Travis's Life

Review: Bonhoeffer; Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

2012-01-22T11:10:00.000-08:00

Not very often do I read a book that I feel compelled to write a blog post about it. The last one I did was on a biography of Thomas Merton. Once again, I am writing about a biography I read. This time it is on a man whose convictions led him to do many drastic things in his life. This man was Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

A few years ago, I read one of his prized works, The Cost of Discipleship. It was a great book and had a great breakdown of the Sermon on the Mount found in the gospel of Matthew. In it there was a brief history of Bonhoeffer. I was captivated by the few pages written about this man who had written the book I was about to read. Somehow in my studies in college, I never heard much about this man. Since then, I had desired to learn more of this man that became a martyr during the rule of the Third Reich.

While I was at a friend's house around Christmas, I noticed this thick, blue book with the word Bonhoeffer written in white letters on the spine. I pulled the book off of the shelf to take a look. This interested me. Here is this massive biography of a man that I want to learn more about. After forcing myself to not open the book and start reading at that moment, I placed it back on the shelf and logged it into my memory as something I must read one day. A few days later I find myself at the bookstore hoping to find The Crucified God by Moltmann. They didn't have it. I should not have expected a normal books store to have in stock a book that even most Christians know nothing about. What did catch my eye that night was the thick, blue book with Bonhoeffer written in white on the spine. I quickly picked up that book and proceeded to the check out.

This book quickly sucked me in to the story and life of Dietrich. Though it starts off with a bit of a history not of Dietrich himself, but of his family and lineage. We learn that his grandfather was a great theologian, that his father was an honored psychiatrist of the day and of many other family members that were influential during their own lives in Germany. From the start this man is from good, German stock. Something that one of his opponents would have been proud. We also get a great glimpse into the early life of Dietrich and the rest of his immediate family. One thing that is very clear from the start, this family was very close, they were well educated but also knew how to enjoy the wonderful things in life.

While Dietrich was still young, World War I broke out. Metaxas, the author, gives a great view into the historical and sociological context during this period of Germany. With the defeat of Germany in the war and the restrictions placed upon them from the treaties, Germans felt humiliated. This led to many changes in government and how daily life happened after the war.

The author also notes the brilliance of Bonhoeffer during his academic career. During this time, classical liberalism, particularly in the field of theology was the popular view. He was one of the few that opposed those views but did so with great dignity and respect from his teachers and colleagues. After achieving his doctorate in his early 20's Bonhoeffer began traveling to work with congregations in different parts of the world. His travels took him to Rome, Spain, America, and London. These travels influenced his love of the art and his enthusiasm for the ecumenical movement. It was fascinating to see how all of this information shaped this young man.

As most you will know, the National Socialists (Nazis) came into power under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. As time went on, this government would slowly change the government, society, and church in Germany. Bonhoeffer was one of those that opposed the changes made particularly within the church. Along with other pastors and leaders, they began the Confessing Church. Dietrich also used his ecumenical ties with pastors and leaders in England, Switzerland, and American to let the world know of the horrors that were happening in Germany during this time.

Through all of this, the Nazis became more powerful and started to use their forceful tactics to get people to fall in line. Eventually, Bonhoeffer traveled back to the U.S. to teach and lecture. This was short lived because he knew his place was in Germany with his suffering brothers. Through a friend, he was able to become a government agent for Germany. He used this position to eventually rebel against the Third Reich. Many of those people that Bonhoeffer was close to were a part of the resistance even though they were high ranking military and government officials. They also planned many assassination attempts on Hitler, with them all failing. After the failed attempt on July 20, 1944, which the movie Valkyrie is based, many in the resistance were arrested, Bonhoeffer included. Eventually, he was killed only days before the camp he was being held in was liberated by the Allies.

Though he is known for his resistance to the Nazis, that is not what stood out to me the most. It seemed that everywhere he went, he enjoyed life and took every opportunity to learn new things, broaden his knowledge and impact the people he was in charge of. While he was a professor in Berlin, he would often invite his students to "hang out" as it were. He became involved in their lives. He did this same thing with a class of confirmants he was assigned to. This also led to similar practices when he started two illegal seminaries in Germany. I also enjoyed what seemed to be a great balance of academia along with living his life as close to what Jesus did.

Though I feel that I told you a great deal about his life, the details found in the book bring this man to life in the words of the pages. After a few chapters, I felt connected to this man who lived over 70 years ago. I hope that you will be able to read this book in the near future. I would say that it was one of the best books I have read in my life. I have said that about many previous readings but none have been so inspiring as this. If you have read it, tell me what you though about it.

Ice Climbing

2012-01-07T06:21:00.000-08:00

The year was 2007. I was less than a year out of college and I still had no idea what direction my life was taking. At the end of the year, I took a trip out to Colorado with two climbing partners, David and Scott. Our goal was to climb some ice. This trip was slightly intimidating to me. I had never climbed ice before. Also, I had never been to Colorado before this trip. Little did I know that it would be the first of many trips to this great state. On the drive out I soaked in as much information on how to ice climb. I knew that you would swing these weapon like tools into the ice, then kick your crampons into the ice and move up that way. Basically, that is what you do but there are other more finite nuances that can help improve your skills on this frozen medium.

After a few days of seeing ice and not climbing it due to either snow or weather conditions we continued on to Ouray, CO. There in this small mountain town in southwestern Colorado, there is a premier ice park. Basically, they take this box canyon on the edge of town and make ice flows every 15-20 feet along an entire side of the canyon. There is so much ice and it tends to get fat quick. This would be my chance to learn in a convenient location. It isn't often that you can walk 5 minutes from your hotel and be gearing up at the top of your climb. During this trip, I top-roped many pitches of ice up to WI5*. Buy the end of the trip I was hooked and couldn't wait until the next chance I would have to get back on ice.

Though ice forms in certain places in the midwest, I had one thing keeping me from seeking it out. I had no ice climbing gear except the used mountaineering boots that I purchased while in Colorado. Finally, in the winter of 2010/2011 I had the necessary gear to go out and top-rope ice. I had boots, crampons, and axes. I was set. Luckily, some ice formed up in southern Illinois. I spent one day playing on the frozen waterfalls. Soon after that, the temperatures began to rise which quickly melted the waterfalls we had climbed. This led us back to climbing on rock. This one day of climbing did rekindle my desire to get on ice.

A few months after that day of climbing ice I moved to North Carolina. It was then that I heard about the ice climbing opportunities here in the south. Already in April I was wanting winter to arrive and the ice to form up. Back in November was the first time I saw any ice here. One morning Karsten asked me if i wanted to go check on the conditions of the ice on Highway 215 near the Blue Ridge Parkway. I readily hopped in the car and we took off. It was thin and barely there but just the sight of ice got me psyched.

This was going to be the year that I progress in my ice climbing. Since ice climbing can be a much more dangerous activity than rock climbing, more care is taken to avoid injuries. In ice climbing you are told that when leading you do not fall. This is mostly because while climbing ice you have around two dozen spikes attached to you. In a leader fall those spikes could catch on the ice, resulting in a sprained or broken leg or one of those spikes could find itself piercing through a piece of your clothing and into your skin. Neither of these options sound like something I desire to do. Because of this, I had never led any ice. Also, I do not own the proper equipment to lead ice. In ice climbing you place ice screws into the good parts of the ice. As long as the ice is of decent quality, those screws will hold a fall if you happen to slip, which you should try to avoid. Little did I know that this would all change shortly.

Finally, the ice formed up enough to climb it. At that same time, my friend Caroliegh came up from Georgia to climb. I asked her if she wanted to go ice climbing. A little reluctant at first since she doesn't enjoy the cold, she soon agreed. The morning we were going to go ice climbing, Ron, one of the other guides here at Fox, texted me and asked if we were still going climbing and wanted to join. This was nice since Ron has more experience on ice than I do. We met up with Ron and started the drive up 215. Little did I know that we were not going to climb at the main walls on 215. When Ron instructed me to continue past them while driving I knew he had something better planned. This sometimes scares me. Ron has been on of those guys who is always up for an adventure and also pushes me more than most people. He then told us that we were going to do a climb called Creek Stomp.

We continue driving north on 215 past the parkway and back down hill in Haywood county. After a few miles, Ron tells me to pull off along side the road. We gear up then begin a hike into the woods. Ron had told me about a previous trip here he took with Lindsay, another guides, where they went up the wrong gully and were forced to do some nasty bushwacking to crest a ridge to the proper gully. After hiking for about ten minutes up the gully Ron voiced concern that he may have led us into the wrong gully. He then scouted ahead while Caroliegh and I waiting. Luckily, he soon found the beginning of the ice and we headed up to meet him. Once we caught up, we started to put our harnesses and crampons on. I was then informed that I would have the chance to practice my short-roping skills on ice. I was not expecting this but hey, I could use the practice. While I prepared my coils for short-roping, Ron began instructing Caroliegh on how to use the crampons. We made our way up the low angled frozen creek until we caught up with Ron at a sheet of vertical ice. I was stoked. Finally, we would get to swing our tools. When I arrived, Ron pointed out that there were already ice screws with quickdraws in the ice. He had soloed up and placed the screws on this pitch for me to lead up. Time to pinkpoint this pitch

I headed up. It was a very chill pitch. I would guess it goes at WI2. After a few screws, the angle lessens. I continued up with no protection, I didn't get any more screws from Ron, to a tree that is used as a rappel station. There I belayed Caroliegh up while Ron climbed along side her to help her out. While we were at the rappel station, you could hear Bella below whining. Bella had ascended the slope next to the creek which was just a snow covered hill. Now with a wall of ice impeding her ascent she became unhappy. Until suddenly, a very happy looking dog appeared in the brush next to us. It was Bella. She found an alternate route to the side of the vertical ice. We continued up the creek from there to another wall of ice. This one was taller and steeper than the first. When I arrive Ron has this goofy looking grin on his face which means that I get to lead this one as well.

This pitch, according to Ron, is a WI3. It has four vertical sections broken up by good stances. I started climbing. At the first stance, I placed my first screw. Then I continued up the next vertical section. During this part I began to get wet from the climb dripping on me. I reach the second stance and place another screw. Things are looking good. From here I head up to the third stance and place my third screw. Here I chill out for a little bit and scope out the best way to the top of the climb. The next section, I traverse to the left to surmount the next vertical section to the last stance. At the last stance, I am only a few moves from the top of the pitch. I considered placing a screw here but chose not to mostly because I just wanted to get to the top quickly. I start up the last section. I am able to reach past some ice that isn't that great but I must use it for my feet. Right before pulling the lip to the top, My left foot comes off the ice. Luckily, my axes are in good so I grip down and pull myself up just a bit to get my feet back on good ice. One or two moves later and I am standing up top of my first true ice lead. From there I brought Caroliegh up. Ron made his way up by some other means. At the top of this pitch we decided to head back to the car then get a lap or two in at 215. We rappelled down and made our way back to the car.

This day got me very excited for the trip that Fox Mountain Guides is taking to New Hampshire in February. I just hope I will have time to get out and climb a lot. It is going to be a great trip. If you would like to learn about how you can join us feel free to contact me.

*WI is the prefix for a Water Ice rating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_climbing this link will give you a good description of ratings.

Applejack Crack

2011-12-22T17:30:00.000-08:00

Last April, before I left for North Carolina, I did a climb at Jackson Falls in southern IL called Applejack Crack. It is a 5.11b "solution off-width." I even wrote about my first attempt at redpointing this route in an entry titled "Fighting." I attempted to redpoint it once after that first attempt falling at the first nasty bulge crux on the route. I have not had a chance to get back on the route since I moved. I logged this climb in the back of my mind as a project with the hope of returning to get the redpoint.

Fast forward a few months to the beginning of November. A few of the guides went to Foster Falls in Tennessee to play on some steep sandstone and hopefully to do a bit of training. It was on that trip that one of the guides made a comment to me about having to climb a 5.11 off-width to be a real 5.11 climber (paraphrased). This made me think of that 5.11 off-width at Jackson Falls that I still wanted to redpoint. It was at that time when I started to make plans to make another attempt at it. I knew I was going to be heading back home at Christmas so that became the time to do it. I just had to hope that the weather would cooperate to allow a decent attempt. December in Illinois can be very finicky. One day it might be 50 degrees and sunny and another it will be 25 and snowing. I wouldn't mind the snow but I was hoping for a day that would yield dry and somewhat warm rock.

This past week, I finished making the plans for the attempt. I was going to meet up with my friend Travis and we were going to head down to Jackson Falls on the 21st of December. I started watching the forecast. Though the forecast didn't have any rain in it for the 21st, it did have rain forecast for the two days prior. This would not be good. Jackson Falls sits in a depression in the hills of southern IL. Water from a huge area all runs down to this little sandstone gorge. There are routes that down there that are dry only during the driest years. I had to just hope that Applejack Crack would be dry enough to climb.

After parking and hiking for a few minutes, things didn't look good. We had talked that if we had to we could just hike around so the day wouldn't be wasted. We dropped down to the base of the bluffs and hiked over two creeks flowing with larger than average amounts of water. Every route we looked at on the way to Applejack had some water on it if not completely covered in water. We then came to a wall called the Gallery. It has many 5.10s that are great warm-ups and normally stay dry since the formation they are on is not connected to the main bluff line. Even most of those routes were wet. We then turn the corner and find a popular 5.10c, Group Therapy, completely dry. There was hope. We would at least be able to climb that. I then continue another 100 feet down the trail to Applejack. It is then that I start to get psyched. It appeared to be mostly dry. I was very surprised. Normally cracks like this stay wet for days after a rain but it seemed dry enough to climb even with rain the day before. After this we hiked back to Group Therapy to warm up.

I had done this route many times but this time if felt super easy. I was excited. After Travis made his way up the route we decided to top-rope a crack to the left that would join Group Therapy a bit over halfway up the wall. Once done with that we walked around a bit so that I could get my body temperature back up in preparation for the battle that would soon engulf me. At the base I began my preparations. I flaked out the rope, I drank a bit of water and then started racking up. I then studied the route trying to remember the moves. I recalled the first little bouldery section that is not protectable and I remembered a few of the moves that spit me off on my previous attempt. I figured that the rest would come to me once I was up there. So I tied in, put my climbing shoes on then stepped to the plate.

The first part went down with out any problem. I remembered all the moved on the short boulder problem, got to the jugs, then placed my first piece above me in the shallow hand crack. From there I moved up to the flaring slot. Once I was here, I considered retreating since a few of the holds were wet and I couldn't remember any of these moves. Instead I kept moving getting up to the base of the nasty bulge section. There I chilled out a bit in preparation for the few moves that lay ahead. After placing the largest cam I own (#5 Camalot) I went into the first crux section. There I got the my previous redpoint high point. I have never pulled this move without falling on the first try. This day though, I wiggled up in the crack, placed my foot on the foothold on the edge of the crack and reached up to the holds just to the right of the crack. A feeling of relief came over me but just a little too soon. I then had to get a piece of gear in the smaller crack in the back of the off-width so I could take the #5 out since I place it again later on. I couldn't find the right piece. Finally after fiddling with tricams for a a few minutes I slammed in a #.5 Camalot and moved on. From here you get a great rest before tackling the next off-width section.

This section doesn't fair as much with allows you to arm-bar, chicken-wing, leg-bar, and just plain grunt your way up it. I worked part way up this section trying to remember the moves. I had forgotten that there really isn't any particular sequence. You just wiggle, grunt, and flail your way up. Luckily, at one point I was able to get myself stuck enough to rest and place a piece of protection. After continuing and getting to another good spot for gear, I realized that the hold I was using was very damp. This did not inspire much confidence for making the final off-width moves. Luckily, the crack was dry enough to continue to struggle my way up to ledge just below the top. From here there are only a few 5.7 moves to the top. Upon reaching the top, I was surprised by a shiny new set of bolts. I set an anchor, cloved myself in and let out a shout of relief and of joy. It was over.

As I mentioned in the previous post about this route, it is one that you hate while doing it. It isn't until you are back on the ground that you appreciate the struggle that you just went through to climb that feature. It also makes you want to throw up. While I was belaying Travis up the route, I felt sub-optimal in the nausea category. Luckily, that subsided after a few minutes. After his own struggle up the route, Travis arrived at the anchors. There we celebrated the redpoint with a high five then made our way back to the ground. The thing about off-widths is that they drain your entire body of its energy. Travis was done for the day and I had nothing else I felt like climbing so we headed back to the car. There we proceeded to have a dance party until I could no longer stand the electric/dance music.

To end this, here are some pictures of me on Applejack crack from this past spring.

First Trip Up Whitesides

2011-11-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

Around this time last fall, I began preparing for a trip to North Carolina the week of Thanksgiving. I had never been here before but had heard of the great climbing there. To prepare, I began looking on Mountainproject.com and bought a guide book. Once the guide book arrived, I would read it constantly. One place more than others caught my attention and that was Whitesides. With adjectives such as "most-feared," "biggest and baddest," and "serious aura;" I was lured into studying some of the long and committing routes on its southeast face. Upon going through ever route in the guidebook I noticed one thing, this stuff is hard. With the easiest route going free at 5.11a or 5.10c/A0, it would not be an easy task to make it up this wall. Over the course of the month of November, I prepared for a possible encounter with this massive wall of rock. Those plans never went through. Due to a poor looking forecast and my trip partner not sure if he could go, I cancelled the trip and went to Arkansas for the week.

Once I moved to North Carolina, the thought of going to Whitesides scared me. I had experienced some climbs here in NC that pushed me to physical and mental limits and they were supposed to be easier than the easiest route at Whitesides. How was I ever going to do it?

