Cragmama "Not all who wander are lost…" JRR Tolkien

A Weekend of Projects – Part 1 (Moore’s Wall)

Climbing. North Carolina.
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Jorge powering through the bouldery start of Head Like a Hole (5.8)

This weekend was pretty varied on all counts – weather, climbing, accomplishments (or lack thereof).  But regardless of what sort of hodgepodge it was, it was certainly fun as well as productive, and a good one-word sum-up would be PROJECTS.   Our journey began Friday night at my parent’s house (aka Paw Paw and Gaga) near Winston-Salem, where Cragbaby hung out all day Saturday so Steve and I could get our gear on at Moore’s Wall.  This is my second time at Moore’s in the past 2 weeks – the last time I spent the day in the Hanging Garden, and this time the end goal was the Meat Puppet Crag.  We spent the first part of the morning hiking around and confirming descriptions (route X starts ____ feet from Landmark Feature Y, take Gully A for ____ minutes to arrive at _____ area, etc).  Around lunchtime we had made our way up to Meat Puppet, a small, isolated area situated high atop the rest of Moore’s Wall.  Although definitely off the beaten path, it was well-worth the extra effort to get there.  We climbed 3 lines and checked out the others as best we could from the ground.  All three I would highly recommend for anyone looking to get away from the crowds.

Beelzebubba (5.6) – A stunning white arete with fantastic exposure and unbelievably large holds througout.  Would be a great route for beginning trad leaders…so long as nobody falls into the skewer trees at the base…
Head Like a Hole (5.8) – Thanks to this route I was singing Nine Inch Nails the rest of the day…Lots of full-value moves crammed into the bouldery start, then the rest was pretty casual. 
Meat Puppet (5.10a) – Similar in style to its easier neighbor, the crux on this one involved an awkward but well-protected beach whale maneuver onto a ledge.  Then a long stretch of moderate vertical face climbing, with a fun and super-exposed finish over a juggy bulge. 

I’m still getting used to all of my new Trango gear.  The biggest adjustment is the numbering of the sizes, as I still find that I think in “Camalot-ese.”  I’m definitely enjoying trying out the new gear however, so as a side note, expect several reviews on the horizon!   As we were wrapping up for the day, 2 other climbers (that we also happened to know) showed up, with plans for a circuit similar to ours.  The nice part about that is I was able to snap a few nice action shots of Jorge on the 5.8 before we left, which worked out great since I didn’t have any guidebook shots from the Meat Puppet Area. 

We spent the night at the newly re-opened Moore’s Springs Campground, now under the ownership of Tony McGee, a hard-working and amiable character that kinda reminded me a bit of Royal Robbins.  The campground is still a work in progress, and while the facilities are primitive right now, I’d forgotten how much softer it is to sleep on grass rather than dirt!  Another plus?  Boulders on site, as well as a host of newly developed mountain bike/hiking trails!

The next day we packed up camp and headed to Pilot Mountain.  Anyone who’s climbed at both Moore’s and Pilot is well aware that they are quite different.  And when I say they are different, I mean on opposite sides of the spectrum different.  Some people could argue that if you’re a fan of one, you can’t be a fan of the other (kinda like Duke and UNC…).  While the basketball fan in me agrees with the latter assessment, the climber in me loves it all and only chooses a side based on what style of climbing I’m in to at the time (and also what the weather dictates…)  Guidebook-wise I did a few things at Pilot – most notably sampled (and fell on) the shiny new bolts of Any Major Dude (5.11d), and tried a few options along the new Buzzard’s Breath toprope anchor setup.  However our crew spent most of the day working on our personal projects.  Couple that with the fact that our resident photographer, Manuela Eilert, graciously volunteered to hang out (literally) up top to snap some photos, it seemed appropriate to devote a separate post for our second day, especially since our end goals were so vastly different from the day before.  That being said, look for that post later on in the week…

 

 

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Cragbaby’s First Field Guide

Sentimental Snapshots.
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When most people think of favorite childhood books, usually classic stories like “A Cricket in Times Square,” “Stuart Little”, and “Charlotte’s Web” come to mind.  Although I of course have fond memories of those books as well, oddly enough the most tattered books in my collection were a little more technical in nature.  As long as I can remember, I have always been a nut about field guides.  Mammals, Birds, Plants and Flowers, Rocks and Minerals, Spiders and Insects – I had a field guide for anything you could imagine almost.  But above all my very favorite one was a little purple pocket guide entitled “Butterflies and Moths.”  I have probably read it cover to cover about a million times.  I basically had it memorized, so I could find any type of butterfly or moth listed in the book within seconds, as well as tell you whether I’d seen that particular species in “real life,” along with geeky juicy details like where and when.

