Commentary:

The east coast of the US at the height of the summer is hot; daily temperatures are typically in the late eighties and nineties - not really the stuff of dreams for most climbers! However, the Appalachian Mountains, which run down the eastern seaboard and max-out at 6,684 feet in North Carolina, offer something of a retreat from the summer swelter. The quaint, if a bit touristy, towns of Blowing Rock and Boone are the staging posts for the climbing in the area which is conveniently scattered around the Blue Ridge Parkway.

My visit in the summer of 2009 involved a 5 hour, 300 mile drive up from Charleston on the South Carolinian coast. Pulling into the parking lot for the Grandmother Boulders on the BR Parkway all I could see was green rolling hills and lots of them. Armed with info gleaned off the interweb, I hacked off down the road and off into the woods at the appointed location. There’s no guide to the area and the info on the web, though very helpful, is more outline than detail. Fortunately the locals are very friendly and more than willing to show visitors around. I tagged my friendly local on the warm-up boulders and after a few problems he suggested a move to the Have Guns wall.

Twisting along narrow trails through the forest, we soon arrived at a monster overhanging wave of ‘frozen’ gneiss. It was time to load the guns and get shooting! A big team of ‘local’ boulderers were throwing at one of the classics - Have Guns will Travel, a 20 foot Font 7a+ roof problem. I was desperate to pull my boots on or to shoot some images of this great looking problem but I was playing on away ground against a strong home team and, not wanting to appear pushy, I held back.

However, the weather soon took a turn for the worst and it started raining; conditions under the roof weren’t immediately affected though so the action continued all be it with a renewed sense of urgency. I couldn’t resist any longer so the camera was pulled out of its bag. In fading natural light I shot some of the team on Have Guns will Travel. There were too many bodies milling around for wide shots, so I shot tight-in and concentrated on capturing the moody atmosphere created by the limited ambient light. I pushed the ISO higher and higher and shooting wide-open with f2.8 lens I managed to get close in on the action. The shallow depth of field helped accentuate the climbers from the background. I used the best shot in the 2010 calendar.

My new friends weren’t as desperate to climb as I was and they soon packed up and left leaving me alone under the gneiss canopy. I climbed on a while ignoring the heavy rain ‘outside’ and with my camera on the tripod I set up a three flash arrangement. Using the built-in flash on the D300 as commander, a remote SB900 as the main light and another remote SB800 as a fill light I set the timer and shot some ‘wide’ shots experimenting with the flash levels to get different effects.

Capture Notes:

Nikon D300, 17-35 AFS f2.8, 1/30 secs @ f2.8, ISO 800, matrix metering, front curtain flash, built-in flash as commander, SB900 as main light and SB800 (-3.0EV) as fill light.

Keywords:

Appalachian Mountains, bouldering, rock climbing, photography, Have Guns will Travel Font 7a+