I ended my ice season at The Narrows. It was a great season. The most days I've ice climbed in a single season, and the most place I had visited in a single season. And I even managed to get on the sharp end and lead two pitches. But the days are cold and hard, the drives are long, and the time away from the family isn't easy. So I decided to end things on a good note. I honestly thought the season would come to a close within a week or two of my Narrows trip. Little did I know the cold and ice would linger for more than another month. Heck, on Tuesday (4/15) I woke up to snow on the ground! This is after it was nearly 80 degrees over the weekend.
Since it was such a nice weekend I managed to get in a lot of time outside. On Saturday, I brought my wife, our son, and our two dogs out for a hike on the Appalachian Trail. And on Sunday, I took a friend from work, Kyle, out for his first ever day on the rocks. Similiar to last year, I opened up the climbing season by introducing another gym climber to actual rock climbing.
We went to Ricks Rocks, a popular beginer crag. We began on with One Bowl Gulley, an easy 5, and later moved over to the Main Wall to climb Princeton Crack, a 5.6 route. We were only there for about 3 hours. Just enough time to introduce Kyle to the fundamentals of anchoring and to climb some real rock. He got to experience for the first time jamming his hand into a muddy crack and inching up slab friction smears, something the gym can never truly replicate with resin "climbing holds" and plastic walls.
I'm expecting my second child in a few more months. Trying to get life in order and prepare for a new edition to the family is going to be difficult to balance with rock climbing. I'm not expecting to have a busy Spring-Summer-Fall rock season, but I'll take what I can get. One thing I learned about rock is that unlike ice, it's not going anywhere.
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| Happy Climber. |
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| Princeton Crack. |
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| Kyle, high up One Bowl Gulley. |
