Going to Arkansas....Maybe not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some Thoughts

This past July, I took a trip up to Wyoming to do some climbing. It was great. I had a lot of time to reflect on life, God, and all kinds of other things. Our last stop was Devil’s Tower. After two days of climbing there I headed south to the Denver area. On the drive from Devil’s Tower to Denver, I came across a site that caused me to start thinking. I was driving south on I-25 on the north side of Cheyenne. For those who are not familiar with that area, there is an Air Force base there. It is Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. It is home to the 90^th Missile Wing. As you pass it on the interstate, there are three ballistic missiles on display for all those who pass by.

Ballistic missiles were developed to deliver a warhead to a specific target. During the Cold War, ICBM’s or Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles were developed to carry a nuclear warhead to another country to cause total devastation. The 90^th Missile Wing is in charge of launching the United States ICBM’s that we currently have. It is also home to a museum about these same missiles. That is why along the interstate there are three missiles on display.

To most Americans this site would not cause them to ponder things as I did that day. Most would probably be in awe of such powerful and cool looking weapons. Some might start feeling proud to be American or glad that this country has such weapons in case some tries to do something to us. My thoughts were quite different. I was saddened. For you to understand why I was saddened, we will have to look back at how things in my life became shaken up.

Some of you may have heard a bit about this story, but since I felt it is essential to explaining my thoughts that day I am going to tell it. My junior year of college, I had decided that I was going to go into the military as a chaplain. After researching it some, it would have been a great career choice for me. If I were accepted into the Chaplain Candidate Program Officers, I would be commissioned as a second lieutenant upon completing my under-grad studies. I would then go on to seminary. During breaks from seminary I would be required to attend Chaplain school. Once I completed my masters degree, I would be promoted to 1^st Lieutenant and then enter into full time military service. Then I would begin to minister to the troops of this country. At the time, this seemed like it would be a great career move. Then I started to look at things in the Bible. I also took a class that messed me up beyond what I could comprehend at the time.

In college, I was blessed to have a great New Testament professor who was willing to teach us things about the Bible that were normally left out of the traditional Southern Baptist teachings. The summer between my junior and senior year in college I decided to take an upper level Bible class on the Revelation of John. Normally a class like that will mess with people’s minds anyway, but it really messed me up. First off, we looked at it from a more historical interpretation which didn’t fit at all with what I had ever been taught about the eschaton and how it will play out. One thing that stood out to me more than anything else was that throughout the book, there is a theme of pledging allegiance to God and Jesus Christ, not the Roman Caesars. This then got be thinking about how I can pledge allegiance to a country, the flag of that country, or the leader of that country and still call myself a follower of Jesus. One thing that became a problem is that as a member of the military, I would have to answer to the President of the United States. How can I serve two masters? Will I not love one and hate the other? All of these things began running through my head. By the end of the summer, I felt that I could no longer go into the military, even as a chaplain.

Because of this line of thought, my political views started to form. Previous to this I really didn’t have any. My political views didn’t seem to line up with normal American views. Even before I had any real political views, I didn’t align myself with Democrat or Republican. At one point in college, I claimed to be an anarchist. That was the same day as the 2004 Presidential election. Then in high school, I was once scolded in class for not picking a normal candidate in a mock election in class. I picked some guy who was standing in front of a corn field for the picture he used. So apparently, my vote didn’t count. Even back in high school, before I was allowed to vote, I realized that our system of a democratic republic doesn’t really work. This caused me to become apathetic towards anything dealing with politics, until I learned just how political the message of Jesus actually was.

One thing that was always either overlooked or spiritualized was any talk of the Kingdom of God. Jesus claimed to be bringing this Kingdom to earth. Why did I never hear any preacher, pastor, or Sunday school teacher speak about a literal kingdom on earth? According to most people that spoke behind a pulpit, America was the country that God has blessed and will continue to do so as long as we continue to be a Christian nation. There are many things in that statement which could probably be contested, but I will refrain from doing so out of fear of getting more off track than I might be already. I believe, that as Christians, who are born again, we are born again with new citizenship to this kingdom of God. This kingdom is a literal kingdom as well. It is not some metaphorical kingdom which is superseded on this earth by worldly powers and governments. It is a kingdom that knows no borders and is subverting the powers through such things as submission, peace, justice, grace, forgiveness, and most of all love. One day, this kingdom will come in its fullness and then at that point the world will see just how real it was, it is, and will be.

As you can see, my political views would possibly interfere with military service. One other thing that would get in the way would be the teachings of Jesus. I continually questioned how I could serve in the military, even as a chaplain, without getting in trouble for teaching the things that Jesus taught. Did he not say that we should love our enemies, forgive those that do wrong to us, and to turn the other cheek? The ways of the world, which would include the United States military would say that these things would never work. It actually would go against what the military trains its people to do.

As Christians, I say that instead of doing warfare like the rest of the world; with guns, missiles, bombs, or anything that is designed to kill people more efficiently, we should do warfare with love, forgiveness, and worship. This then brings me back to where we started, with why the ballistic missiles saddened me. For many Christians, it would seem that they are very supportive of the military and what it does. Now, don’t get me wrong, the military does some amazing things, at times. They do help out with humanitarian efforts which I see as a great thing. But the main purpose of the military is not to help out with things like that, unfortunately. That is part of what makes me so sad. The Church would at times, rather retaliate against any form of attack than forgive and act out in love. Also, not many Christians would stand up against the choice of the government to use its powers to take the lives of other humans. Before I begin to get preachy, I would like to bring this post to an end. I am not sure if I had a clear purpose when I began writing, and if I did it has faded as more words were written. Maybe this was written just for me, to put my thoughts out there. Or it may have been done to get you, the reader, to make changes in your way of thinking and in your lives. I don’t know. All I know is that I desire to make a difference in this world and do it through love and forgiveness rather than force and maliciousness.