This past August, I was shadowing a course with one of the adjunct guides here, Todd. Todd wanted me to take him up the Original Route at Whitesides. I agreed to do it but wanted to wait until fall so that the temps would be better. Then after looking at requirements for AMGA courses/exams, I decided to post-pone it until after taking the rock instructor course so that it would be able to count towards those requirements. After the course ended, I emailed Todd asking when he wanted to go do it. Unfortunately, Todd's schedule was just too busy to make the trip happen. Now I was forced to search out another partner that would let me "guide" them up the route. Luckily, I found the perfect victim in one of the other guides, Michael. A few weeks ago, we agreed that we would climb the OR (Original Route) on Monday, November 7th. This weekend then came upon us. We each had to work but in the evenings, we talked and planned our day. Finally, it was Monday morning. We woke up only slightly early. At 7 we left to head towards Highlands.
It was a nice crisp morning with a forecasted high of 61 degrees. Splitter conditions.

After arriving at the parking lot, we geared up and began our approach. From the descriptions, I expects a bit of gnarly terrain that we would have to descend. At Whitesides, you park on the northwest side of the mountain. From there you hike up the summit trail for a few minutes. Once you hit the ridge, you start down a climbers trail that leads to the base of the southeast face. I expected it to be most like the gullies that you find up in the Linville Gorge. This approach was quite nice. Once at the base, you have about a 25 minute hike until you reach the base of the OR. Along the way, we were awed by the size and steepness of the headwall on this face. After about 45 minutes of hiking, we reached the start of our route. Now it was time to muster up some courage and head up this intimidating mass of rock.

Looking up from the base. The first pitch climbs the two white streaks to the right.

The first pitch was one of the pitches that worried me some. Even though it is only rated 5.7, it also does not offer any protection. I knew this. I started up the route anyways. I did manage to find one piece of pro about 100 feet up. After about 140 feet, you hit a ledge. There I slung a tree and moved left on the ledge, towards the second pitch, to set a belay. After a few minutes, Michael joined me at the ledge.

Michael climbing the first pitch.

The second pitch proved to be a bit heady as well. After going to the left side of the ledge, you hit a flake which does not offer much protection. From there you move through a small roof on large holds and continue up on easy ground to the next ledge. This is a huge ledge with many trees and vegetation. From this ledge, you go left once again until the ledge joins with some cracks that head up. After just a little while in the crack, you traverse right to hit a really fun flake that then joins a big corner. Then once you are able to, you traverse back left on to a large ledge with a double bolt anchor. These two pitches go at 5.8 and 5.7. The hardest part is managing rope drag on the third pitch.

Once on this ledge, you are looking at this section of rock that originally was rated 5.9+. Now it is given a rating of 5.10c. The difficulty isn't the big issue though. The problem is if you fall before clipping the bolt part way up the pitch. Since you start off on a ledge, you are very likely to hit this ledge. You get one piece of protection before the bolt. It is a solid cam. The only problem is that you are still close to that ledge when you place it. So once you move above the piece, you are hoping that your belayer is paying close attention. Once I started up the pitch, I was super nervous. I probed into the moves a few times but felt uncomfortable. Finally, I committed to the moves that put me up near the cam that I placed from the ledge. After this, you have to bear down on a crimp, reach really high for a good hold and hope that your feet stay on long enough to move them onto something better. Well my first time trying this move resulted in my feet coming off the their holds and me falling towards the ledge. Michael caught me right as I hit the ledge. My left foot must have hit the ledge or something on the fall because it had a slight bit of pain. After a few minutes of regaining my composure I went back up to that piece of gear. I then attempted to aid through that section but did so without any luck. The bolt was just a bit too high for me to reach. I was now forced to free the moves. This second time I beared down and latched the good hold, moved my feet up and clipped the bolt. From there I moved up a few moves into easier terrain. Once up on the ledge, I began the process of trying to settle my nerves so that I wouldn't freak out too much on the upcoming pitches. Pitch four was done. It was my biggest worry for the day.

The next pitch was just some 5.7 climbing up to a stance below a small roof. It must not have been that great since I can't remember much about it. The sixth pitch though was uber-good. While looking at it from the belay atop the fifth pitch, I could tell that I was going to have some exposure right off the belay. Once I was put on belay, I started up this little dihedral that I built my anchor in. I soon found out that it wasn't the way I was supposed to go. Instead, you do this airy traverse to the right off of the belay and head up to a dihedral to the right of that little roof. It was very exposed and unprotected until I hit the roof line. There I got a piece and moved into the dihedral. At one point, I got a bit confused as to where the easiest path was. Eventually, I figured it out, made some super sweet moves and hit a ledge. From this ledge, you continue up to the belay. This is the most exposed belay on the entire route. You have only a few holds to stand on and you are mostly hanging from the anchor.

Michael finishing up the sixth pitch.

The next pitch is the crux pitch if you are trying to free it. It goes at 5.11a but is well protected by three bolts. These bolts also allow you to aid through the section making the rating A0. Once I reached the first bolt, I decided to just aid through this section. The moves looked very long and by this point I had given up on moves that would be made more difficult for me due to my size. Above the bolt ladder though, the climbing eases up and you are just climbing on big jugs. From the top of this next pitch, you can decide to stay with the OR or finish on Traditions.

View from the belay below the Bolt Ladder Pitch

We opted to finish on Traditions. It offers a more direct line to the top but with some harder climbing. Also, most people said that it is much more enjoyable than finishing on the last pitches of the OR. The eighth pitch then, hits a bolted ramp that has some 5.9 moves eventually hitting a large ledge. The ninth pitch is a steep 5.10a pitch with two bolts. I was told that this pitch was good but never imagined that it was as much fun as it was. From the belay, you continue to the left side of the ledge. There you hit a flake system. Near the top of the flake, you clip a bolt then make long, overhanging moves on jugs. After that you continue straight up on some easier jugs until you hit a big tree ledge in which you have to tunnel through vegetation to get on. While leading this pitch, I couldn't help but yell out of excitement. I am up a few hundred feet, pulling on jugs in overhanging, exposed terrain with good protection. I still have a huge smile on my face from that one pitch. I may also be bold enough to say that it is my single favorite pitch that I have climbed in North Carolina. This ledge offered a great place to sit and relax for a few minutes. Michael and I chilled on this ledge for a while, enjoyed a snack while checking out the amazing views offered from our perch.

The last pitch was before us. Michael had asked if he could lead one pitch on the route, so I gave him the rack and he headed up a 5.8 pitch taking us to the top. Once we were both up top, we organized the gear, coiled the rope, took a summit picture, and then headed down the trail back to the parking lot. Once at the parking lot, we enjoyed some burritos we had made. This was a great way to cap off an amazing day of climbing. This was one of the best routes I had done in North Carolina. I can see why it is such a classic route. It offers fun, bold climbing up an exposed face. I can't wait to go back and do some more climbing on this face.

Summit Shot!

New Ground at Laurel

2011-11-06T05:31:00.000-08:00

A while back, Ron was telling me about a line that he wanted to do with some clients that was easier climbing at Laurel Knob. This past week, we went there to equip the route with proper protection. Ron had previously done the route without these permanent anchors. Without the bolts though, it would not be very safe for climbers looking for routes that are easier. The whole thought of the route was to get an introduction route for people looking to slowly break into the climbs at Laurel Knob. Before this, 5.8 was the easiest route. So when Ron asked me if I wanted to go to Laurel to equip the route I was stoked.

On Tuesday we headed out there. Once we hiked to the base of the route, called Biopsy (5.7), Ron described the route from the ground. After that he took off with drill in tow and began the process of making this climb safe for the 5.7 climber. Ron would climb up to a stance, drill a hole, hammer the bolt in, and then tighten down the nut. This process happened a few times, then he belayed me up to the top of the first pitch. The first pitch starts off with an easy slab, past one bolt then hits a vertical bulge that you must navigate. A high bolt on this section can be reached from the slab to offer protection from breaking your ankles on the slab while pulling one of the hardest moves on the route. After the bulge, you have another section of easier slab protected with one bolt half way to the belay.

Ron on the crux move of the first pitch of Biopsy

The second pitch continues up this slab. It offers one bolt, a less than ideal gear nest, and a whole for a cam to protect the pitch. It is easier climbing (5.5) but still fun. From there the third pitch passes two bolts and heads for a brushy ledge called Three Way Ledge. This pitch goes at 5.4.

From this ledge you have some options. Above you, there are two distinct water grooves and just to the right is an obvious line of weakness. This day, Ron offered for me to do the middle line. He said that it had not been done before. He offered me the first ascent of the pitch. I was stoked. I went up with just trad gear. After some slab climbing, I came to the base of the water groove. I got a piece of gear, then started up the groove. It had some interesting moves and protected fairly well. After I got through it, I set a belay part way up the last pitch and brought Ron up. This pitch is rated 5.8 and called Socket Rocket. If you were to do the line to the right, it is the original line for Biopsy and goes at 5.7. It has two bolts protecting the pitch and can take natural gear as well. The line to the left is a bit harder and is protected by two bolts right at the crux. This line is called Yes Ma'am and goes at 5.9. Each line is really fun and offers different styles of climbing from the other lines. My suggestion would be to lead up to the ledge, then climb each line before continuing on to the top.

Me getting the FA on the Socket Rocket pitch

The last pitch goes right of the water groove and hits a small vertical section which has a very well protected 5.6 move. From there you pass two bolts to a rappel station on a tree. It is a very fun climb and will probably have the 5.7 thinking on a few of the moves.

After we got off of this route, Ron and I headed towards the main area of Laurel to get a few more pitches in. After passing Seconds (5.8) we saw a line that looked fun. I recognized it as Stemming Laurel. I was stoked to get on it because it looked really fun. Ron led the first pitch. It has some sections that have potential for long falls. But Ron, as usual, completed the pitch with style. I led the second pitch. It was a bit harder but followed a very obvious crack up the face. The climbing at first was super fun and protected well. Higher up though, the climbing became a bit trickier and I was not able to protect it like I wanted since we only brought a single rack with us that day. After making some committing moves well above a poorly placed purple C3 I made it to the anchors. From here we rappelled back to the ground since we had to get back home.

The next day, Ron, Karsten, and I headed back to Laurel. This time to finish equipping Biopsy and put up some new stuff. I led up all of Biopsy while Ron and Karsten put in the remaining bolts. From the top, we traversed to the right and rappelled to a huge terrace with tons of trees. There Ron and Karsten each put up some new single pitch lines that went on natural gear. These routes were 5.9 and 5.10a. After this, Ron and I top roped a line to the left. It may go near 5.12. It has some super fun moves with good holds. While we were at this wall, I eyed some lines that I am thinking about putting some time into as well. After we were done playing here, we went back near Biopsy and possibly put up another two pitch line that hits the Three Way Ledge. We are still trying to verify its virgin status as a route.

Karsten climbing into the unknown on a new route.

Overall, it was a great two days. I learned a bit about route development. We each had a chance for some first ascents and have looked at more virgin terrain for the future. I highly suggest checking out Biopsy. Though it doesn't have the stigma of some of the other routes at Laurel, it is a great climb for those looking for a challenge at that grade. You can find information about the climb here on the Carolina Climbers Coalition's website.
http://carolinaclimbers.org/forums/biopsy-57-laurel-knob.html

Rock Instructor Course

2011-10-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

Ever since I moved to North Carolina, I have been preparing for the AMGA'srock instructor course. I spent my summer getting the required resume andtechnical skills. It seemed like a daunting task at first. Iarrived having only a dozen or so multipitch climbs under my belt but needed50. When everyone told me it would be easy to get the required climbs, Ilaughed until I managed to complete multiple multipitch climbs in a since dayearly on. From then on, it was game on. Then in August I was ableto complete the requirements by climbing two grade III routes in a few days.

From that point on, my focus shifted to getting in shape. Since my heel wasbetter I attempted to start running but realized that I don't likerunning. Instead I made it a goal to do something everyday whether thatbe running, hiking, climbing, or a combination of them. Then Septemberhit. Work slowed down but it seemed like I was still busy a lot of thetime. I was either working on the house I lived in, guiding, or climbing. Eventually trying to get in shape fell by the wayside. Then the weekbefore I was to leave for Oregon, I had to drive to Illinoisunexpectedly. Once back in North Carolina, I rushed around getting thingspacked and in order for me to leave. Luckily, Monday morning I was allset to make my way to Central Oregon.

Once in Oregon I felt I could relax finally. I was here. Thenext day, I went out to Smith Rock to get used to the funky rock there and setup camp. Since I flew I did not have a car so I would be staying at thebivy site right there in the park. The first morning of the course Iawoke at 5 AM, well before my alarm. After going through what wouldbecome my normal morning routine, I headed to the rendezvous point for the firstday of the course. In full character of myself, I arrived at the setmeeting location 45 minutes early. I then had the privilege to sit thereand enjoy the cool, brisk autumn air. Finally, after everyone arrived thecourse initiated. We went over introductions, the goals of the course,and a few other discussions about professionalism, guides notebooks, guidemeetings, risk management, and what every guide should have with them. Atthis point it was close to noon so we took off for the North Point at Smith Rock.

The North Point is a great teaching location but not on this day. Itnever seemed to warm up that day and the North Point stays in the shade givenits norther aspect. There we went over protection, anchors, knots,belaying and other basic skills that we should have known before arriving atthe course. We then jumped into belaying with the plaquette device(ATC-Guide, Reverso, GiGi). From there we learned belaying multipleclients up a pitch and also rope management at a belay station.

The second day started in a very similar fashion. After a guidesmeeting, we went down to the dihedrals area and went over descenttechniques. This involved lowers and rappelling. I learned a lot inthese lessons, especially in the area of client care. After going overthese things and practicing it was time to hit the rock. I started bydoing a route called Bookworm (5.9). It starts as a hand crack and widensto an offwidth at the top of the first pitch. From there we followed abolt line and joined up with the second pitch of Bunny Face. I wasclimbing with Keith (one of the instructors), Max, and Claude. I broughtthem up each pitch then did a single double rope, stacked rappel to get ussafely back to the ground. While Keith was coming up on a fixed line, hebroke a hold off. This was the start of encountering poor rock conditionsfor the remainder of the course.

Keith Garvey demonstrating lowering techniques

After that route, Max led us up an easy bolted line to the top of theCinnamon Slab area. Then Claude led a gully/ chimney route that ended on aledge shared with Cinnamon Slab. When I got up there, every person fromthe course was hanging out on this ledge which comfortable fits 3. It wasprobably quite a site for those climbers around us to see everyone crowded onthat ledge.

On daythree of the course, we split up into two groups. Max and Claude went with Angela while Ryan,Leslie and I went with Keith. They weregoing to do a demo of a guided multipitch route. Keith chose White Satin (5.9) to take usup. This route only has one good pitchwhich is the third and also presents many guiding challenges. I managed to get hit in the helmet by afalling rock while belaying Keith on the third pitch. This route also showed us that the rock wasnot the best quality on the multipitch routes. After topping out, we rappelled onto the back (west) side of Smith. We then made our way over to SpidermanButtress. There Leslie led up twopitches. After he leads, I was given therack and told to take us to the top. Once up on top of the buttress, Ryan was in charge of getting usdown. We did two rappels back to theground, closing out day three.

Keith on the top of White Satin

On day four we spent the whole day learning short-roping techniques. Since it was a Saturday, we decided to avoid the crowds during this day of instruction. We elected to hike to the top of the Smith Rock Group. This is the massive group of rock formations to the southwest of the main part of the park. The top of the group has a good selection of easier scrambling terrain in which to practice short-roping and short-pitching techniques used when guiding 3rd and 4th class terrain. I really enjoyed learning the "ropes" of guiding this type of ground. Later in the day, we had to short-rope over to a summit pinnacle and then guide each other up it. It was a very short easy pitch but it led to some great views of the entire park. The only bad part about the day was that it was really sunny that day. I managed to get some heinous helmet strap tan lines. For the rest of the course we were able to apply these techniques to everyday guiding.

Angela Hawse showing us how to short-rope two people

Day fivewas one in which we just did mock guiding all day. That day, I was grouped with Ryan and Maxwith Angela as our instructor. Ouroriginal plan was to climb Zebra-Zion, top out, then head over to the MonkeyFace and climb the West Face Variation. Well people were just starting the first pitch of Zebra-Zion so weheaded over to Phone Call from Satan (5.9) and did that as a first pitch intoSolar (5.9). Ryan led all three pitchesof this route. It was a really fun routewith a great position on the third pitch. After topping out, Max was in charge of the “decent” It wasn’t really a descent since we continuedup with a long pitch then split into two groups and short pitched up thisridgeline to the top.

Once offof the ridge, I led us to our next objective, the West Face Variation but toour dismay a group had just started up the first pitch. Our back up plan was to do Trezlar but thatwas also taken. We resolved to climbTale of Two Shitties (5.10a). I led upthe first pitch hoping for a good belay ledge. I reached on spot that would accommodate us with minimal discomfort butthe gear was so bad for an anchor that I continued up into the dihedral of thesecond pitch to set an anchor in better quality rock. The second pitch is a beautiful dihedral thatgoes to an overhanging, juggy crack. The dihedral was a lot offun but a bit heady. I didn’t know thatit stayed about the same size the entire time. For most of the pitch, the crack remains in the size range of #1 and#.75 camalots. I could have used onemore of each to protect the pitch adequately. Instead, I just have to push through some sections of it. Finally, at the overhanging part, I resortedto resting on a solid #.4 camalot before tackling the final jugs. After resting for a minute I took off up thejugs and made it to a nice ledge from which to belay. Once everyone was up, we decided that adecent was the best option given the time so we did two rappels back to theground. I beat myself up over thisroute. I felt I could have done muchbetter than I did but After looking back the only bad thing I did was choose aroute that was a bit too close to my limit to guide three people up.

