Moores Wall (NC)

Beautiful Moore's Wall at Hanging Rock State Park. Especially in the fall when the leaves are changing color (when we went in November 2024, it was already a little past prime). 

I've been to Moore's five times, once in Sept 2023 with a guide, then in Nov 2024, Feb 2025, and twice in September 2025 with Reed. Moore's is an amazing trad crag in central NC.

On Nov 2024, we climbed Sentinel Chimney, a 3 pitch 5.4. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures during the climb itself. The first two pitches were great, a little sparse for gear but very easy terrain. However, the third pitch is terrible. It transitions from rock climbing to scrambling through bushes and on moss, and not many places for gear. There was a very (and I mean very) old rap station at the top of pitch 2 slung around a horn, but neither of us trusted it. If new slings/webbing were put there, I think it would make a great 2 pitch climb (though I don't think you would make it to the ground, would probably have to scramble to the crows nest across zoo view).

Overall, the great first two pitches were ruined by the third pitch, but at least we were rewarded with a nice view of the fall colors with Pilot in the background!

While eating a snack and looking at the view, we saw this other party doing a more unusual rap off a tree down Washboard (typically if you top out like they did, you walk to the rap station we are at or hike down). We had already talked to them and I gave them the pictures I took of them, so I wasn't just being weird. 

In February 2025, we went out to Moore's again and did Sentinel Buttress (5.5) and Zoo View (5.7+, mega classic). This is also the first trip that I have my own gopro, and I had some fun filming with that as well.

Here is the link to all the gopro (not a gopro but a DJI action osmo 4, but it is close enough to a genericization of action camera) footage from our February 2025 trip, there are timestamps in the description. We are still new trad climbers, so please excuse the obscene amount of time it takes me to place gear sometimes. 

Me running it out on the way to the crows nest. If you zoom in, I think I placed my first piece of gear (a nut! the horror) about 15 feet up and I'm another 15-20 feet above it. The climbing felt very secure the whole way and I didn't see any obvious gear, so I decided I might as well just keep going. 

Reed up at the top of Sentinel Buttress. It is a nice easy route, but still some interesting movement and good exposure. I think typically people build a gear anchor to belay off of, and then just use the rap station to rap. However, we decided to try to use the rap station (bolted) as the anchor, and it worked alright, just the way that Reed led it up it wasn't aligned the best. 

Taking a little meal break in the crows nest. Reed has a friend in the military who sent him an MRE to try, and I have a case of MREs I bought cheap. It was also very cold with a nice wind that day, so the FRHs in the MREs made for good hand warmers while we waited. 

Me resting after the traverse, and a picture of us at the top of zoo view. I will blame the cold for taking after the traverse, it is quite crimpy and I also didn't have the best route finding to it. We also had some friends in a party ahead of us who left a z4 right at the end of the traverse which helped a lot with the mental part of it (the exposure on zoo view is no joke!). 

Zoo view definitely lives up to the hype. The exposure is great, the moves are easy enough but still feel cool, and the roof is intimidating. My gopro ran out of battery halfway through the second pitch, but it was after the fun part. The rope drag did get pretty bad near the end, but that was because I placed some extra gear too far left before the roof (because I was scared). Here's a picture of us at the top!