I recently climbed Zoo View at Moore’s Wall, which is just north of Winston-Salem, NC. This climb is the definition of classic.
The first pitch follows the path of least resistance along the right side of Sentinel Buttress up to the Crow’s Nest. It really is much of anything but a nice warm up. The second pitch is the money pitch.
The beginning of the second pitch is a thirty-foot traverse that is protected by a lone bolt halfway through.
The standard way is to stay low below the bolt but if you are a glutton for punishment and like balancy moves you can go a little bit higher and work your way around a bulging mini-roof. Either way, you move to the left of the bulge and then start climbing upward. Besides the bolt there isn’t any worthy pro on the traverse.
Once you start moving up the climbing is straightforward. The crux is definitely the traverse but the entire second pitch is a consistent 5.7+
Once you work your way under the roof you have a comfortable enough stance to shake out your forearms for the intimidating roof. This roof is flat out intense. Bring some double length runners and drop some gear in the railing below the roof and get ready for some heroic fun.
It’s all there and you have a myriad of hand and feet options so just go for it and keep moving.
The rappel from the top is a little weird. Once you top out, walk about 100 feet to climber’s right. You’ll have to down climb a bit to get to a really weird fixed anchor setup.
[...] we’d been told that it was one or two 5.9 moves followed by a whole bunch of 5.7 sort of like Zoo View at Moore’s Wall. Man oh man, were we in for an [...]
1976-Tom Howard and Bruce Meneghin
both are pioneers on the east coast[spec. nc/va] climbing scene.
this is one of my favorite of tom howards routes