Day sixwas our rescue drill and scenario day. The weather was supposed to be sub-optimal for the day so we had abackup plan of going to the Bend Rock Gym and doing the drill there. Luckily, the rain came early on and scootedoff to the east early in the day. Westarted out by going over different aspects of rescue techniques under thepavilion at Smith. Then after lunch weheaded to the north point so that we could all get a chance to run through therescue drill. The first run I was thepatient. I had the privilege to hangfrom a rope for 40 minutes. Luckily Ibrought a prussic and a four foot sling so that I could stand up on that. Next I had a chance to run through it. I had done it before in the shop at theheadquarters for Fox Mountain Guides but this would be my first time onvertical terrain. It is a bittougher. I ended up having some troubleswith ascending back up a fixed line so my time was not as good as I washoping. That will change soonthough. Once we finished the drill, I decidedto climb a route that was right there just to get some climbing in thatday. It was enjoyable to climb a shortsport route.

Dayseven, we resumed the mock guiding. Iwas teamed up with Ryan and Angela. Wehad been given guiding assignments of Voyage of the Cowdog (5.9) and Pekinginto Moscow (5.8). Given the location ofVoyage of the Cowdog and the relative temperature we elected to not do it sinceit would be in the shade all day. Instead we started out with Peking to Moscow, which Ryan led us up. He did a marvelous job. Then we hiked back down to our packs. From there I led up us Super Slab (5.6). If you haven’t done that route before, Iwould suggest you do it. It has some ofthe best rock we encountered at Smith. It provided some guiding challenges but I felt that I nailed it. For the first time on the course, I felt likeI was doing really well. The only thingthat I was critiqued on was a runnout on the last pitch.

Ryan on the final pitch of Super Slab

On theeighth day, I was teamed up with Angela and Leslie. We were going to do another up and overday. We started on Cinnamon Slab andtook that to the top. From there wecrossed over and descended besides the Spiderman Buttress. That felt a bit adventurous because we got togo down a slot to get back to the ground. From there we hiked to the base of the West Face Variation (5.8). Our plan was to take it to the top by thediving board. The first pitch isstellar. It get airy just 20 feet off ofthe ground with a fun move around an arête on to the face. From there you go up some blocks to a killerdihedral. After the dihedral you have afew bulges to navigate and then you arrive at the belay. Most parties go left from here and do the directvariation to the notch between the main wall and Monkey Face. We continued up a 5.6 pitch that traversesright around a roof. It then cuts backleft to the bolted anchor. This pitch proved to be one of the mostchallenging. After coming around theright side of the roof, I got a good look at the next pitch. It looked horrible and had a good number ofpigeons guarding it. Also, I noticedthat if I were to go to the bolted anchor it would produce a ton of rope dragand put a very nasty traverse into the pitch. At first I checked out a crackstraight above me. It didn’t look likeit would yield sufficient gear for an anchor. Then I went to the base of the dihedral of the next pitch. The rock there looked crappy. So against what I should have done, I went tothe bolted anchor and started to haul up rope. When Angela came around the side of the roof and saw what was beforeher, she very gently told me that having a traverse like that would notfly. To bring Leslie up, I went over tothat initial crack, took more time to find gear then belayed her up to thecrack, then down to the bolted anchor. From there we rappelled back down to the ground but not without a fewsnags. When pulling the rope from thefirst rappel, it got stuck on a chock stone in a chimney. I then had to climb back up to free it. Once we were back down, Leslie took us overto the Kiss of the Lepers area. There wedid the first pitch of First Kiss (5.7). That concluded our day.

Theninth and final day to be on the rock, I teamed up with Max and Keith. Max and I kind of tailored our day to giveKeith a chance to get on some classics that were a bit harder. We started off on the Picnic Lunch wall. There we warmed up on Honey Pot (5.9). After that we did Teddy Bear’s Picnic. It is three pitches of 5.10 that offer greatrock, good climbing, and an amazing position. It goes up this huecoed face then on to knob climbing. The second and third pitches traverseslightly to the left and get out on an arête to offer some sweet exposure. The cruxes are not super hard, justdelicate. Max did a great job on theclimb and on getting us back to the ground.

Max leading the way up Teddy Bear's Picnic

Afterthat, I led us up Misery Ridge trail over to the Mesa Verde wall. There we were going to do Cosmos (5.10a) intothe second pitch of Trezlar (5.10a). Ihad done this same route less than two years ago so I figures it would beeasy. I also had planned on us to rappelback down the route when we were finished. I started off up Cosmos. I forgotabout the tricky section right before the anchors. There I ended up grabbing the draw andfiguring the moves out since it is frowned upon to take a lead fall with aclient belaying. Even after scoping thesection out, I had to make a committing move on little knobs to reach theanchor. I skipped the anchors of Cosmosand went to the base of the amazing, overhanging dihedral that is the secondpitch of Trezlar. I brought up Max andKeith. From there I took off up thedihedral. I had a great time climbingit. Then at the top I set my anchor andextended myself so that I could see Keith and Max as they climbed. When Max reached the top, Keith suggestedthat we do the fourth class decent which goes off to the left. I wasn’t happy about this because I knew thatthe rappel would be the easiest way out. From that, I start making my kiwi coils to short-rope them back to theground. As it turns out, the descentinvolved a sketchy traverse, a rappel off of a pigeon crap encrusted pillar,and then skirting left until we were able to reach a trail. This was the most technical short-roping thatwe did the entire course. I was glad tobe back on the ground after that adventure. From there we moved to Spiderman Buttress and Keith had us do a drillwhere we made bail anchors with as little as possible. It was a good reminder that you can make asolid anchor with very little if you have to. Once we did that we high tailed it over Astriks Pass and back to theparking lot.

Thisconcluded out time on the rock. The nextday we didn’t meet until noon to do debriefs. I was rather surprised at how I did on the course. It went very well and I learned a ton. As I am finishing writing this I am flyingback to North Carolina and I am super excited to put all of these skills to usefor guiding.

Sketching on the South Side

2011-09-15T07:52:00.001-07:00

This week, Lindsay and I went out again to get in someclimbing. This time, we went to thesouth face of Looking Glass. We go thereoften to guide because it has many single pitch moderate routes which arefairly easy to set up. I had some of the5.8 multipitch routes there. If you goto this area, you have to do them. Theyare very enjoyable and aren’t as scary as some other routes in the area,specifically the routes that we got on this past Monday.

Sunday evening Lindsay and I started looking at a guide bookto plan our day of climbing on Monday. Ihad been wanting to do Rat’s Ass and Windwalker. Rat’s Ass is supposed to be one of the best5.8’s of the ones on the south side and I have not done it yet. Windwalker is just to the left and goes at5.9. I figured that would be easy. She wanted to do one of the 5.10s on the farleft side. We decided to start on RubyTuesday then head over to Windwalker. Ifigured that this would only take a little while given that they are both only2 maybe 3 pitches max. I greatlyunderestimated these routes.

We started off on Ruby Tuesday. This is a 2 pitch route with both pitchesgoing at 5.10. I elected to take thefirst pitch. After about 10-15 feet ofclimbing I found a small cam placement then had no idea where to go. After probing into the moves multiple times,I finally committed to making the dicey moves and moved through thatsection. After which I was able to getmy first really good piece of gear. Thensome easy moves led to another cruxy section. This involved making some more committing moves with gear that was lessthan comforting. Finally, I made it tothe belay after about 65 feet. I thenbelayed up Lindsay. She floated all themoves. At my last piece she had toremark at how crappy the placement was. It turns out, that the cam had rotated some and two lobes were notcammed at all. But that was no longer aconcern of mine since I was sitting semi-comfortably at the belay with a lessthan comfortable stance.

About the time that Lindsay was about to take off from thebelay, we heard a voice in distance calling for Lindsay. It was Sarah who was supposed to be joiningus. We had originally figured we wouldget this route done with then meet up with her but the first pitch took a lotlonger than I had figured. Now we were aparty of three heading up this route. Lindsaystarted to lead up the second pitch while Sarah chilled at the base. Then once Lindsay felt she was on morecomfortable ground, I brought up Sarah while lead belaying Lindsay. Now I have top belayed multiple people manytimes but lead belaying and top belaying at the same time throws a curveball atyou. Luckily, everyone arrived at theirdesired goal without completely testing my belaying skills. Lindsay did an amazing job on her lead. The moves up the water groove on the secondpitch are a bit dicey. Eventually, wewere all sitting at the top of the climb preparing for the rappel. We made it back to the ground and headed overto Windwalker.

Once at the base of Windwalker, we checked the time andfound out that it was 12:30 already. Wethen ate some food and Lindsay took the lead up the first pitch ofWindwalker. She started into the mainbusiness and came back down to a nice ledge. There she decided to have us come up and we would go up from there. Once all three of us were on the ledge, shetook off again into the water polished face. She made it about 30 feet up and encountered a move above some gear thatwas questionable and decided that she had already been mentally taxed enoughfor the day. She then came back to thebelay. Sarah then took the sharp end andbusted out some sweet moves on these really slick holds. It also helped that Sarah had done this routebefore. Lindsay and I then followed upthe route. Once I got to where Lindsayhad been I realized why she came back down. The moves are sketchy. I thought Iwas going to blow it while on top rope.

Once at the belay, I was handed the rack for the secondpitch. It goes at 5.5 so I figured itwould be a simple tromp up the face. Ittoo presented its own challenges but nothing like the first pitch. I stretched the pitch all the way to the topsince it looked like some rain was coming in. At the top I belayed Lindsay and Sarah up the 200+ foot pitch wearingmyself out fighting rope drag while belaying. Once we were all at the top we headed back down to the ground. I can’t speak for the ladies but I was donefor the day. Physically, I was fine butmentally I didn’t want to do any more climbing.

I have found it funny how when you get on a route thatchallenges you mentally, you become more worn out than when you are on aphysically demanding route. Thathappened to me that day. It was goodthough. I managed to push myself out ofmy comfort zone and commit to moves that felt like I was going to come off atany moment. It is always funny to lookback and see how much the mind affects the body’s ability to perform. We had a good day still. Now I eagerly await the next day we can getout on the rock to prepare for what awaits us in October.

Julia

2011-09-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

The other day, Lindsay and I headed up to Shortoff Mountainto get some climbing and training in. InOctober we are both enrolled in either a course or exam for the AmericanMountain Guides Association’s rock discipline. She is taking her Rock Guide Exam and I am taking the Rock InstructorCourse. Even though I am only taking acourse, I want to be in good shape and be prepared for it as much aspossible. I remember feeling very out ofshape when I took the Single Pitch Instructors course and exam. That was mostly because I had to keep up withRon while hiking. Since Lindsay isgearing up to take the exam for the highest certification for the rockdiscipline, she has reason to be training and working on her technical skills.

When deciding on where to go, we decided to go toShortoff. First off, it has an approachthat will wear you out before you even get to the top. It is about a mile up hill. It isn’t so steep that you have to slow downor take big steps but it is steep enough that it can get you tired fast. Secondly, once at the top, you have toscramble down a gully. Lindsay used thisgully to practice her short roping skills. Short roping is a technique used by guides where they use of a smallsection of rope to aid in the clients ascent or descent of tricky 3^rdor 4^th class terrain. Theguide uses this to help prevent slips and falls. Another reason we chose Shortoff was that theclimbing there is normally really fun. It would have to be my favorite crag in North Carolina.

While planning our day, we decided to check out Julia,Little Corner, and maybe Ecumenical Serenade. Since neither of us had done these routes we were excited to get onsomething new. We had agreed thatLindsay would basically mock guide me up the routes. The next morning we met at the office around7 then began our trek to the Linville Gorge area.

Upon arriving at the parking lot we were a littledisappointed. The weather forecast forthe day had said that we would have mostly sunny skies with a high of 75. Instead we were greeted with overcast/foggyskies. The top of Shortoff appeared tobe in a cloud. We knew that things wouldbe wet since it had been raining the past couple of days but this guaranteedthat it would not be dry. Still we gotready then headed up the hill. I managedto set a pace that I was able to keep the entire approach but still movingquickly. Once at the gully we got gearedup and Lindsay stashed her pack. Shethen practiced her short roping skills as we went down the gully. It was a little weird being short ropedhere. I had been short roped once beforeand didn’t mind it. That day though Ifelt like one of those kids whose parents keep them on a leash so that theycan’t run away. Surprisingly, the rocksweren’t too wet. The only thing that wasreally wet were the plants. Even beforewe started down the gully, my pants were soaked from contact with the brushalong the trail.

Near the bottom of the gully, there is a section that has afixed line on it to aid in getting through the 10 feet of blocky, overhangingterrain. This rope was in sadshape. But we had brought a line inwhich we could replace it. Now you don’thave to hold on to this tattered rope while going down this section. After replacing that rope, we continued on toour climbs.

Lindsay putting in the new rope in the decent gully.

At the base we studied theroutes and the topo map to make sure we had the right route. After figuring out that we were at the chosenroutes, we decided to head up Julia first. It looked fun and dry. Lindsayheaded up the first pitch which is partially shared with Little Corner. It is a really fun crack but at a moss patchyou head left into this overhanging dihedral which is the crux of theroute. She ended up having massive ropedrag while leading this pitch. Eventually she got to the belay ledge and brought me up. The climbing was fun but there were a fewquestionable holds once you cut left to the dihedral.

The second pitch is a series of dihedrals with a roof or twothat you must navigate around. The firstpart had some questionable rock as well. Luckily, all the rock held while we climbed that pitch. During the lead, Lindsay once again hadtrouble with rope drag and had to expend more energy than normal to get to thebelay which was positioned under a roof/ flake system that goes out to theright.

Lindsay then took off to the right working with theflakes. She was able to get some goodgear soon off the belay which always makes me happy. Then while she was starting to pull up out ofthe flake/ roof system, her movement looked a little weird. The next thing I know, she is no longerattached to the rock and a chunk of rock is plummeting down the face. Once again, we had entered into the less thanquality rock. She was fine except forgetting a nasty flapper on one of her fingers. She then climbed back up, trying not to bleed all over the rock, andfinished out the pitch. From the belay,we had an easy 5^th class romp up some jugs to the top. Even on this pitch there were blocks thatwere frightenly loose. At one point myknee touched the rock and I heard it move. It confused me because I didn’t seeanything that appeared to be loose. Idid it again and I saw this flake that was lying horizontally move ever soslightly. It was about 2 inches thickand four feet wide. Luckily, we weredone with that route. We topped outaround 1 and from there decided that we were no longer motivated. It was still overcast and the adventurousnature of the climb left us fulfilled enough for the day. From there we packed up our gear and headedback to the car.

It was a good day even though the route was of lesserquality than we had hoped. We did whatwe came to do. That was get a workoutin, practice some skills, and climb. Expectto hear more of our training days in the following weeks.

Laurel Knob

2011-08-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

For those of you who follow my life through my blog, you will know that this past spring I moved to North Carolina to start guiding. You are probably thinking that we are getting tired of hearing this same thing being said in nearly every post. Well another reason why I came out here was to fulfill some of the requirements for the AMGA’s Rock Instructor Course. Some of the requirements deal with having to do a certain number of multipitch climbs. Being from Illinois, it is difficult to get in the number of multipitch climbing for the resume. It also requires one to have ten grade III climbs. Grade III climbs are generally described as taking most of a day of roped climbing. There can be other factors in that as well, such as approach length, bailing options, and of course the length of the climb. Yesterday, I had the chance to get another grade III route on my resume. We went to Laurel Knob.

Laurel Knob is said to be one of the tallest faces of rock east of the Rockies. For years, Laurel Knob was only climbed in secrecy. It’s not like Laurel is hidden in the backwoods of North Carolina in a place where only the die hearted can see it. From highway 64 just east of Cashiers, you have a decent view of the face. It would sit there taunting all climbers because it used to lie on private property. That didn’t keep people from stealthily going in and climbing. It amazes me that so many routes were put up in this stealth style. In the guide book it talks about a prominent first ascentionist putting leather over the striked end of his drill to make the strikes with the hammer quieter. While I can’t advocate trespassing to climb, it inspires me to read about how these men risked so much to climb this face.

Laurel Knob with Fathom in the center

These days, climbing at Laurel Knob is completely legal thanks to the Carolina Climbers Coalition purchasing Laurel Knob in 2006. They were able to do this thanks to generous climbers and the help of the Access Fund. Since then, the amazing granite routes at Laurel have been open to all climbers willing to embrace the challenges that the climbing there presents.

The climbing at Laurel Knob is very interesting. Like many other areas in Western North Carolina, you need to trust that certain laws of physics will remain constant. The main one is friction. The climbing isn’t exactly pure friction climbing for the entire route but unlike other places I have climbed, you have many sections where you are balancing over your feet on a smear that you are hoping will hold long enough to move past it. There are also many water grooves covering the face. These grooves offer places to stem and will have holds on them in which you can position your body in certain ways to apply force to either side of the groove so that your feet stay on the rock.

Besides the odd features, the protection can be somewhat limited. There are bolts throughout the routes and there are places for natural protection. Even still, you want to bring your A game. Blowing certain moves could lead to long falls down a slab. If you think you are up for that kind of challenge, I would recommend going out there and giving the routes a try. The climbing is fun, challenging, and offers a chance to really get some air under your feet.

Tracy following the third pitch

Now that the introduction is done, I can embark on my day at Laurel. I went there with another guide here at Fox, Tracy. Tracy is an amazing climber. She is always motivated to get out on the rock and be challenged. Because of this, I was glad to share a rope with her on this day. We decided on climbing a route called Fathom. Fathom follows one of the more striking features at Laurel, a right leaning dihedral that goes up the middle of the face. By leaning, I mean it goes at a 45 degree angle from the left and up to the right. It then hits a water groove that provides a path through the slightly overhanging wall above and to the left of the dihedral.

At the base of the route Tracy and I decided which pitches we would lead. I ended up with the odd pitches and she got the evens. Once I racked up and had gotten everything I needed, I headed up the first pitch. It follows the slab to the right of the dihedral up to a grass ledge where you can build a natural belay. It was a good warm up for what would come later in the route. Tracy led the second pitch which goes up the slab until it hits the crack again. From there it follows the crack to a ledge. I must clarify that even though there is a crack there, you are mostly slab climbing to the right of it. When you want or can get gear you take a step left and pug a piece in the crack. We now have two pitches down, a 5.6 and a 5.7 respectively.

