Viva Chattavegas by Percy Bishton include "header_root.php

Rocktown
Rocktown is 40 minutes from Chattanooga, close to the town of La Fayette, Georgia. The boulders are perched on top of Pigeon Mountain, which also has awesome mountain biking and some of the best caving in North America. Up here, the temperature is more conducive to bouldering, and after an exciting drive up a long dirt track, and a gentle stroll, the rocks came into view. What Rocktown has is a vast number of beautiful sandstone boulders, all of which have perfect flat, sandy landings. As we had no guidebooks, or idea what the problems were, we wandered about climbing anything that looked good - which was pretty much anything we looked at. By the end of the day, we had seen less than a quarter of the developed boulders here.

The climbing here is like what you would get if you crossed the sandstone of Fontainebleau with the rock at Hueco Tanks - in other words, it's absolutely awesome! That evening we headed to Chattanooga to meet up with Luis and Eric, our two contacts who own the TBA bouldering gym in Chattanooga. These guys were so friendly and helpful, and invited us to stay in their house and give us the guided tour of some of the other bouldering in the area. A brief chat with these guys, and you know why a bouldering area this good is unheard of outside the deep south. The scene is very laidback, but the hardcore boulderers have been hard at work, going out and developing the new areas, which abound in these parts. Boulder problems are only named on the rare occasion, and nobody is particularly interested in grading anything. There's no point in pursuing big numbers and publicity in these areas, the locals are just interested in climbing beautiful lines on pristine boulders because that's what they love to do - what a refreshing attitude!
That's not to say that there's nothing hard down in the south, it's just that they don't make a fuss about it like you get elsewhere in the US. If you want to tick quality V12's, or try any one of the numerous harder projects that abound, this is the place for you. If you want long days of climbing classic problems of a more reasonable standard, this is the place for you too! The grades given for problems in this article are based on general local consensus, and are only used to give the reader an idea of the wide range of standards of problems to expect. Be warned, some of the locals grades felt quite stiff, but the bouldering here is not about the numbers, it's about 'enjoying the stone'! We were some of a tiny number of European's who have so far visited the area just for the bouldering, joining the select group of people who now know about Chattavegas bouldering, (which includes luminaries such as Klem Loskot!)