The New

This past weekend I spent a few days at the New River Gorge in West Virginia. It was the 2010 Local Conservation Summit being hosted by the Access Fund and NRAC. Since I’m a member of the board for our Local Climbing Organization (C3PA) I thought it would be a good idea for me to attend.

Friday morning Scott, Ieva, Anders and I made our way down to the New for what would be a fun filled weekend with lots of climbers that are very passionate about their craft. I knew I would be one of the less apt climbers in the group but that didn’t matter to me as this was more of a reason to spend a few days hanging out with Scott, Ieva, and Anders and less about the actual event. Also, I thought it would be good for me to show my face around this group of people that I didn’t really know (and didn’t know me).

The event officially started on Friday evening with some general socializing but the real action didn’t happen until Saturday morning with formal presentations and an actual agenda of work to perform. We spent two days talking about climbing specific issues and working through problems that generally affect all the Local Climbing Organizations in one form or another. We also managed to fit a little climbing into the weekend on some really fantastic rock. Overall, I’d say it was a worthwhile trip but once again, I over did it and now I’m trying to make up for a lack of sleep. I guess it’s a good thing the work week has started again.

Fill it to the Top

A lot happened this weekend. The weather was pretty good (for the most part) so I spent just about all of it outdoors. Saturday I finally got to enjoy some time outside climbing. It was the first time this year I’ve been on real rocks. I haven’t had much time to climb at all lately, let alone outside so I was really looking forward to this.

I met up with Scott, Ieva, and Cathy at the “Power Cut” in the lower reaches of Rothrock. As its name indicates, the Power Cut is an outcropping of rocks at the top of clearing for an electric transmission line. The rocks are nice but it was a little humid so lots of chalk was needed. After about two hours I managed to cut my hand and that marked the end of my climbing for the day. I was okay with that because I needed to get some supplies out to Brian’s cabin for an impending pig roast.

Brian’s cabin is a rustic little place on some acreage with a pond. It’s out of the way and has a great porch for sitting. Saturday turned out to be the perfect day for doing just that. By mid afternoon a rainstorm rolled through and the heavy drops on the tin roof mixed with a group of friends and some sweet tunes made the day just about ideal. Things went on like that into the night and a good time was had by all.

Sunday brought about some cooler temperatures which was a recipe for an afternoon of mountain biking. Fly Scott, Betty, Cathy, iScott, and I went out to Rothrock to ride the Coopers Gap area. We did a loop that included some of my favorite singletrack. It was a little wet in spots but that didn’t bother me. I was just happy to be out on my bike enjoying a day in the woods. We rode for about three hours and I felt good (except for the two times I went down).

It’s weekends like this that make me realize just how fortunate I am. Sure there are some aspects that I might change, but let’s be honest; I have no room to complain. At times I even feel a bit guilty. I’m lucky enough to have so much happening on the weekends the biggest part I seem to be missing is sleep.

The Language of Monkeys

As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve recently started climbing again. While I’m not setting the world on fire with my abilities (not yet anyway), climbing provides a great indoor workout for chilly winter days. Also, I’m fortunate enough to be in a community where there are some amazingly talented climbers to teach me what I’m lacking and provide inspiration. It’s quite remarkable to watch them effortlessly traverse one of the largest fake rock collections I’ve ever seen. One of the greatest challenges, however, is learning the language.

As with most sports, climbing has its own unique vocabulary and learning these foreign terms is one of the hardest tasks. After all, just about anyone can climb, it’s part of our nature (assuming you believe in that wacky theory of evolution). Figuring out the jargon is a whole different challenge.

A conversation among climbers may include any of the following words being used as a noun or verb including crimper, sloper, gaston, pinch, under-cling, jug, lump-o-grapes, flagging, cranking, matching, tracking, campus, getting pumped (followed by de-pumping) and my personal favorite; mailing (okay, it’s actually sending, but that doesn’t seem to make any sense to me so I chose to make up my own term). Also, good beta can make a specific problem a lot easier.

I’ll admit, I don’t know what most of these words mean, at least not in the context of climbing. I’m still not convinced they are even all real. I do know however, that I’m having fun but my skin hurts.