Me following the fourth pitch

I then led the third pitch. It is given a 5.8 rating. Though that is well within my comfort zone, there were some tricky moves that I would not have wanted to blow. I think I was only able to get a few pieces of gear for the entire 130 foot pitch. When I reached the belay anchor, I started to realize that this was going to be a serious route. Tracy then led the fourth pitch. It was a 5.9 pitch that had to go around a bulge. She did an amazing job on that pitch. She knows how to keep it together when the gear is limited and you have to climb through some tricky terrain. After the bulge you come across some white, horizontal dikes that allow you to traverse over to the anchors. Those were a blast to climb on. Four pitches down, four more to go.

Me at the end of the fourth pitch wondering how much more slab climbing I have to do

The beginning of the fifth pitch makes an odd move into a massive flake then follows it back up to the crack. Once at the crack you have to traverse to the right, passing a bolt before reaching the belay. This pitch is rated 5.9. As you may have read, I injured my right foot earlier this year taking a fall on a traverse. Also, last spring when I was out in central Oregon, I took a fall after a traverse that resulted in me hitting my forearm on a sharp corner while swinging. Because of these two instances, traverses are something that I do not like. As you can imagine, this section of the climb was not that comforting to me. I remember that upon reaching the bolt, I felt a bit of relief but I still had to keep going right. I managed to find a horizontal that took a .5 camalot. That made things a bit better. After a few more tricky moves to the right, I made it to the belay. It was good to do something that challenged me like that. Too often I stay in my comfort zone. Coming out of that zone was a great way to build back that confidence.

Tracy leaving the belay on the fifth pitch

Once Tracy joined me on the ledge she prepared for the crux pitch. From the belay you go right a few feet and enter into a water groove. After one bolt, you hit the overhang. You clip a high bolt, then make some awkward moves to move past the overhang. The entire pitch has amazing climbing. Just beware, it can be a little slick in spots. I ended up falling on the overhang. As the second, I had to carry the rope which was in a pack that also had too much water in it (my own fault). The pack kept me from getting my body the way I wanted it on the wall and my feet slid out from under me. The second time I tried, I just pulled on the draw to get through it. Then later on in the pitch my foot slipped out from under me and I came off once again. This pitch was super humbling but amazing at the same time. Tracy had done all of the route up to this point on another trip but had not done the last two pitches. Today we would tackle them.

Tracy getting ready to belay me on the seventh pitch

The seventh pitch takes off right across this very low angled slab to a water groove. At the base of the water groove you clip a bolt then make some steep moves up the groove. About fifteen feet later I found sweet stopper placement. From there on up, there was no more gear. This put me in a mentally challenging place. I had to climb very well above that stopper or else I would come down and hit the lower angled slab. Luckily, I didn’t fall and make it to the belay praising Jesus. Tracy then took off up the last and final pitch. It starts in the same water groove as pitch seven but move right to another groove to finish. The last two pitches were a bit dirty but still fun. We had a great time climbing the route. So after 1010 feet we had to rappel back to the ground. The rappel follows Fathom Direct most of the way down the wall. It looks like an amazing climb and I cannot wait to come back again to try it.

Tracy coming up the last bit of the seventh pitch

So now, I need only one more grade III to complete the requirements for the Rock Instructor Resume. I am hoping that I can get back out to Shortoff to do some more routes there. If anyone would like to join me please let me know. Hopefully, I can come up with something amazing for my 50^th post. Be looking for it.

Of Gods and Men

2011-07-11T13:41:00.000-07:00

Last week, Brenden and I rented a movie called "Of Gods and Men." When he mentioned renting it from the local redbox I was a little hesitant. I was hoping for a more light hearted movie that night. Then he played the trailer for the film. After the minute and thirty seconds, I was wanting to see it. It took on a more serious tone than I expected and had some very interesting characters in the film.

The film takes place in Algeria in 1996 during the Algerian Civil war. The main characters are a group of nine Trappist monks. They reside in the monastery of Tibhirine. Around them, a village of Muslims had sprung up. They were very involved in the community. They lent medical aid to the villagers for free. They celebrated special occasions with the villagers. They also had somewhat of a co-dependance on one another.

During this time, a Muslim extremist group had risen up and had begun to use violence and terror tactics to force the people to live the way they saw that those of the Islamic faith should live. As the terror and violence became more wide spread, Algerian officials began to request that the monks leave the country for their own safety. Christian de Cherge was the prior of the monastery. He had made the decision to stay. Some of the other monks were scared of staying. On Christmas Eve, while one of the monks was locking the gates, members of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria stormed in and requested to speak to the Pope. After that confusion was figured out they settled on talking with Christian. It was great to see how he was able to calmly deal with the situation.

From there on in the movie, there is a continual discussion on whether to stay or go. Through different conversations, teaching, and events the monks all agree to stay. That is where they had been called to go and that is where they were going to continue their work. Even though this may give the movie away, seven of the nine monks were kidnapped and beheaded by the terrorist group. This took courage, humility, selflessness, and a love that goes beyond just the normal human capacity to love. At one point, the monk who was a doctor treated one of the terrorists. He made no distinction between him or any other man.

This movie was one that exemplifies some of the basic Christian virtues, namely love. I would recommend it to just about everyone to watch. There are some graphic scenes of violence and a bit of language but over all I believe that those make the turmoil all the more real. I would suggest going out and watching it. If you do, please comment on this post with your thoughts on the movie.

First Return Clients

2011-06-27T17:35:00.000-07:00

A week ago, I had the privilege of guiding a couple, Trudy and Ralph, at Chimney Rock Park. They had booked a half day of top-roping. I took then to an area called Wildcat Buttress. There are some great crack climbs there. The couple had been climbing before so I figured that they would be able to handle the routes I was going to put them on. They did well. The routes were just at their limit but they were able to make it up them. The biggest problem of going to Wildcat was that the trail there is very bad. There is a lot of loose rock, many obstacles, and it can be a little steep in some places. That was one of the biggest challenges that we faced that day. As we were talking through the day, I began to tell them about Looking Glass. They were interested in possibly doing another half day. I tried to sell them on coming over to Looking Glass and checking it out. We parted ways and then I began to wait to see if they would book for later in the week.

Fast forward to Thursday. The booking that I had for that day got rained out. Trudy had not booked again so I had figured that they were not going to want to do another day. That night, I received an email from Trudy. We then got things set to go hit up Looking Glass on Friday. I was stoked. My first return clients.

Trudy and Ralph at the top of the first pitch of the Nose

Friday morning arrives. They show up a little early and we head up to the Nose area. Once there we climbed The Nose. They really enjoyed it. Oh, it was also a beautiful day. There was a steady (should read strong) breeze and the temperature and humidity were lower than normal. After doing the first pitch of the Nose we moved over to do a variation of the first pitch of Sundial Crack. It was a bit trickier but they both enjoyed it. Finally, I swapped ropes with another of our guides here at Fox, Tracy. She had a rope set up going through a small roof about 60 feet up the wall. Trudy and Ralph both gave valiant attempts but failed to pull through the roof.

After we did that we were done for the day. I had a great time getting to work with them. I also managed to get some decent photos at Looking Glass. Here are a few of them.

In Need of Your Help

2011-06-23T04:56:00.000-07:00

I have been writing on this blog for a few years now. I haven't been the most consistent in writing posts over that time. Lately, it has gotten better. Since moving to North Carolina, I have been able to have more adventures, meet cool people, go to amazing places, and I also have days where I can sit, relax, and just write. With the added number of posts recently, I noticed that I am nearing a blogging milestone. My last post was number 45 and this one will be 46. Number 50 will probably come very quickly at this pace.

I was wanting to do something awesome for it. I don't want it to some normal run of the mill posting. I have thought about doing another picture blog but much larger than the one I did a bit over a year ago. I need some suggestions. So I am asking you, my readers, what you want to see on here. Leave a comment with your thoughts. Also, if you have been following me for a while, what was your favorite post so far?

Youth Group Mystery Trip

2011-06-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I was last in a youth group. I remember it being a lot of fun, a place to go for encouragement, more drama than there needed to be, and we would go on fun trips. This past week, Tracy and I had the privilege to guide a youth group from Florida.

This youth group goes on a mystery trip every year. Only the leaders know what is planned for the days of the trip. The youth don’t find out the day’s activities until they arrive at whatever destination is scheduled. This year they added rock climbing to the mystery trip. Some of the kids had been climbing, mostly inside, before.

Throughout the day, we had teen agers laying siege to The Nose on Looking Glass. It was great to see them encourage each other and help one another out when one would get stuck on a move. The one thing that I remember most about this group is that there were a few kids that loved to just hang out on the ledges. One girl was always racing up a route with her camera in tow so that she could get some good shots. Normally she would end up on a ledge and after 10 minutes, she would finally come down. I actually got a picture of three of the students just chilling on a ledge enjoying the view and the great weather we had.

So Much Climbing and Not Enough Skin

2011-06-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

This past week has been void of epic days of climbing. I haven’t done 1000’s of feet of climbing on any day this week. Instead I was able to just go cragging a few of the days. The three days that I have been outside this week, I able to climb with our senior guide here at Fox, Ron Funderburke. The one thing that I have learned about Ron since I started here is that he will force you to be challenged physically and mentally when climbing. This week, Ron is the main cause of the loss of skin on my fingertips, that and my not yet attained climbing skills.

On Monday, we went out to Cedar Rock. Cedar Rock has multiple walls in which to climb but there is only one listed in the guide book and only one that will have routes that would challenge Ron and I. That wall is known as the public wall. If you were to look in the guidebook at the climbs your first thought might be that this place has a lot of harder stuff. Because of this, not many people climb there. I had guided there once before on routes that are not in the guidebook and were much easier. Anyways, Ron and I hike up there and decide to hop on a 5.12c called Pawing the Void. The one thing about this route that is a bit different is that it is bolted. I decided to give it an onsight attempt on lead. Needless to say, I didn’t get too far. I managed to get to the third bolt before I fell. I worked my way up to the fourth bolt but was unable to figure out the moves to make it to the fifth. Ron lowered me and then he made his way up. After figuring out the moves he was able to make his way to the top to set up a top rope.

I got on it once more to work the moves out all the way to the top. Once there I moved the rope over to the climb to the right, Surfin’ with Aliens (5.12a R). Both of the climbs there offer very technical climbing with limited holds. On Pawing, you are pulling on small holds but only to create tension to keep your feet on the less than ideal footholds. On Surfin’, you actually get a jug and have to pull on this small, sharp edges to get through the crux. Both routes are well worth the work. After that we were done for the day.

On Tuesday morning, Ron contacted me to go climbing again. Once again we went to Cedar. This time Ian joined us. We started off this day with Surfin’. We then top roped Pawing. About this time Tracy and Eric showed up to take a run on Surfin’. After that we did a few easier routes. I led a 5.10 that has some fun moves on it. About that time we decided to pack it in and head home.

The next day, Shannon and I had planned on climbing at Looking Glass. Ron decided to join us. Since we had a late start, we decided to go to the north side. There we got on the first two pitches of The Womb. The whole route is 5.11a but the first two pitches only come in at a modest 5.9. I will say that the second pitch can feel more like a 5.10 in spots. I didn’t mind. It was fun, a little unnerving in sections, and stellar climbing. Also, I got to practice some multipitch skills. After that route, Ron took off. Shannon and I were going to jump on a 5.8 pitch but the rain came in. We headed out a little while later. After those three days of climbing, my finger tips were fairly raw. Luckily, I was not climbing on Thursday.

Thursday morning I was sitting in the office and we get a phone call for someone wanting to book a lesson for that day. I offered to do it and then headed out to get ready. It was a great group of people. I got to climb some more but didn’t lose any skin. That night though, a few of the guides, the interns, and I headed to the gym in Asheville, Climb Max. There we did some bouldering and I lost even more skin. After the session at the gym I was glad that on Friday I didn’t have to climb. Instead I was given the privilege of starting the inventory for Fox Mountain Guides. Hopefully, I can grow some more skin in time for the upcoming week of climbing.

Sport Climbing in North Carolina

2011-06-05T13:04:00.000-07:00

As I stated in my last few posts, I am now living in North Carolina. The climbing here is fantastic. The climbing here also known for its traditional ethic and lack of bolts on climbs. Supposedly at Stone Mountain, the bolts are 30 feet apart on some routes. Well, today I went to a place that is unique in this state. I went sport climbing

Today I got to hang out with two fellow guides, Karsten and Linsay. They also had a friend of theirs, Sarah, join us. The four of us set out to this newer crag to get on some steeper bolted routes. Now around here steep is kind of a relative term. You see, a lot of the climbing that we have been doing lately has been on the slabs of Looking Glass. After driving for 1.5 hours, we parked the car and set off down the trail. From the looks of the trail this place hasn't seen a ton of traffic yet. Then when we got to the rock, it short. The routes there were 40-60 feet tall on a metamorphosed sandstone or a quartzite type of rock. There are good solid edges. The only thing is lacks is friction. The routes here were steeper than anything else I had seen in the state so far but that isn't saying much. There were a few roofs and some climbs overhung a few feet for the entire route. Basically, it isn't the Red River Gorge in terms of steepness.

After deciding which routes to start on, I went up a route to set up a fixed line so that Karsten could get some photos of us climbing on the route. I didn't onsight the route but came back later to put it down. It climbs up small edges with occasional big holds and longer moves. It was fun. the other route we got on was a tips crack that you face climbed around. It wasn't too hard and since you didn't use the crack that much it seemed to lose its appeal. After those two routes we hung out at the first climb getting photos and having a few laughs.

After that I eyed a fist crack around the corner I wanted to try. I grabbed some gear and went up it. Unfortunately I didn't have any gear big enough to fit the crack. Luckily, there was a small crack to the left that took small marginal gear. As I started up the crack I realized one thing, the inside of this crack is as smooth as a countertop. I am not joking. This crack lacked any friction. Also a few inches into the crack and you were getting into some wet stuff. Despite these set backs, I managed to find a technique for jamming the crack with my elbow and groveled my way to the top. It wasn't a bad climb but needs to get climbed more because at the moment it is super dirty.

I then moved over to a sport route that looked like it was an easy 5.11 from the ground. I started up the route and the moves were comfortable until the third bolt. Right after clipping it I realized all of a sudden that I was getting into the hard stuff. After a few attempts, I managed to pull the first hard move, clip the next bolt and scope out the last few moves. The most powerful move is right after the third bold but after the fourth bolt, you have a dynamic move then there are no more foot holds. Typically I would start to smear, a move where you paste your foot on the wall and use friction to stand up. On this rock you can't do that. There is no friction. So the last few moves were just attempting to smear and move up to the next good hold. Finally, I made it to the top and came down to rest for another go. The second attempt wasn't much better but I made it up it with less falls.

It was nice to check out another crag. I managed to get some pictures and Karsten seemed to have gotten some good ones. We had a great time giving our arms a work out instead of our calves. For those of you interested, you should check out some of Karsten's photography. He is a very skilled photographer and guide. He as managed to blend those two passions well. His site is www.karstendelap.com. Here are some of the shots that I got.

Another Multi-pitch Day

2011-06-04T06:36:00.000-07:00

As you all have read, Karsten and I went to Linville this past Tuesday to get a ton of routes in. In total we climbed 7 routes, 27 pitches, and 2200 feet all in seven hours. This was a big boost to my climbing resume and a great day of training. Well did something similar but on a much small scale. Yesterday, we went to the Nose area of Looking Glass and did three routes pretty quickly.

We met at the Fox Mountain Guides office and then headed up the hill. We knew that there would be other groups out there that were working with our guides so we busted up the trail. After a few minutes we were at the base of the Nose (5.8). Though it is one of the more popular climbs at Looking Glass, I had not yet done its upper pitches. That is where we started. Karsten linked the first two pitches and then brought me up. I then led up to the “Parking Lot” ledge. Then we fired to the top. Once up top we scrambled back down to the ledge via a different route, did a few rappels, and we were back on the ground it what seemed like no time at all.

After this we moved over to Sundial Crack (5.8). This is another popular route that I had not done the upper pitches on. Karsten again linked the first two pitches. Then I led up from there. On the third pitch there is the name sake crack. It only goes for about 25 feet at which point you start climbing on eye brows again. For a person who likes crack climbing, the crack is just a big tease. A few minutes later we were back on the ground. From there we hiked over to Dum Dee Dum Dum.

Dum Dee Dum Dum is a superb 5.10a or 5.10c climb. The first pitch goes up a low angle crack, hits a bolt, and from there you have two choices. You can go straight up using the shallow flaring crack (5.10c) or go out to your right, go up a side pull, then go back left into the crack. From there you have a hand crack that goes to the first pitches anchors. The second pitch continues up the crack. The only thing is that it is wide from the start. Luckily, it takes good gear. The crack luckily thins out but just a little too quickly. It quickly fades out and once again you climbing on friction with limited gear. For a 5.8 pitch it is full on. Once you are getting tired of being on this slab you get to the anchors. From there you do a single double roped rappel.

We had to end our day here. Rain was on its way. We headed back to the car. Once back at the office the rain let loose along with massive amounts of hail. This led to some fun time spent in the office amazed at the amounts of rain and hail that were being unleashed. Finally, the threat of doomful weather resided and we made our way up to Asheville to get some more training in. One would think that after the large amounts of climbing that we had already done this week that we wouldn’t need to do any more. Well, we decided we needed to abuse our bodies more. So we went to the climbing gym to boulder for a few hours.

All of this activity has left me tired and desiring a solid sabbath. Luckily, I don’t have any bookings this weekend allowing me some time to chill, maybe get some climbing in, and maybe even organize my life a bit more. Either way, I plan on giving my body a bit of a break.

