Little Rock City, TN (aka Stone Fort)

  I recently returned from a very quick climbing trip down to one of the southeast's popular bouldering destinations...Little Rock City (aka Stone Fort).  This extensive collection of sandstone boulders lie in the woods adjacent to a golf country club called Montlake Country Club in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee.  The bouldering there is extremely good with high quality rock, a good concentration of varying difficulty, massive boulders, and for the most part a pretty laid-back southeast atmosphere.  A climbing day use fee ($8/pp) is paid right at the golf clubhouse and from there it is only a short 5-10 minute walk to the boulders, depending on which area you want to start climbing.  

  Leading up to this much anticipated trip I had scoured the internet for bouldering videos in an attempt to compile a reasonable list of problems that I at least wanted to try while I was there.  A handful of these problems appeared to be my "style" of boulder problems and I had very high expectations to successfully climb some of them.  We were in Tennessee for 4 days and climbed 3 full days at LRC.  At the end of it all, the tick list was pretty extensive and I was more than pleased with the overall outcome on the trip.  A unsuccessful problem that I still can't shake from my memory is a climb called Deception (V7).  Out of everything on my list, this problem was the one that definitely meant the most to me and unfortunately I had to head back to New York without topping it out.  I made a pivotal  mistake and did not try Deception until our last day and at the end of that day...it was literally the last boulder problem that I tried to climb while down at Little Rock City.  I already have plans to revisit this area in October/November to give myself another chance on some of the problems that I had to walk away from.  

FIRST DAY SENDS (** flash)

• Fire Cracker Flake (V1) **
• Seam Eliminate (V3) **
• Needless Things (V0) **
• Aneardon (V6)
• Genghis Khan (V5)
• Manute Bol (V6)
• Keel Hauled (V3) **
• Dragon Lady (V4) *
• Tristar (V4)
• Latin for a Dagger (V5)
• The Wave (V6)
• Art of the Vogi (V4) **

SECOND DAY SENDS (** flash)

• Spit Shine (V0) **
• Rail Rider (V4) **
• Pleidas (V4)
• Super Mario (V4) **
• Super Mario Extension (V6)
• These Feel Like Your Sisters (V3)
• Uncle Punchy (V1)
• Drag Me Down (V1)
• Art of the Vogi (V4)- repeat
• Art of the Vogi, Left (V6)

THIRD DAY SENDS (** flash)

• Shaggy (V1) **
• Incredarete (V1) **
• The Eliminator (V7)
• Two Can Sam (V3) **
• Slice (V4) **
• Green Machine (V4) **
• Face in the Crowd (V7)
• Grimace (V8)
• Heroin (V7)
• White Trash (V5) 

Media Update:  

(a majority of these photos were taken by my good friend and extremely talented photographer Keith Banta.  Check out some more of his work here:  http://iconosquare.com/keithbantaphotography )