I think you'll be happy with the new guide if you get it.

JL
Tompat01 · · Stuttgart, DE · Joined Sep 2016 · Points: 5

I found the part on pilot mountain a bit lacking. The photos are not that great. Some routes don't have how many bolts there are, routes are missing in the book. This was just my experience using it for sport climbing in the amphitheater and in the parking lot.
The ranger station gives you a PDF print out of routs that don't match up with the book. But besides all of that its an okay book.

Just my .02

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

Climbing Gear Reviews
Post a Reply to "Gear Review: Carolina Rocks: – The Piedmont (g…"

Log In to Reply

Join the Community

Create your FREE account today!
Already have an account? Login to close this notice.

Get Started.