Covering Ground at Linville Gorge

2011-06-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

Since moving to North Carolina at the end of April, I have been wanting to spend a day doing nothing but moderate multipitch routes. As a guide wanting to continue to advance in my certifications, I need to climb more multipitch routes for my resume. Also, I need to learn to move fast in more committing but easier terrain. This past Tuesday would be the day to do this. I managed to find a partner. Kartsen, one of the other guides at Fox Mountain Guides, decided to join me and came up with a plan for the day. Our plan was to cover as much ground as fast as we could in the Linville Gorge.

A Panorama from the hike to the Amphitheater

Linville Gorge sits northeast of Asheville. It is a 14 mile canyon cut by the Linville River. Normally, it stays cooler there than at Looking Glass since it sit in what is considered the "high country." Unlike the routes at Looking Glass, the routes at Linville are steeper and have good positive holds. Climbing in Linville is also much more adventurous.

Normally, with a plan to cover a lot of ground, groups would start really early in the day or have what is called an alpine start. We didn't do that. I met up with Karsten at his house at 7 in the morning. From there we drove the two plus hours up to Linville. The road leading up to the parking lot at Table Rock is not fun. It is a winding gravel road that is full of washouts at nearly every corner. I guess that is nature's way of keeping you at a reasonable speed. Once we arrived at the parking lot we noticed one thing, it was already getting hot. Despite the heat, we set off for the Amphitheater area.

Once we arrived at the top of the Amphitheater I had a chance to view some of the climbs we were about to do. Also, I had the chance to take in the beauty of the area. Then the realization hit when Karsten told me that we had to get down this gully to get to our climbs. Gullies are never a fun experience. Then normally involve steep and loose terrain. On the way down, I managed to slip a few times and at one point Karsten stepped on a loose rock and it rolled on to his leg almost injuring his ankle and knee. Thankfully it did nothing more than give us a quick scare. After about 15 minutes of fighting gravity down the gully we made it to the base of The Daddy.

The Daddy (5.6) is a good route with some amazing pitches in it. The only bad thing is that the good pitches are short. This would be a phenominal route if it were more sustained and not so broken up with pitches of just walking up the rock. To move faster on this route we linked pitches and did fast transitions at belays. After 470 feet of climbing we were at the top. One route down. We quickly checked in with The Spot device so that friends could track our progress. Then we headed down another gully to the base of The Mummy.

The Mummy (5.5) is an amazing route. It offers great climbing on every pitch. Even though it is easier than The Daddy, it was enjoyable to climb 5.5 all the way to the top. On this climb we did a bit of simul-climbing to move faster. That is where both the leader and follower are climbing at the same time. This is only advisable on easier terrain for the experienced climber. After 380 feet we were back at the top checking in a second time. We then went down the same descent route as the Daddy then crossed the initial gully to head over to The Prow.

The Mummy (left) and The Daddy (right)

The Prow (5.4) is the preferred way to get out of the Amphitheater. It is a very easy climb that ascends the buttress across from The Mummy buttress. Once again we simul-climbed the beginning pitches. Then Karsten had me lead the last bit. Even thought it is only 5.4 there is some great exposure on what is normally the 3rd pitch. Then once you come to a ledge you encounter some obscure moves to reach the final dihedral. It was a great route and much better than hiking back up that hideous gully. After that 360 feet we were finished climbing in the Amphitheater. Our plan now was to head back to the car, refuel, get some more water then head to Table Rock. At this point we had already climbed 1210 feet according to the guidebook.

The Prow viewed from The Daddy

On the way back to the car I began to realize that I was getting tired. Not only did we just climb a lot but it was hot. We had been in the shade most of the morning and I was still drenched with sweat. Now we were hiking along the ridge line which was not shaded. After spending a few minutes resting at the car and resupplying we headed up to Table Rock. Luckily it was a shorter hike. If it had been a longer hike there was a chance that I would have set a rebellion in motion to stop the madness which Karsten had devised. But that didn't happen and we did some more climbing.

Karsten hiking on our way back to the parking lot

Our first route was Jim Dandy (5.5). I led the first pitch then we simul-climbed to the top of the climb. The crazy thing is that it ended on a ledge half way up the wall. There was another 295 feet. We then descended down a gully and prepared to head up The Cave Route (5.5). We simil-climbed the entire route. Half way up the route I began to realized that my legs were not happy with me. Since this was all easier terrain, it was lower angle. This meant that I was using my legs a lot. At this point they were starting to not function at their normal levels. I managed to make my way to the same ledge that Jim Dandy ends on. 180 more feet down. From here we only had two more routes to do. Luckily, we were already at the base of one of them.

Karsten leading the second pitch of Jim Dandy with his trusty Deuter pack

The ledge where Jim Dandy and The Cave Route end is also the beginning of My Route (5.6). We headed off to the summit of Table Rock via My Route. We did it in two pitches. When I reached the belay, I was so tired that I just plopped down on the ledge and didn't move. Karsten then started up the next pitch. While sitting there on the ledge I began noticing that not only was my body not functioning normally but my mind had started to function sub par. Some how during this state of delirium I regained enough energy to climb the next pitch. Once on belay, I began climbing as if I wasn't tired at all. I was really happy to have a few moves that were slightly overhanging. This allowed me to put more weight on my arms and use poor technique to get through the moves. Once at the top we put all our gear in our packs then hiked down to the base of our final route, The North Ridge.

Karsten heading up our final climb of the day, The North Ridge

At The North Ridge (5.5), we encountered another group above us. We had only seen three other people all day. The three people we saw weren't even climbers. We met them in the parking lot between crags. They appeared to have been hiking and as we passed the asked Karsten to take a picture of them with their camera. I had to laugh that when Karsten was given the camera he started to adjust the settings on the camera. This amazed the three. They had someone who knew what to do with a camera taking their picture. As proof of this you should check out some of Karsten's work www.karstendelap.com. Anyways, before I digress any further, this other group was about to finish the last pitch as we geared up at the base. Once ready, Karsten took off up the first pitch. He brought me up, raced up the last pitch, then brought me up as well. When I reached the summit the other group was just beginning of coil their rope. Finally, we were done climbing for the day. We had just finished climbing 2200 feet of vertical rock. We packed everything up and practically ran back to the car. We made it back to the car at 4:30. Only 7 hours after we initially set off for the Amphitheater.

Karsten checking in with the Spot device.

After reflecting on it, we had a great day of climbing. Today I have decided to recover from it though. It was a blast seeing how fast we were able to move. I have never been pushed so hard on easier terrain like that in my life. I am currently starting to make a plan to have a similar day up at Looking Glass. The one difference will be that we do routes that are a bit harder.

Lovett

2011-05-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

This past week, I had the privilege to guide groups of high school students in the Pisgah National Forest. Every year, the rising seniors go on a five day backpacking trip in the forest. This year, I was able to be in charge of one of the sites in which they climbed. Over the course of four days, we had groups in the morning and afternoon. Every group that we were able to work with was great. I loved being able to see these kids challenge themselves and do things beyond their comfort levels. Many of them when they would reach the top of climbs would just be in awe of the sheer beauty of the surrounding wilderness. Here are a few pics from the week.

Even though it was a lot of work bringing all the gear in, hiking up there twice a day, and sometimes having to wait for the groups; I loved every minute of it. Nothing beats being able to share something you love with other people so that they can experience it, if only for a few hours.

Granola Bar Recipe

2011-05-17T17:40:00.000-07:00

Many people have asked me for the recipe for my granola bars. I have decided to just post it on here so that the world could see it. Here it is.

2 Cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds (optional)
1 Cup sliced almonds
1/2 Cup wheat germ
1/2 Cup honey
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1-ounce unsalted butter, plus extra for pan
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
chopped dried fruit , any combination of apricots, cherries or blueberries
Spices

Directions

Butter a 9 by 9-inch glass baking dish and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread the oats, sunflower seeds, almonds, and wheat germ onto a half-sheet pan. Place in the oven and toast for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In the meantime, combine the honey, brown sugar, butter, extract and salt in a medium saucepan and place over medium heat. Cook until the brown sugar has completely dissolved.

Once the oat mixture is done, remove it from the oven and reduce the heat to 300 degrees F. Immediately add the oat mixture to the liquid mixture, add the dried fruit, and stir to combine. Turn mixture out into the prepared baking dish and press down, evenly distributing the mixture in the dish and place in the oven to bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. Cut into squares and store in an airtight container for up to a week.

I like to use dates and carob powder. You could use a regular cocoa powder instead of the carob. Make sure the wheat germ, sunflowers, and almonds are untoasted. If they are already toasted don’t toast them again. I also add cinnamon and nutmeg sometimes for added flavor.

Tips: Make sure you press it really well into the pan or else it falls apart too easily.

Moving

2011-04-29T19:03:00.000-07:00

As some of you may already know, I have moved to North Carolina. It has been a long couple of weeks for me. They have been great. As you read about in my last post, I had a chance to climbing at a great destination (The Red) and with great people (Nate, Sarah, Calvin, and others.) Once I got back from the red I was at home for less than 24 hours before moving out. I then headed to Springfield, MO to relax, catch up on some writing, and hang out with some great friends. Speaking of friends, I have to give a shout out to one of my best friends, David Olson. This guy has been super generous to me over the years. He even let me live with him before he got married. It has seemed like his house in Springfield has been my second home over the past year. Thanks for all you have done for me Dave. Then last Friday I left Springfield, after some car problems, to go down to Horseshoe Canyon Ranch in Arkansas. It is an amazing climbing destination. I went down there to teach a trad climbing course with Jon Richards of Vertical Voyages.

Once I arrived at the Ranch I searched for Jon. After a little while I was able to locate him and we proceeded to do some scouting for our course. I got the chance to climb a route I have never done before and to lead an existing sport route on gear. That later route was Green Goblin (5.8). I have led that route many times using the bolts as protection but leading it on gear adds another element to make it an even better climb. That night it started to rain. We knew that the forecast was bleak for the weekend but we remained hopeful. That next morning we awoke to cloudy skies. We went down to meet the participants in the course. They all had rented a cabin. This proved very beneficial because after about 30 minutes of sitting on the front porch getting to know each other and figure out what everyone wanted to get out of the course it started to rain. We then moved the course inside the cabin. Some how we were able to cover quite a bit in the cabin. Then a little while after lunch the rain stopped just long enough for us to move outside and teach the placement of gear on real rock. They got to practice placing gear and building anchors. That night we all hung out in the cabin.

That night it stormed. I also tried to start my Yukon. It wouldn't start. It was doing the same thing it did back in Springfield. The next morning I woke up got ready then tried to start my car again. No luck. After going to the cabin to discuss what was going to happen with the participants, I went back up to the campground to work on my car. I needed it to work so I would be able to get to North Carolina by Monday evening for a meeting. I took some parts off and checked them out and everything seemed alright. Then by some miracle, it started. Now, I did send out some texts to a few friends to pray for me and my car. Now if it was their prayers that helped my car start; I'm not sure. But I do know that I have no clue as to how anything I did got it running again. Once it was running, I met back up with the group in the barn. We had decided that we would do some very basic self-rescue stuff so that they could learn something with the crappy weather. I surprised myself and Jon as to how well I was able to teach some of this stuff.

The course was a great time. Once the course had ended Jon, Gina, and I went to the Ozark Cafe to grab some dinner before I left. If you ever go to HCR hit up the Ozark Cafe. It has great food for a reasonable price and the people there are great. After that I left and headed south to I-40. Along the way I was able to get a few great pictures of a valley with some rain clouds in them. Eventually I made it to I-40 and then turned left (east). I managed to make it past Memphis before pulling off into a truck stop to sleep. Then the next day I drove across Tennessee and managed to make it to The Fox Mountain Guides office early. Finally I was able to sit, relax, and kind of get my head around what all was about to happen in my life. Then we had a meeting for all of the guides. It was great to get to meet them all and figure out some of the different roles that everyone plays in the company. After the meeting Adam showed me where I would be living. Soon after moving a few things in I crashed. I knew I would have a busy day the next day.

On Tuesday I woke up early and got ready to do the second day of The Rock Warrior's Way Clinic with Arno Ilgner that all of the other guides were taking. One of the participants from the first day was unable to make it, so I was able to take his spot. My first climb was the beginning of an aid route that goes at 5.8 called Remember Appomattox. Next I was put on a 5.10c called Invisible Airwaves. I managed to onsight that route. Making it my hardest trad onsight yet. Then I top roped a technical 5.12c called Waste Not Want Not. It has some pumpy

A little while later I was told to try this 5.11c which takes the start of one route (Waverly Wasters) and then traverses into the finish of another (Creatures of Waste). The beginning is easier climbing on less than vertical edges. You then stand up on a ledge. On the ledge you get some good gear in a crack. You then traverse out right below the first bolt on Waverly Wasters. Before you can clip the bolt you must make a committing move to a small edge directly below it. Even before I probed into the move, I knew I wasn't going to like it. If i would fall, I would swing or pendulum back to the left and may hit a ledge along the way. After probing the move a few times and feeling very insecure I decided to take a few practice falls to get used to the pendulum motion. The first three were shorter ones. Then on the fourth, I took a practice fall from about where I would be if I were pulling the move. I exhaled, let go, and started my downward ride. On the way back left, my right foot scraped against the wall. As it was doing so, my right heel impacted a hold on the wall. At the time I didn't think much of it. But after a few days I realized that I bruised my heel and also sprained a tendon. Luckily this hasn't kept me from climbing. After that fall I took another practice fall and then bailed on the route. I just couldn't make that move comfortably. After bailing I took a top rope run on the route and really enjoyed it. We then discussed as a group things we had learned from the clinic.

The next day was my orientation. It wasn't anything too exciting. We just went over paperwork, bit of the manual, and how to enter things into the computer. After that was the first time I was able to relax since I left Springfield. Unfortunately, it only lasted a few hours. One of my roommates, Michael, came home and asked if I wanted to go climbing. Of course I couldn't resist. At about 430 we finally left and headed back to the North Side at Looking Glass. There we did a few routes. I just followed all of them. While he was on the last pitch, it started to pour. I knew I wouldn't be able to run back to the car with my heel so I was preparing to just get wet even though I had a rain jacket. Luckily Michael lent me his trekking poles. They actually helped with my heel and I made good time back to the truck.

On Thursday, Adam Beck, one of the other guides who lives in Tennessee; Ron; and I went to the Nose area on Looking Glass to do some multipitch. This was my first experience on the eyebrows of Looking Glass. We started on a 5.9+ route called Sensemilia Sunset. It was tough. It took almost the entire route to get used to the slab climbing and using the eyebrows. We made it to the top, ate a bit of food, then we scrambled down to the anchors on Peregrine (5.9). The anchor we were at was about 300 feet off the deck. There Ron suggested that we top rope the route. For those that don't know much about climbing, the longest common rope used in climbing is 70 meters or 230 feet. Well this gave Ron a chance to show us how to pass a knot while lowering someone and how to belay past a knot since we tied two ropes together. It was fun to continually climb on this terrain for that long. After that, we rappelled back to the ground and did a variation to the Nose that hits a roof with a tricky move on it. I was privileged to lead this pitch and boy was it fun. We went up another pitch then called it a day. We didn't do as much as we were hoping mostly because the routes challenged us more than expected. We had a good time anyways.

Those were the past couple of days in my life. They were very hectic but super fun. There are some more stories that happened today which I will write about at a later time. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to go with the stories. Hopefully soon I will be able to get some pics up of the area so that you can see how marvelous this area is.

Solid Rock Climbers for Christ National Conference at The Red River Gorge

2011-04-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

This past week I had the privilege of taking a trip with a good friend. If you have known me for long, you know that I do some work with a group called Solid Rock Climbers for Christ (SRCFC). I have spent time living with the director, Calvin, while working at the national office for SRCFC. On Tuesday, Calvin flew into St. Louis where I picked him up and we promptly headed eastward towards the Red River Gorge. The reason for the trip was that this year SRCFC was having their Eastern National Conference at the Red. I was super excited to go this year. Not only would I get a chance to climb with Calvin but my good friend Nate, his wife Sarah, along with many other members of Solid Rock would be there. It was going to be a good week.

Calvin and I arrived in the Red around 8:30 that night after driving for about 7 hours. Some people that Calvin knew from Oregon hooked us up with a cabin that they had been using. I was glad because now I wouldn’t have to set up a tent in the dark. The next morning we got ready and headed south to a crag that is known as the Motherload. The Load as it is sometimes called is known for its hard, steep, and sustained routes. The easiest route there is a 5.11a. Besides is there is only a handful of routes less than 5.12. This is the place to go if you want to get worked as a climber. After warming up on an 11a and an 11c, both onsight, we headed to the Undertow was at the Motherload to start climbing hard. I picked a route called Kick Me In the Jimmy (5.12a). It climbs positive holds up and slightly left for 60ft. It is fairly sustained with a few defining crux moves. After falling on the first crux I decided to work it a bit, rest, then give it a redpoint attempt. On the redpoint attempt I managed to botch the move again. I didn’t try the redpoint again that day. After that I didn’t climb much. I did manage to get myself part way up a 5.12c called Resurrection but didn’t have the juice to get to the chains. Nate on the other hand seemed to never run out of energy and managed to make his way up multiple 5.12’s that day with some being redpoints.

The Madness Cave at the Motherload

The next day we headed off to the Long Wall to do some trad climbing and work some other muscles. I also had my eye on an 11b crack called B3 or Beene Brothers Best. After warming up on Autumn (5.9) and Rock Wars (5.10a) we headed down the cliff to the base of B3. The first thing I noticed was that getting to the base of the climb is not easy. The climb actually started 15 feet up on a detached block. After bouldering up on top, we hauled the needed gear up. Nate was wanting to get pictures of me on B3 so he led Perforator (5.10a) which shares the same start. He actually got scared on it because the upper dihedral was very wet. After making it to the top he traversed over to the anchors on B3 and set up a fixed line in which he could hang and take some good pictures. Nate then waited for me to start my way up this beautiful line.

