I broke down my tent early, in the dark and headed over to the crag. From the parking lot there was over a mile of hiking to get to Shortoff Mountain.
Kyle and I climbed 12 pitches across 4 routes. It was my first time doing any trade climbing or multi pitch. Because of this, Kyle lead everything except one easy, short pitch that he let me place gear on.
On our last climb of the day, a storm started rolling in and we started hustling. By the time I reached the top of the second pitch, it was fully raining. Luckily, we were under a roof and decided to wait it out at the anchor just as it started to hail. With a gap in the hail we did a protected scramble off the ledge and hiked back to the parking lot.
I ended the night at a Warm Showers in Morganton, NC. The host was getting ready to go bikepacking herself and it was cool to see her setup and chat about biking in the area. I was very thankful to be inside during some heavy rainstorms.