Looking for beta on Thunderhead at Sand Rock, AL

I've walked past this route called Thunderhead, at Cherokee Rock Village/Sand Rock a ton of times. Looks awesome. To me it's the coolest looking formation there. The guide book calls it 5.13b. I'm a relatively new climber. And that is beyond my current ability. needless to say, I've Never tried it. I'm not there yet. Not trying to be a defeatist, it's just the truth. So, Last weekend my 9 year old boy was climbing with me and he saw it. He wanted to know why his dad never climbed the coolest looking thing out there. I was forced to hang my head and tell him the truth. I had to say to my son that i wasn't good enough yet. He said,";wow, you go climbing every weekend dad and you can't do it?"; obviously I can't let him down. So, the mission begins. In addition to additional training, I'm looking for any beta
On this route. It's in the guide book, but not on MP. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

This won't answer your beta question, but may give you some incite. If you haven't been climbing for very long your best bet is just to continue to climb and push yourself. The jump from 5.10/5.11 to 5.13 is a massive one, so you are definitely looking at a multi-year project.

I would be hesitant to suggest specific training until you have at least a year or two under your belt. It's very easy to injure fingers before your body becomes adapted to that much stress. However, in my opinion the Rock Climbers Training Manual is the best book on the subject: rockclimberstrainingmanual.… The authors are in their 40s and are continually making upwards progress in the 5.14 range. I think their program is laid out well for us normal folks who can only get to the crag on weekends.

With that said, goal routes are great to have and keep us motivated to climb hard. Work your way up to some 5.12s - the cave routes at Foster Falls will probably get you in pretty good shape for even harder stuff. If you make it to the 5.13 level, I don't think lack of beta for a route at Sand Rock will hold you back.

Oh I'm definitely looking at it as a multi year project. I've only been climbing since February, and while I'm into 11s,i understand what a huge leap that is.
I found that training manual on the trango website orderer it. Thanks for the tip. The reason I'm looking for any beta on the route is that no one know seems to know much about it, and it's this really striking line. I'm thinking of it as something to get on once a month maybe, and gauge my progress. And you never know, it could be something that just works for me. Probably not, but maybe. Haha.
I don't get up to Tennessee very much, but I've found some things in little River Canyon to help me get stronger. If you have any other advice on getting stronger I'm all ears. Thanks again.

My guess would be that there is a V7-V8 boulder problem mixed in the route somewhere. Being able to boulder at this level is somewhat of a decent guage to determine whether or not you are ready for 5.13's.

The line bakes in the sun so first thing that comes to mind is make sure whenever you do it, it's cold. Rather vertical to slightly overhanging line, which means small holds and delicate feet. So you'll want some crisp conditions or else it'll probably feel impossible, even if you are strong enough for it.

In the interest of anyone else searching for beta I figured I'd post what I found way back in the day. I was running short of stuff to do at Sand Rock so I hunted out this information from the old SCC forums. I never actually got on Thunderhead; I moved away before I could scope it out. Regardless, here it is verbatim from the SCC forums before they flat lined.

This is from a post by Greg Kottcamp, not sure of any other written info.

"Thunderhead is worthy and extremely technical. I don't know if jerry has a different sequence, but here is my beta. At the head wall, left hand side pull, lock off and reach up right to a three-finger pocket. At this point, your left foot should be up near the lip. Your left hand will now cross under to an edge on your right. Next, your right foot will be out right on a small edge, and your right hand will quickly move to an undercling. This is the defining move because of barn dooring to the right. A dead point up left yields a jug and easier terrain to anchors.
i hope this helps"

Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to post that. I went to SR Saturday and was going to end the day by putting my hands on it fit the first time. Unfortunately we got rained out. Started dumping on us, down in The Hole, finishing The Price Is Right. I did take several pics to look over. As I said before, this will be a very long term project. But I'll be sure to post updates on any progress. Something like,"Month 17, still at second bolt " lol

I'm not sure that Thunderhead is posted to the route database, you should add it along with your photos. Might encourage more folks to get on it.

Will do. I got a few this past weekend, not very good though. I'm going to get on it this weekend, if my daughter is not being born, and will definitely get some better photos and add it to the route database.

Just a bump to keep up with your progress! I'm out there every blue moon that I don't work

Maybe I'll run into you out there. I'm usually there every weekend. If you see someone on Thunderhead, repeatedly falling, frequently cursing, and really beat up... That'll probably be me. Ha.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the idea of a route pyramid, but you basically try to redpoint a few routes that are very similar but lower difficulty to the goal route. There are several good routes that would fit this in that area, mainly because they start on thin slabs/vertical and lead to a headwall crux.

Here's a few you might want to check out:

- Dreamscape 11c
- Bocephus 12a
- Dreamworld Finish 12c

That's pretty much the plan. Keep working up through the grades. Thunderhead is a very long term thing for me. My kid thinks it's cool, and I figured why not have a long term goal that would seriously challenge me to significantly improve every aspect of my climbing. I guess I'm looking at it like this: I've found a sport I really love. I've committed a lot of time and resources to it, and now I need to have an objective that is worthy of those efforts. And I have a strategy for working up to it that is very similar to what you mentioned.