Nate getting a self portrait with me on B3 in the background

The beginning is a wide dihedral that is shared with Perforator. It tightens in the back so that you are able to get some good hand jams in the back of it. After about 25-30 feet of climbing in the dihedral you traverse left on a horizontal, place a piece of gear and head straight up this hand/finger crack. The first section of this crack is varied. You get some face holds to use and the crack can be used to lie back on. Then after pulling through some strenuous moves you get to the hand crack. I placed a bomber #1 Camalot at the beginning and took off up the hand crack. At the first good hand jam my body and mind finally relaxed. Near the top of the hand crack, after running it out just a bit I placed a #2 Camalot and entered into what would be a few tricky moves before an ok rest. I managed to get a few moves into it, place a piece and then I seemed to run out of gas. Once I rested on the piece I noticed that one of the cam lobes was not contracted at all which is not good. After resting for a short period of time I placed a better piece and made the moves to the rest in a horizontal. There I placed another great #2 Camalot, shook out and entered the boulder problem protecting the “Thank God Ledge” on the climb. The first time I entered that section, I checked it out then down climbed back to the #2 and rested on the rope again. The second time I started going up and my foot slipped causing me to take a nice little fall on the cam. It was good. I hadn’t taken a fall like that on gear for quite a while and it took some of the nervousness away.

The boulder problem before the huge ledge

After resting for a little while I headed into the boulder problem a third time. This time I stuck the moves and grabbed the ledge. That wasn’t the end of it though. I had to traverse to my left to get a good #3 camalot placement then to take advantage of the rest you actually lay down on this ledge which is more of a larger horizontal shelf that is just big enough to lie in. Once I got the cam in, I went to clip in the rope and almost fell. Luckily the second attempt proved successful and I relaxed then crawled into the “coffin rest.” There I was able to chill, have a conversation with Nate who was still hanging from the rope taking pictures, and get a really good rest.

The "Coffin Rest" on B3

Once well rested, moved into what would be for me the trickiest part of the climb, the upper dihedral that the guide book calls dicey. Luckily Nate had spotted some good gear placements for me so I wasn’t too worried. Once I was out of the coffin I pulled up to a good horizontal on the right side of the dihedral. There I was able to place a #2 C3 cam (it’s kind of small) and began to work my feet out from under the overhang. I ended up taking a small fall there. I managed to find a foot that I had missed then pulled up into the dihedral the next try. Once in the dihedral I was able to get all of my weight over my feet by stemming and looked for some gear. I managed to get a .75 Camalot and a stopper in before embarking on the challenging last moved. Right near the top there is a small hand crack that will allow for one more piece to protect the last move or two to the anchors. I placed a green Metolious cam and when I went to clip the rope in noticed that the carabiner on the cam was upside down not allowing me to clip the rope in. I then dropped the rope and started getting a little nervous. Luckily, Nate was right there telling me, “keep calm, relax. You got this man.” I then flipped the carabiner, clipped in the rope and made the final moves to the anchors. I was super happy to have gotten that far on this challenging route. After doing that climb I would have been fine with heading back to St. Louis but there would be more climbing.

The upper dihedral of B3

That same day Nate led a 5.12a called the gift. It starts with tricky slab climbing then goes to overhanging with a crux reach to a crimp from a mono-undercling. I was a bit too short to do the move on top rope but Nate pulled it off perfectly. We then got a cool down lap on Autumn. Then greatest thing was that right before we headed down the trail towards the cars, we called Miguel’s and ordered a pizza so that it would be ready for us upon arrival. Then back at camp we met up with Jed, Alex, and Jake. I was also able to take a much appreciated shower. Then we crashed in preparation for the next day of climbing.

The next day, Friday, we headed to the Gallery in the Pendergrass Murray Recreational Preserve (PMRP). The PMRP is an area of the Red that was purchased by the Red River Gorge Climbers Coalition. It is the single largest direct land acquisition ever made by climbers. This allows climbers to enjoy their sport here as long as climbing continues. There are many different crags or areas in the PMRP. This day, we decided to check out The Gallery. There is a good selection of routes there. Supposedly one of the best 5.8’s in the Red is there. We started out climbing on the far left side of the crag on some 5.10’s. Then I ended up getting on a route called Different Stokes (5.11c). I managed to flash[1] this route.

Calvin leading Different Strokes 5.11c

Next up Nate led a 5.12c crack called All That Glitters. It is a beautiful shallow dihedral/lie back finger crack. It has a short boulder problem that is protected by a single bolt then it hits the crack. From there you get a few good hand jams, plug gear and enter into the first crux. You basically have to lock-off on a hand jam or lieback and reach way up to a thin finger lock with your left hand. Then you reach right to small crimp formed by the seam. This whole time your right foot is on crappy smears to the right of the crack and your left is somewhere in the crack. From here you reach up to a jug. The jug would be really pleasing but you still don’t have very good feet. Nate placed a piece of gear here then made a few difficult moves in the crack so that he could stand on the jug. This is the first chance at a good breather on the route. As you continue up there is a small arête that forms another shallow dihedral to the right of the first. You make a committing move around this arête; plug a few very small pieces of gear in the seam, high step your left foot and reach up to the locker finger crack. Once you get here, the route eases to about moderate 5.10 crack. From there you take the crack to the roof, get another piece of gear in and do a balancy traverse to the anchors. I had the privilege of following this route on top rope. The low crux shut me down. I was either too short, too weak, or a combination of the two to get my left hand into the finger lock. I then aided to the jug and continued the climb from there.

Nate entering the crux on All That Glitters 5.12c

After climbing that pitch, I had to give Nate some mad props. Also, Nate had fallen a few times while working the beginning on his initial attempt. So I managed to motivate him to go for the redpoint. He hoped back on it and cruised the route in style. It was definitely one of the more impressive sends of the trip. After following that route I was basically done for the day. My muscles were wasted from three days of hard climbing. I just enjoyed the rest of the day watching everyone else climb. After Nate did All That Glitters; Calvin, Nate, Tim, and Sarah all got on Break the Scene (5.12a). Nate cruised it. Calvin, Tim, and Sarah all gave it all they had but were unable to get the redpoint. While they were on this climb, it had started to rain. Luckily this route, and some others, are overhung enough to stay dry in the rain. To end the day, many of the people in our group gave Gold Rush (5.11d) a go. It is a long, pumpy face with a crux boulder problem right before the anchors. I didn’t get on it because I was still tired from following the 12c a few hours earlier. We then all hiked out and had an adventurous drive back out of the PMRP. The road is a gravel/mud road that goes up and down hills. Luckily everyone made it out without getting stuck. That night we hung out in the café at the campground then crawled into our tents. During the night some storms passed through making a lot of racket and dumping a lot of rain. When it woke me up, I was so tired that I just put ear plugs in and went back to sleep.

Nate nearing the top on Break the Scene 5.12a

The next day, Saturday, we awoke to more rain. This was going to be a rest day for me as well as for Nate, Sarah, and Calvin. The group had decided to go to Muir Valley and try to find some dry routes there. Muir Valley is a privately owned area with multiple crags. It is owned and maintained by Rick and Liz Weber. They are some of the nicest people I have ever met. So if you are ever climb there, be sure to respect the Webers and their beautiful piece of property.

At Muir Valley we met up with two members of Solid Rock, Brad and Ashley. They had come up from Alabama a few days earlier but had stayed elsewhere so this was the first we saw of them. The night before, Calvin received a text message from Brad stating that they had lost their car key at one of the crags in the valley. Since it was a rest day for me, I decided to go look for the key. After meeting Brad and Ashley, I asked them where they had climbed then took off into the valley. Since I was going to be hiking around, Calvin took my car into town to run some errands. As soon as I started to hike in, it started to rain. Luckily I had my soft shell jacket on to keep me mostly dry. The first place that I was going to look was the Practice wall. After I got all the way down into the valley, the first thing I noticed was that I would have to cross a creek to get to the practice wall. This normally isn’t too big of a deal for me since I had crossed many creeks this past spring and had developed my skills of rock hopping across watery obstacles. That would not be happening with this creek. There was too much water flowing to just hop across. I would have to wade through the torrent of freshly fallen water to get to the crag. After looking at it for a few minutes I decided to try the other crag that they had visited, the Great wall. I started to hike the emergency road that follows the valley floor for the entire length of the area. I then hiked up the hill to the Great Wall. Once I got there I slowly searched every bit of the crag only to come up with nothing. I now had a decision to make. Do I want to cross that creek to go to the Practice Wall to look for the key? If I would find the key it would save Brad from a lot of trouble. So I decided that I would tolerate a creek crossing to hopefully help Brad out.

Once again, I hike the emergency road back to the creek. There I take my shoes and socks off, roll up my pants and plunge into the cold, flowing water. After I crossed the creek, I decided to remain bare footed in an effort to move faster and to keep my socks and shoes dry. I received many weird looks from the groups I passed on the way up to the crag. Once I got to the crag I searched it and also let the other climbers there know about the issue with the key. Once again though, I came up empty handed. After admitting defeat I headed back down the hill to cross that creek again. Luckily the trail from the practice wall is not very rocky. It was mostly mud, some grass, and another smaller creek. I was glad that I kept my shoes off because if I hadn’t, they would have been soaked. After crossing the large creek the second time I sat down, cleaned my feet off, put on my shoes and socks, and went off to find the group that was climbing at the Boneyard crag.

At the Boneyard I found them climbing. I found a dry spot and made a sandwich. When I was nearing the end of my sandwich a random climber walked by and asked, “Are you Travis with Solid Rock?” Surprised by this I acknowledge that he had found the guy he was looking for. He then said that my truck had broken down and that Calvin was looking for me in the valley. Immediately my mind starts blazing with thoughts of how to get back home and wondering how I am going to afford a new vehicle. I finish my sandwich and set off to locate Calvin. Luckily with minimal effort I locate him and we walk out of the valley. Tim had given me his car key so we took his car to retrieve mine. Luckily, the problem with my car was a simple problem that occurs sporadically. I quickly fix it and head back to the parking lot to wait for Tim since Calvin took his car to run his errands. While waiting in the parking lot. Brad had a new key made. I wrote the beginning of this post and I uploaded some photos from my camera. Tim and the group arrived a few hours later and we headed off to Miguel’s to get some pizza. Then that night we did a small outreach at the campground. Calvin did a presentation of climbing in Mexico and Hugh Loeffler, a local climber, gave a presentation on the history of the Red with a focus on stewardship of the climbing resources. It was a good turn out with about 30-40 people showing up.

The final day in the Red was Sunday and it was time to give it our all. We headed to the Roadside Crag since it would have climbs for everyone in the group. I warmed up on You Can Tune A Piano But You Can’t Tuna Fish (5.10b). I ended up falling off of this route trying to down climb a move I had made. I got lowered, untied, and tried it again successfully this time. Then I headed over to the 5.10 wall at Roadside to give a 5.11a crack a try called Synchronicity. I had top roped this climb a few years ago when Nate and I visited the Red on our way up to the Adirondacks. As I began the lead, I realized something; this climb gets mean from the start. Normally on a trad route I try to not place a piece right off the ground but on this I wanted a piece after just a few moves. After a while, I began to get pumped and decided to just work the moves and the gear out and go for the redpoint the next go. So I made my way to the top. Caleb then followed it cleaning the gear. After resting I gave it another go. This time I cruised it. I quickly got all the gear in and executed the moves in good style. I was proud of the accent.

Me leading Synchronicity 5.11a (photo by Caleb Edmonds)

I then rested and decided to give Ro Shampo a try. It is a 5.12a that is steep and has mostly jugs. I ended up falling at the crux my first attempt. I then worked the moves to the top. The next attempt I almost fell at the crux but caught myself and then pulled through it. Unfortunately, I fell about 12 feet higher on the route when I just pumped out. My time at the Red was done. I hung out for a bit then at about 4 o’clock Calvin and I headed out. We had decided to drive to Jackson Falls in Southern IL that night and get a half of a day climbing at my home crag before Calvin had to catch a flight home.

Calvin on Ro Shampo 5.12a

While on the road to Jackson, only a few hours into the drive, Nate calls me needing a phone number from Calvin and also asks for directions to Jackson Falls. It turns out that Sarah and him decided to start heading west and decided to join us. I was stoked. We arrived at Jackson late that night. The next morning we got an early start. By 9 we had already gotten a few climbs in at the Gallery wall and headed to the Mr. Jimmy formation so that they could sample some technical slab routes. I hopped on Stinger Direct (5.11d) since I had never been on it before and with good reason as I soon found out. The Last moves on the route are the crux. You basically have to lock off on a good hold with your right hand, smear your feet on crappy holds and pinch a little pebble with your left. I think the required move is to get your right foot where your right hand is. Normally this isn’t a problem if the left hand hold is good. Here the hold is just good enough to pull downward on to a certain point. After that gravity takes its toll and I went flying back towards the ground to be caught by the rope. I took this fall a few times before I would let Calvin try it. He was unable to make the move as well. He then aided through the move so that we could clean the anchors and move on to the Beaver wall.

Calvin at the crux on Stinger Direct 5.11d

There I gave Who Need Friends (5.12a) a try. For the first time I made it past the second bolt to the rest. This was a new high point. I then continued up on the pumpy crack system. I climbed it well making it all the way to the anchor chains with only one problem. I was so pumped that I was unable to let go with either hand to clip the anchors missing the redpoint of the route by a mere clipping of the rope. I guess I will have to give it another go whenever I am back in IL. We then headed to Lovely Tower to give Hidden Treasure a go. After that we busted out of there so that Calvin could get on his flight back to Oregon.

Nate flashing Who Needs Friends 5.12a at Jackson Falls.

The trip was a great one filled with a lot of hard climbing. I think that I only did one route the entire week that was easier than 5.10. So after a week of hard climbing and nonstop action, I am finally able to rest and recover so that I can prepare for what lies ahead in life. Yesterday I basically moved out of my parent’s house. I will be heading to Arkansas this weekend to help teach a trad climbing course at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch. Then after that, I head to North Carolina to begin working with Fox Mountain Guides for the season. It is an exciting time and one that scares the living crap out of me. So look forward to more blog posts about guiding, traveling, and experiencing new places.

[1] A flash is like on onsight but you have seen someone climb it or have gathered information on the climb that adds to what is available in the guidebook.

Moral Dilemma

2011-04-06T19:27:00.000-07:00

Today a friend of mine shared an article with me from Relevant Magazine. For those who have never heard of Relevant before, it is a Christian magazine aimed at the younger generations and tries to be culturally relevant. I haven't read many articles that are published by them but this one was actually a bit thought provoking and dealt with a topic that I feel deeply about. So much so that I have written on this topic previous. This topic would be what we will call war. (See posts from September 2010 to find out what I said in that post.)

For those of you who have talked to me about anything faith related in the past few years, you probably have listened to me give my views of war, violence, and anything related. You would have also found out that I am opposed to these. I base that mostly on teachings that Jesus lays down particularly in the sermon on the mount found in the Gospel of Matthew. I have been fairly stern on my views and feel that it might be time to reexamine them in light of this article that I read today.

A few weeks ago while driving to southern IL to go climbing for the weekend with my friend Travis Crane, the topic of war and politics came up. I explained my view, he explained his, we both realized why the other thought that way, and then we continued on with our drive. Today he sent me a link to the article that I have been referring to. Here it is. Relevant Magazine . This article is basically a guys discussion on whether or not the U.S. should be involved in the conflict happening in Libya.

Early on in the article he brings up a point that I feel that I have somewhat dismissed and haven't dealt with in forming my theology/ethics on this subject. That point he makes is that as people of God we are called to protect and help the disenfranchised, the down trodden, and the marginalized of the world. One example of this in scripture comes from Isaiah 1:17. There it says, "Learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow." You could probably read just about any of the prophets and find at least one verse from each that says something similar. There are others stated in the article. Also you could look at the life of Jesus. Even if He never said anything about taking care of orphans, the outcasts, the widows; His actions towards those would show that God cares about them. Many of the people he healed would have been outcasts. If they had any kind of deformity, especially leprosy, they would not have been allowed in the temple. He also shared a table with tax-collectors, prostitutes, and the like. So if you haven't gotten the point by reading the Old Testament, the man Jesus, who most Christians would claim to be the fullest revelation of God that we have had, spent time caring for the marginalized. To sum up this whole entire paragraph, God is all about social justice (did i really just say that?) and we are called, as Christians, to join Him in it.

This is where things normally get hairy for me. I totally agree that we should be involved in social justice. I also would say that we should not act violently towards anyone. Jesus did tell us to love our enemies. In history there have been times in which dictators, people groups, and religious zealots have done unspeakable things to other groups of people that they hate. There was Hitler who killed Jews. You have Western Europeans who enslaved Africans. And you also have Christians killing anyone who doesn't claim to be a Christian. Now as a Christ follower I am called to help these people who are being attacked but how am I supposed to do this? Should I grab my gun and start cutting down everyone who kills, harms, steals, rapes, or enslaves people? What then is separating me from those people that I am now killing, harming, stealing, raping and enslaving? Should I just sit back and allow my fellow country men to do the same thing?

These are the things that make situations like what is happening in Libya such a problem for me. The author of the article mentioned above states that at the writing of that article he is supportive of the actions taken against Moammar Gadhafi, but might later change his stance. I must say that I am glad that he isn't putting this subject to rest. It is something that I feel must be wrestled with. When thinking of other Christians who have struggled with this my thoughts go directly to that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. If you have never heard of this man, you need to look him up, read his books, and read books about him. This was a man of God who had to struggle with the Nazi regime in the 1940's. He ended up deciding to help with the resistance is said to have aided in an assassination attempt on Hitler. This eventually cost him his life. He is a martyr because he stood up for the persecuted Confessing Church in Germany. Would I agree with his actions and make them a set way to deal with these injustices in the world? Not at all. But it is interesting to see that I am not the only one to struggle with such difficult situations in life.

After wrestling with this topic a bit more, I have not changed how I feel about war. I also don't feel that we can sit back and watch it happen. I do believe that the God I serve is big enough and powerful enough to effect change in the world to rescue the captives, end tyranny, and help the poor in ways that would not go against His own desire to love our enemies. I don't know how exactly that is played out and it might be different with every single situation in the world. It might be that we should go into a war torn country and help those who are afflicted escape. It might be us going to these leaders and giving them the gospel even if it costs us our lives. I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject and maybe creative ways in which as Christian we can bring peace to this world through means that do not involve the killing or harming of others.

Fighting

2011-04-05T19:44:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I had a chance to go to Jackson Falls for what may just be my last trip down there before I leave the Midwest. I was blessed to be able to share it with Travis, Chelsea, Ted, and Chris. This trip started out a bit abnormal for me. First off, we were not leaving my house until a bit after 9. I would have preferred to leave at 5 but one of the others had work so we had to accommodate. Once we arrived at Jackson, we found a great camp site, set up tents and got ready to sleep. I slept in my hammock since I let Chelsea have my tent. I also, trying to be a gentleman, let her use my zero degree sleeping back and the better of the two sleeping pads. Now I had never slept in my hammock before. I had tried to last fall but it was so noisy at the camp ground I crawled into my car and slept there. As I soon found out, your backside get cold quickly while trying to sleep in a hammock. At 230 in the morning, only an hour after getting into the hammock I decided something needed to change. I could just sleep under it on the ground. I could crawl into the 6 person tent that only had three people in it. Or I could try to insulate myself better. I then grabbed my other sleeping pad threw it in the hammock and them proceeded to try to sleep again. It worked well. My backside was no longer cold. The only problem is that after a while my whole body was cold. This led to a night of crappy sleep. I was excited when I began to see sunlight in the morning sky. That meant I could get up and start warming up.

After eating and breaking camp we headed down into the canyon to get our climb on. We started off easy doing a 5.8 and a 5.9. I started to instruct Chelsea on how to lead a sport route. I wanted to teach her how to trad climb but she was having none of that...yet. We then moved to some other easier climbs. After leading a 5.8, I top belayed Chelsea up and taught her how to rappel. Then it was her chance to lead. We went around the corner where she did her first lead on a 5.6 called Big Wall Greg's Chicken Shack. She experienced the normal frightening feelings that you get on your first lead and had to rest a few times on the rope. But after evaluating the situation, she continued on and got all the way to the top. She and I then went to go try a 5.8 for her to lead called the Dagger. She did great on it. She had no problems, stayed calm, and onsighted it. Later that day she would lead another 5.8 that is trickier. She did well even after getting freaked out at the crux. I then told her the story of my first day leading where I led a 5.7. Then after that 5.7 I went to try a 5.8. On that 5.8 I freaked out at the second bolt and from there down climbing the route. It was awesome seeing her do so well on her first leads.

Chelsea on her first lead Big Wall Greg's Chicken Shack 5.6

Chelsea nearing the first bolt of many that she will clip.

Before we went to the last 5.8 I managed to get on a 5.11b offwidth. I had been looking at doing this climb since late this past fall but was unsure of the protection and my ability on offwidth cracks. For those of you who don't know what an offwidth is, it is a crack that is bigger than a fist crack but smaller than a chimney. A Chimney is something that you can get your entire body into. They are sometime referred to as awfulwidths due to the nature in which you have to climb these cracks. They normally require specialized techniques, creativeness, and a lot of struggling your way up them. Recently I purchased a number 5 Black Diamond Camalot. It is a large piece of climbing protection. With this new piece of gear, I had the confidence in being able to climb the route. So we walked to the crack set the rope in front of it then began to prepare.

Once racking up, tying in, and getting the shoes on I set out up the crack. It starts of with a very thin vertical crack that doesn't offer any protection for about 13 feet. The beginning is all face climbing on pockets, dishes, and the few holds that the crack offers. You then get to place a hand sized piece and begin to move up a slightly flaring hand crack. After negotiating a slight bulge you get a good stance to view what the guide book calls a "solution offwidth." All I know is that it looks nasty but will take smaller gear in the back of the crack in these little pods. This thing looks nasty. It flares enough that you are unable to hand stack. It is wide enough that you also cannot get a knee jam in there to rest on. There are a few face holds, but they make the easier ground. This is where the fighting comes into play. You basically have to squeeze as much of your body in the crack, put your feet on something, and then fight your way up making sure to squeeze back into the crack when not moving up so that you do not move down. This is much more tiresome that it sounds. The whole time I was doing this, the crack was trying to spit me out into the openness of the air which would result in a fall. Never before had I experience a crack like this. Luckily, I was able to find good rests throughout the climb. Without them I probably would have made it to the top, thrown up, then passed out on top forcing my climbing partners to hike all the way to the top and rescue me.

Me struggling up AppleJack Crack 5.11b

A full view of Apple Jack Crack

When you do a climb like this, you are constantly wondering how sane you are to be torturing yourself on a thing like that. Even afterwards you wonder why you just put yourself through such a miserable experience. But after about five minutes of chilling at the top of the pitch you realize that what you just did was so amazing that you want to do it again. At least that is how I felt. I am actually hoping to go back this weekend and redpoint the route.

Doing this climb and thinking about it makes me want to compare it to different struggles in life. You know that you have to go through them. They are never fun while in the middle of them or even right after, but if given time to recover you begin to appreciate the struggle and how you have grown from it. I suggest you all learn to appreciate offwidths in your own lives and grown through the experience they bring.

Going to Arkansas....Maybe not.

2011-03-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

So a week and a few days ago (March 10th), Travis Crane and I were planning on making a weekend sojourn to the great land of northwest Arkansas. Specifically we were going to go to Sam's Throne for the weekend. He had never been there and I was jonesing for some trad climbing. So Thursday night I leave the climbing gym early to go home and pack for the weekend. Well that didn't really happen mostly since I procrastinate when it comes to packing. All day on Friday at work I am waiting to get off so that we can get on the road. When I am getting close to home I call him to let him know that I will be ready in about thirty minutes. He starts off the conversation with those disheartening words, "I got back news." Immediately my mind starts thinking that he is bailing on me ruining all of my plans. That wasn't the case. Instead he had to be back on Sunday at around 3 PM. This still caused a problem. Sam's Throne is about a six hour drive from here. We would only get one day of climbing in if we went. After some thinking we decided to just go down to Jackson Falls instead. I get home, shower, pack, then proceed to wait for Travis to get here. Finally, after waiting for what seemed an eternity, he shows up and we take off for southern IL.

When we arrive at Jackson Falls we soon realize that there are a lot more people there than I expected so we head up to a good camping sight further down the road. When pulling in I notice a truck there. I was sad because I was hoping to have that sight all to ourselves. But it turns out to be better than expected. As I park and get out of my vehicle a guy with a somewhat familiar voice says, "can't camp here." I start thinking that we have some redneck we have to deal with now. But it turns out that this redneck voice in the darkness is actually my friend Jacob. Now I am excited. I managed to find a friend out in the woods. Then after talking to him we find out that Kevin and his fiance Lauren were gonna be coming and more would show up in the morning.

That next morning we all prepare to head off to the promised land. Once everyone shows up we all pile into Jacobs truck to head down a field road so we wouldn't have to walk as far. We then bushwacked our way over to the promised land. I had never been there before. It is a canyon across from Jackson Falls that has many good quality and hard routes. I jumped on the one good looking trad route as soon as we got there called My Generation (5.9). this route follows a flake crack up the wall then traverses left to a set of anchors. While I am climbing I start realizing that I am getting pumped. This route is pretty stiff for a 5.9. After doing it, everyone wanted a run on it and everyone enjoyed it. I then jumped on an overhanging 5.10a called XOXO. It goes up a face with spaced jugs then goes out to an airy arete with huge holds. After this a few of us went down the bluff line to try a 5.11a called Fashionably Late. I ended up finding a boulder near the route and started taking pictures of everyone climbing it. I haven't done this in a long time and it felt good to just sit there and basically have a photo session with everyone. I ended up getting some good ones out of it too. Jacob and I ended up onsighting this route. Carmen and Travis had a few problems but made it to the top. Then John took a top rope burn on it. Here are some of the photos.

My Generation 5.9

Jacob clipping the 3rd bolt on Fashionably Late

Travis on the traverse on Fashionably Late

Kevin belaying

Carmen starting up the small holds

Carmen getting ready for the traverse

Carmen nearing the top of Fashionably Late

After this we got on a few more routes then headed back to the truck. After loading up and preparing to head back to camp Jacob realized that his left rear tire would lock up while going forwards. All of us in the back get out of the truck and begin walking while Jacob decides to back up all the way to camp. After just a minute of walking all of us start to jog. What a way to end a day with a nice little jog through very wet areas back to camp. There we cracked open some beers and started making supper. After a good night of sitting around the camp fire we all headed to bed with one member of our group a bit sick due to ingesting too much whiskey.

The next day Travis and I get up and start getting ready for the day and break down camp. We wanted to get as much climbing in as we could before we had to leave around noon. Well we only got three 5.10s in but still had a good time. I can only hope that we are able to get some more good weekends like that in before the weather gets too hot.

This then brings me to this weekend. Since last weekend didn't pan out for going to Arkansas, we decided to call last weekend a drill and head down this weekend. Nothing was going to stand in our way. We headed down to Sam's Throne arriving late on friday night. After setting up camp we both passed out. Over the night I was woken up by the splattering of rain drops on my tent fly. That is always a discouraging sound when wanting to climb. But after only a few minutes, the rain subsided and did not fall again.

Saturday morning we got things ready then headed to the Throne. Travis got on Poison Ivy (5.7) which is this beautiful splitter dihedral. He did a great job of leading it. I cleaned it then we headed to the White Trash wall. There I led White Trash (5.9) and Tandem Slide (5.9). We ran into some guys who were out there rappelling so we talked to them for a little while before Travis led Too Thick to Navigate (5.8). I then get a desire to lead a route called Edge of Flight (5.10d R). It goes up a thin face left of an arete for about 15-20 feet then you finally get some protection in and the rest is maybe 5.9. Well I never got past the crux. I fell multiple times, three of which were hard falls from higher up. Finally, on the third, in which I hit my butt pretty hard on a rock, decided to give up on that route for the day. Instead I moved to the right a few feet to climb Pocket Rocket (5.9R). This route involves some tricky moves to a big pocket about 8 feet off the ground then involves faces climbing. The only problem is that the gear is sparse. At my second piece I had my belayer worrying for me. I ended up making it to the top without any problems but still pumped. After this I attempted to try Quantum Leap (5.12a). It is a steep bolted line on the throne that involves a dyno. Being short routes like this aren't easy for me. After many tries at the dyno I came down and decided to move on. We then headed to the west main bluff were Travis led Reptilian (5.9). He did an amazing job on it. One thing you must know is that Travis has only led a few trad lines before this trip. To be leading 5.9 this early on is really cool. I hope that he will continue to progress more once he gets his own trad rack. We then did a few other routes and headed to camp for the evening. When we arrived at camp the sun finally came out and the skies cleared allowing for the stars and a very bright full moon to come out. That made for a wonderful night.

Then on Sunday morning we hit it hard again. Travis led Smooth Operator (5.8). Then I went and led Slam Dance (5.7). Slam dance starts in the back of this cave like hallway. You climb up a perfect splitter hand crack, wishing it went further, then tunnel your way out the top through a jumble of boulders crammed in the top of the hallway. Once we came back down we headed over to The Natural (5.10aPG). For those who don't know, a PG rating for a climb is stated in the guide book as, "A route with tricky or strenuous to place pro throughout crux sections, runouts on non-crux terrain, or solid-looking placements in questionable rock." The R rating is said to be, "notable runouts throughout the crux, poor rock quality, very challenging gear, the possibility of taking a big whip, or a chance that a fall may result in impacting a ledge or the ground." The Natural goes up some rotten rock then hits solid rock where you go up the right side of an arete. As you go up it begins to get steeper. You are placing stoppers in face features. Then as you near the top you get a gear cam in a horizontal and have you make some moves on slopey holds before reaching the top anchors. It is a beautiful route and I luckily onsighted it. This made my day. After this I was ready to head home. But Travis still had energy so I made him try to lead Job 3:25 (5.10c). It is a long over hung route that is mostly bolted. He couldn't get past the crux so I ended up leading it then belaying him on top-rope. We wanted to get one more route in. Travis ended up leading Chickens in Space (5.9) and I cleaned it. It was a great way to end the weekend. We then headed up the catacombs back to the car and headed back to the flat lands of Illinois. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures from this past weekend. My camera battery was almost dead and I forgot to put it in my pack both days. I hope you enjoyed reading about my little adventures from the past few weeks. Hopefully some more stuff will happen in my life worthy of writing about so that you will have more things to read. I am also thinking about doing a photo post soon.

A Day at Cedar Bluff

2011-02-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

Being here in Illinois, we don't have many options as to where we can go climbing. Normally we just head to Jackson Falls and do some sport climbing. It has the largest concentration of climbs in all of IL. This weekend we decided to change things up a bit. We were going to go to Cedar Bluff. Cedar bluff is a cliff line that is around 80-90 feet tall and about 900 feet wide. You can no longer add bolts to the rock so new development doesn't really happen there anymore. There are just over thirty routes with about half (or more) requiring some kind of removable gear. Because of this you don't see many people there. There are climbs ranging from 5.5 to a 5.13a. Some of the routes are rather stiff as I will talk about in a little bit. If you come here you should probably have your head together when trying to lead at your limit. I will also talk a bit about that as well.

At 8 in the morning this past Saturday we all met in Lebanon and piled into a car. The group consisted of Nick, Joe, Travis, and me. After two hours of driving and a stop so that Joe could relieve himself from the pain of the previous nights dinner we made it to Cedar. Its a pretty cool place. As you drive up you can see the bluff rise above the trees just up the hill from the road. You also park in a church parking lot to get there. So if you are there on a Sunday you can get your worship on then hit the crag. The one bad thing about climbing at Cedar is that you must pass Draper's Bluff. Draper's is just down the road from Cedar. It is owned by Eric Ulner who is a climber and wrote the most current guide book for Southern IL. It is now closed due to liability laws in the state. It was my favorite crag in southern IL. It had great trad routes. Some fun sport lines. Easy approach. You couldn't beat it. Many climbers in the area await the day that it might reopen. If you want to learn more check out Climbing magazine number 288. It has an article on the closure. So as we passed it I had to hold back a tear as I looked up and imagined sitting at the top of Ant Killer (this beautiful 5.9 dihedral).

Anyways, back to Cedar. After the short hike up the hill Joe and Nick split off from Travis and I. We were going to do a two pitch route further down the bluff line called Unfinished Symphony (5.10a) and they wanted to do a few of the shorter routes right when you reach the cliff. We head down, look at the climb, determine where to build the belay, and then started to gear up. Travis had never done a multipitch before so this was gonna be a fun experience for him. I wanted to do it because I was told that it was an amazing climb. The first pitch is 5.8 and goes up a left facing dihedral. Before the belay it goes right around a roof which allows for some exciting and exposed climbing then you hit the belay. Before I started the climb I figured that it would be straight forward and not too hard. Its 5.8. I have led stuff much harder. While climbing through the section below the roof, it was so awkward that I felt like I was gonna take a big whip. I made it through the crux of the first pitch with it feeling close to a 5.10a. After building a semi-hanging belay I brought up Travis. I connected him to the anchor and got on with the chores of reflaking the rope and getting gear back. Once we were set I headed up the second pitch. It is a 5.10a that goes up a ramp that goes up and to the right. Looking at the thing you would think that it would be fairly easy until after the single bolt where it becomes vertical. That was not the case. It is easy for the first 10 feet off of the belay. Then you feel like you are leaning to your right the entire time in this very awkward crack system. Then you finally reach the bolt. From there you venture on to the face on dirty but positive edges. That pitch made me work for it. Finally I topped it out, set up a belay and started to bring Travis up. He struggled near the end but he finally made it up after a few rests on the rope.

Travis at the belay

Travis starting up the second pitch.

Once we rappelled back down Joe and Nick came over and eyed up another two pitch route that can go at either 5.12a or 5.8. They opted to not do it and climb a 5.6 dihedral that was there instead called Cave City (5.6).

Nick leading Cave City (5.6)

Travis and I then headed back towards the trail where he was going to lead a 5.5 called Mike's Meander. It is this really fun crack that you can get a few jams in, do a bit of stemming, and just climb on jugs for 50 feet. It takes some great gear and is fairly easy so Travis was ready to get after it since he had only done two other trad leads prior to this. I followed it then we both top-roped a 5.10a just to the left of Mike's Meander that shares the same anchors called Detention. Once we did this, we moved the rope over to what is called a 5.11d in the guide book but most people would say it is at least 5.12a or 5.12b. We all did a lap on it. While I was working a section on it our friend Jacob shows up with his wife and so now we have a nice little party at the crag.

After we all had a run on it Nick, Joe, Travis and I headed down towards the other end of the bluff to do some routes down there to finish the day out. Nick and Joe stop at a really fun sport line called Dos Equis (5.9). Its is called that because of the double x's that are naturally about 10 feet off the ground. It is a really fun route with well spaced bolts. Travis and I headed further down the bluff to check out a route called April Fool. Boy did I feel like a fool after trying this route. To start off, it is rated 5.10a R. The R stands for runout meaning there is a section that doesn't have gear so if i fall there I will be going for a long ride. After psyching myself up for it I head up the climb. Its not too bad. It has a few weird moves in this crack system. Then after about 30 feet I near the crux. The gear isn't very good and I realized that if I were to fall I would hit this arete type of feature very hard. After going up and down trying to figure out the moves about 4 times I decide I'm not mentally ready for this climb today and I then down climb. The one stupid thing I did or didn't do was that I left the gear in while down climbing. I didn't even think about down leading the route. So now I have to go around to the top of the bluff and rappel the route to get my gear back. While doing so I scout out holds and possible gear placements. I found some that will help with the next time I try the route. By this time though I wasn't going to give it another go. We then head back to the car for a beer. Then we headed home.

It was a great day climbing with some good friends. We had plenty of laughs, mostly at Nick's expense and had a great time enjoying rock of southern IL. Now I just have to go back and finish April Fool.

Taking a name in Vain

2011-01-26T13:12:00.000-08:00

The other night, I read a section out of the gospel of Mark. Mark 4 to be exact. There in the story we find Jesus calming the storm as if it were nothing. The storm was bad enough to have experienced fishermen fearing for their lives and Jesus, once woken up, says only a few words and it stops. Then the disciples marvel at His power.

After reading this I am snapped back to my life. I began thinking about how I claim to follow this man Jesus the Christ. I have even put the label of Christian upon myself to show others that I am a follower of Jesus. I then began to think of how undeserving of that name I am at times.

Taking the name or label of Christian is not something to be taken lightly. This actually reminds me of something I used to hear quite often…”Thou shall not take the LORD’s name in vain.” Preachers pulling out number three on the top ten list. Normally used in context of someone saying things like, “God damn it,” or “Jesus Christ!” as some sort of explicative. How these two different things go together may not seem evident at first. If it does you probably already know where I am going with this.

If you take a close look at Exodus 20 (that is where all ten commandments are listed); it doesn’t begin with “you shall have no other gods before Me.” That is verse three. The very beginning of the chapter says, “Then God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” This is what is called context. It is very important in interpreting surrounding verses, namely for our purposes verse seven.

“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in Vain.”

So here we are in Exodus 20. You have Moses on top of Mt.Sinai [like any good follower of God he is a climber]. He is chilling on the top of this mountain with God who is giving him the beginning of what will become the Law. Moses and the people of Israel have just been brought out of the slavery of Egypt. God, by doing some miraculous things, has delivered them. Even after crossing the sea of Reeds, the LORD did more amazing things to sustain them. God had made the waters of Marah (Marah comes from the word for bitter) sweet for the waters had been bitter. He had begun to provide manna for all the people. They didn’t know what it was [there is a pun there if you know Hebrew] but they knew it was good. Then God, through Moses’ staff, brought forth water from the rock at Horeb. The LORD had done some amazing things for the people of Israel. This in turn, is why they (read you) should not use His name in vain.

To use it in vain is more than just to turn it into some kind of “cuss” word or explicative when you are angry. To use it in vain is after seeing the power of and the power that is behind that name then using it in any selfish, malicious, foolish, or empty way. For the people of Israel to use His name, יהוה in any of these ways after witnessing what He had just done would take away from the power in that holy name. This is why you will not go unpunished. It is like a child receiving the best gift they ever had then saying it is worthless 5 minutes later. Throughout Exodus God is always doing things for his namesake. There is a power in that name and God does not want it to be desecrated.

This reminds me of a passage in the New Testament that I feel is along the same lines. Matthew 12:31b. “…but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.” I have heard it said and would agree that this basically means witnessing an act of the Spirit of God then denying that it was the Spirit or God that did it. Saying that the Spirit has no power. This verse along with Exodus 20:7 seems to be going along the same lines. Anyways, before I get too off track, how does this fit with the name Christian?

Over the years, I have learned and seen that there is power in the name of Jesus the Christ. We as followers have taken on the title of little Christs or Christians. That in itself is a very honorable and powerful thing. WE have seen and have also been given power from God through Jesus. So the name is very fitting. Anytime that we misuse or misrepresent that name by using it selfishly, maliciously, foolishly, or in an empty way; we destroy the reputation of such an honorable title and we destroy the name of our God and of Jesus.

Granted, we are all not perfect, not yet at least. I thank God for the grace he has offered and continues to offer. If it were not for that grace we would never be able to honor that name given to us as followers. It is at this point that we take on a more honorable name than that of Christian. It is when we are following God closely that we are given the title of a child of God.

You are probably wondering now how this has anything to do with the opening in which I talk about Jesus calming the storm. When I originally wrote this I ended it at the previous paragraph then later realized that the first paragraph is still just hanging there. So I figured I would try and tie it all together. In the Gospel of Mark, this is one of the first miraculous things that the disciples witness after being called out to follow Jesus. They saw the power that Jesus possessed. This was only the beginning. Through the course of the years of His ministry they saw many more miracles and most of all they witnessed the power of life over death in the resurrection. After that, they didn’t look back. Their lives were changed to the point that they didn’t give God a reason to say they took His name in vain. I long to be just as they were.

Ice Climbing in Southern IL

2011-01-24T12:04:00.000-08:00

Living in Illinois and being a climber I am constantly being asked where I climb. If you were too look at a topographic map of the area in which I live you would probably wonder if the makers of the map forgot to put the elevation lines on it. Its just very flat here. But there is climbing not too terribly far from here in which to climb. Most winters though, we stop venturing those two hours and head to the climbing gym instead. Its normally cold and wet during the winter. There isn't much to do outside this time of year. It is rare that we get snow and if we do it is normally gone in a week. The temperatures fluctuate so much this time of year that it can be 10 degrees one day and the next 45. This poses another problem for climbers, finding good days to get out and climb. Well last year, I realized a way to get around this.

Late one day last winter I went to Jackson Falls to get a few pitches in. While walking to the climbs, I noticed that there was still a lot of ice on some of the walls that didn't get much sun. I started talking to a friend who is more of a local than I am and he informed me that there was quite a bit of ice that had formed up down there. So I started scheming of ways in which I could get some ice climbing gear in preparation for the next year. I already had a pair of boots. I had bought them used in Colorado two years earlier when I went out there with my friends Dave and Scott to go ice climbing. On that trip I learned how to ice climb and fell in love. We were able to spend three days in Ouray, CO climbing all day at the ice park there. For those of you who don't know, on the edge of Ouray there is a canyon in which they have set up a water system to make waterfalls. In the winter they spray that water over the canyon walls and form ice climbs. There are climbs every 10-15 feet for around 3/4 of a mile. This park is one of the premier places to ice climb because of the shear number of climbs. Since this trip, I have been wanting to get on some ice.

This past year, I was finally able to afford some gear. I bought a pair of Petzl M10 crampons late this summer. Then a few weeks ago I purchased a pair of Black Diamond Vipers. Now I was ready to climb some ice. While I was taking WFR course in Carbondale, I went to Jackson Falls on my day off to possibly climb some ice with Jacob if anything was in. A few days prior, Jacob hung a rope to get one water fall to form up quicker. This isn't common practice in most places but since the temperature varies so much in winter we may only have a few days window in which to climb a formation. Unfortunately that day it hadn't formed enough. We were afraid that if we climbed it that day that it would be destroyed. So we elected to wait until another day, if it stayed cold.

Finally, yesterday was my chance to use all this new gear and climb some ice. I went down to southern IL with Jon and Russ. Russ had been down to Jackson Falls the day before and said the formation was amazing. So I was stoked. But before we went to Jackson, we were gonna check out some water falls that Jon knew of on some private property and see if they were in. After hiking around for a while we didn't find anything that was formed up enough to climb, but did see some potential for some amazing routes. We then set our sights on the falls at Jackson Falls. For those who have been to Jackson Falls before you soon know why it has that name. There are multiple water falls in that canyon. Most people know of the waterfall that is closest to the main campground. It is probably the one that has the most water go over it. We did not climb that. It probably wasn't anywhere close to being climbable. Instead we set our sights on the route that had the rope hung on it to help it form up.

Russ on Puss Cat (you can see the slab I soloed in the background)

This formation was given the name Pussy Cat due to the large amount of bobcat tracks in the area. It was given the rating of WI5. It is maybe around 30 feet tall. It might be a bit taller. I am horrible at determining the height of things. Either way, it is sustained the entire way. So we hike to the route and quickly set up a top rope on it. None of us own and ice screws so leading is out the window. We each got about 3 laps in on it when we started want to do something else for a bit. In between burns, I ended up hiking up the hill to this short slab (maybe 15-20 feet tall) that had a thin layer of ice on it. I get up there look at it, clean my crampons off (they had collected a lot of snow and leaves), then starts climbing it without a rope. Starting this route was rather difficult. I had gotten one good stick with my right axe but was unable to get anything for my feet. Every time that I kicked, the ice just fell off the wall. I then decided to stick my left crampon on a slightly less vertical spot and pull myself up. After a few feet, I was able to get my right crampon on some ice that didn't fall apart. As I began climbing, I started to realize that some of the ice is good and some is completely horrible. At one point a section of ice that i lightly swung into came off. This scared the crap out of me. This was the first time I had ever gone up ice without a top rope. Crap, I didn't even have a rope for this climb. Eventually, I made it to the top, breathed a breathe of relief then went back to the base of Pussy Cat super excited about my first ice free solo. Russ just gave me a look like I am crazy when I came back. He watched as the ice fell apart while I climbed it.

After this, Jon decided he wanted to do some rock climbing. He had found a 5.12 sport route about 40 yards from the waterfall. So we head over there and he gives it a shot. On his first go he worked out a lot of the beta then made it to the top. After that I decided to try it on top rope. I didn't bring any rock shoes so I resorted to trying it in my boots. I made it to the first bolt but no further. I didn't care though. I came down to climb ice not rock. Russ then gave it a quick run, finding some beta for the crux section. Then Jon decided to try and red point it. The crux shut him down through and we decided to stick with ice for the rest of the day. We then went back to Pussy Cat, got one more lap in then packed our stuff up and moved to another waterfall.

Jon on the 5.12
Jon topping out Pussy Cat

We walked down to the dogwalk area where there is a short waterfall that cascades a bit at the bottom on some rocks. I had decided to free solo this because I didn't want to set up a rope for such a short climb. After getting my crampons back on I head straight for the climb and start up. Right below the vertical section where the water hits a rock there were huge air pockets in the ice from snow. This left me less than reassured. Luckily the water fall was slightly more than vertical so it did not have the snow pockets to worry about. I then started up the vertical section. It was great. It had some great pockets in the ice that I could hook and soon my axes were near the lip. There I had to start swinging. The ice was amazing at the lip which was good because after I kicked to get my right foot on something some ice on the back of the waterfall came crashing down on the backside. I continued on and made it to the top without any trouble. Russ then came up as well. This ended our day of climbing. I was able to get 6 pitches in. 4 or 5 of which were on WI 5 and one on what I would say was WI3. Now I am ready to get out to Colorado and climb more ice. The only sad thing is that once spring hits I will have to go back to climbing regular ole' rock.

Cold Weather Camping

2011-01-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

This past week I have been fairly inactive. I haven't had any work and haven't had anything to do most nights. Last night the boredom finally got to me. Knowing that it was going to be one of the coldest nights this year, I came up with a plan to sleep outside in my backyard. There are a few nice things about my back yard that make it nice for camping. First off, it is fairly sheltered from all but the north. Unfortunately that is also where the road is. Secondly, we have a fire ring. For me, having a fire just makes life about ten times better instantly. Also it allows for warmth and a source of heat for cooking things like marshmallows and snow.

So after 'The Office' finished, I gathered up the gear I had inside and set out for the long, arduous journey to my back yard. After hiking a grueling 30 feet of shoveled sidewalk with my arms full, I arrived at my campsite for the night. First off I shoveled some of the snow away from where I was planning on sleeping and got the snow off of the twigs in the fire ring. Then I trudged all the way back to the garage where I was able to gather many hot coals from the wood burning stove to get my own fire going. I then laid out where I was going to sleep. First the tarp, then the pads. I decided to not get the sleeping bag out yet. I just wanted a place to sit down. Once my fire was going I figured it was time to melt some snow to make some hot chocolate. Now I was set. I would soon be sitting by my fire sipping hot chocolate and enjoying the crisp and clear night.

After about 45 minutes, the snow had finally melted and had achieved the desired temperature. I never thought it would take so long to melt snow. But who cares it was time for hot chocolate. While waiting for the snow to melt, I decided to get the sleeping bag out for more insulation for my butt while waiting. By this point I was ready to go to sleep but still needed to drink the hot chocolate that I had waited so long for. Too be honest it wasn't that great. I should have thrown another packet of mix in the cup. Finally, after downing the drink I took a few layers off and crawled in the bag and pulled the rest of the tarp over top. I was now in my own little world. And with ear plugs in I couldn't even hear anything happening outside.

I slept great until about 0330 when my body decided to tell me to lose some fluids. Its one thing to have to walk across the hall to the bathroom in a heated house to go, but to get out of a warm sleeping bag in near zero degree temps is very undesirable. After 20 minutes of debating on whether or not I really had to go, I crawled out of the bag threw my boots on and found the nearest convenient place to relieve myself. I figured that this would allow me to get back to sleep and enjoy the rest of the night. I couldn't have been more wrong. Not long after getting back in my own little world, my mind starts going crazy. It started thinking about this and that. I can never sleep when it does this so I just sit back and "watch" it until it is finished. Finally it shuts off and i go back to sleep.

The rest of the morning I would occasionally wake up, notice it was still cold outside, turn over and go back to sleep. Then a bit after seven I think I hear someone calling my name. It sounds like my mom but she sounds far away. Then I start to wake up and realize my mom is outside and trying to wake me up. I can barely hear her because I am in a tarp, in a sleeping back with ear plugs in. She wanted to make sure I hadn't died during the night. She informs me that the temperature is 2 degrees Fahrenheit then goes back inside. I was kind of mad because I wanted to sleep more, but once I saw the colors of the sun hitting the clouds off to the north and the early morning light I had to sit there and admire it for a while. Then I realized, its freaking cold out here. So I quickly packed up my stuff and headed inside to enjoy the warmth of a house.

After writing this little story about last night, I realize it is pretty boring. I mostly just wrote it because I haven't posted anything on this blog in a long time. I figured this was the best thing that I have done in a long time. Hope you enjoyed reading about the crazy things I do. Also, here is a picture of my "campsite."

This Fall

2010-10-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

This fall I have not done much writing. I apologize to the five of you who might look forward to reading my random writings. Lately my life has involved work, climbing, and much down time which has not been used productively. Since you probably don’t want to hear about what I do at work (if you do, I can start putting up posts of the jobs we do) I will write about other happenings, mostly climbing.
Since the weather has started to finally cool down, I have spending my weekends climbing. Over the past month or so I have had the opportunity to meet many climbers. One of my first weekends down at Jackson Falls, I ran into a group of climbers from SIUE. They are a great group of people. I have enjoyed all the time I have spent with them. They seem to enjoy me as well since they have continued to let me climb with them. I have been setting up traditional climbs for them since no one in their group leads trad, yet. I have been trying to get a few of them hooked on it. This has allowed me to practice many of the techniques that I learned when I took the AMGA’s single pitch instructor course. Oh yeah, I took that course, so I am now a certified guide. Now I just have to find a guiding job somewhere. Sorry, I had to chase that rabbit. It has been good to climb with a group of people who are psyched to be outside and challenging themselves on the rock. Because of them, I have actually had some of my hardest redpoints ever.
First, I finally redpointed Hidden Treasure (5.12a). It is a classic at the falls. It starts with long moves between huecos (5.10). Then you get to a point where you traverse to the right on a small mono and a crimp. After the traverse, the crux hits you with a huck move off of small crimps to a decent edge. After that it is just good crimps to the top. I kept falling going for the edge, but finally stuck it. After the redpoint I went and got on The Bolted One (5.11d). The bolted one is a dihedral crack that is overhung. It has a single bolt on it protecting the crux do to the crack nearly disappearing during that section. It then turn a corner and you are on a wide slab crack that wants to spit you off the entire time. I ended up getting confused at the crux on this go so I was going to rest on a piece of gear that I blindly placed above the bolt. When I weighted it, it blew and scared the crap out of my belayer. Once that happened I realized I had to just make some moves above the bolt. I ended up working out the moves and let the other guys play on the route.
The next week, I went down and got the redpoint on The Bolted One, making it my hardest trad lead to date. Being psyched from that I went to try No Dogs Allowed (5.12b) on lead. I floated past the hard moves back left only to fall three times reaching through the roof. So the next weekend, I got on it and it felt super easy. It is only a short section of hard climbing. It is more like a bouldering problem with a juggy top section.
This has all been great, but I also messed up my left ring finger a bit with all this climbing. Only this past weekend did I take a break and let it heal up. I realized how bad it was when I was down at the Red River Gorge climbing for five straight days that I needed to rest it. Oh yeah, the red. I went down there for the Rocktoberfest. It was a great time. I manned the Solid Rock Climbers for Christ booth, climbed, fed hungry climbers pancakes, and talked to a ton of people. It was also great because I was able to climb with a long lost friend, Kristin. I met her a few years ago when I was interning with Solid Rock. She was serving as an On the Road Missionary with Solid Rock at the time and we ended up doing a lot of work together. It was great catching up with her over the few days down there. That was a very encouraging time to hear the things that God is doing through her. It was also at the Red that I started taking photos again. Since my trip in July, I hadn’t taken any pictures and it was fun to finally get the camera out while climbing/ goofing around and take a few. Here are some of the pics from the Red and my trip to Jackson Falls last weekend.

Climbers waiting for their breakfast.

Kristin doing her thing, whatever that thing may be.

Jed on Rock Wars (5.10a) One of my favorite trad routes I did at the Red

Leaves turning colors at the top of Roadside Attraction 5.7

Andromeda Strain (5.9) The best 5.9 I have done in a long time.

Megan on Lovely Arete (5.11a) and Kevin? on Hidden Treasure (5.12a)

Rebecca on Lovely Arete.

Travis topping out Juicy Fruit (V2)

Kyle on Juicy Fruit