When I wasn’t reading it, my purple pocket guide could generally be found in the basket of my little pink banana bike, so that I was always prepared at the drop of a hat to go on a “butterfly mission.”  Also in my basket were other essentials: a jar and my trusty butterfly net.  I had several fields and meadows I would visit as I would make my “rounds.”  Every year I would catch as many different types of butterflies as I could, mount them in a frame, and enter them in our county fair.  I would win 1st prize every year, probably because I was the only 12 and under entrant that included scientific names as well as detailed field notes about habitat…I was pretty meticulous in my approach, and never used more than one of each type of butterfly I caught for my frame projects (didn’t want to interfere with the natural population of course.)  All the other catching was to keep my “skills” up and to observe the butterflies before letting them go.  Anyway I always dreamed about working in the field as a correspondent for National Geographic…though my path over the years veered from that somewhat, I feel like an argument could be made that both the Cragmama website as well as my current guidebook endeavour has caused my inner nature dorkiness to come full circle a bit.

I’ve noticed in recent months a few signs that perhaps Cragbaby had inherited his mommy’s love for nature observation.  He loves pointing out (and investigating firsthand if possible) every living thing we encounter whenever we are outside.  I also discovered that he was thrilled whenever he recognized an animal or flower in any of his books.  That’s when I got the idea to make him a field guide.  It was cheap, easy to make, and he seems to love it, so I thought I’d share the idea here…

Materials Needed:
Pictures of local flora/fauna – I used random photos from Google images for all except our neighbor’s cat (that one was an actual photo).  If your child is old enough to use a camera, I think a really cool idea would be to take the pictures together during some Green Hour time!
Sturdy Paper – I used posterboard, and cut it into the sizes I wanted.
Access to Laminator – I just took our materials to Kinko’s, and use the laminator there.  Quick, cheap, and painless.
Binding Rings – I picked these up for just a couple of $ while I was getting everything laminted.
Markers:  I labeled my own, but again, if you have older kids, letting them help with the labeling would be a great way to involve them as well!

The Final Product:  C loves his book.  We take it with us on walks and whenever we see something that is in our guide, we make sure to flip to that page to point it out.  C gets really excited to see “anunna (another) butterfly, anunna ant”.  It definitely brings a smile to my face that his favorite page so far is the caterpillar page.  Like Cragmama, like cragbaby I guess.  🙂

Anyone else ready to come out of the nature dork closet and join me?  I know I can’t be the only one…What geeky things does your family do to enjoy nature?

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Slabster’s Lament 5.12a/b – The Lament is Over…

Climbing. Climbing. North Carolina. Reflections.
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Every now and then a route deserves to be memorialized by a post all to itself. In the case of Heresy (5.11c) out at the Obed, it was because of my first impression of it when I first laid eyes on it, several years before I was strong enough to even think about sending it. With Dave the Dude (5.11d), it was because the line was just that good – not only was it a classic in every sense of the word, but it was a culminating finale to a fantastic trip in the Red River Gorge, and thinking about it still brings a smile to my face. But Slabster’s Lament is different. It’s true that the first time I got on it I was pretty intimidated and the thought of ever tackling it on the sharp end seemed like a joke, and its also true that it’s one of the best lines at Hidden Wall…but to me, it will always and forever stand out because of my personal journey with it.

The first tricky move on the route, dubbed “the block move” by our crew.

My first experience with this line was in May of 2011, and I was far from being called a worthy opponent. I marched in to the the crag that day filled with excitement and optimism. I left feeling (and looking) like I’d been in a bar fight. Not to make sweeping generalizations about gender, but I’m a girl…and I climb like one. Like the name may imply, Slabster’s Lament is anything but a “girly” route.

It starts off fairly mellow – interesting traversing moves along some funky little pockets on thin feet. A tricky move around a block deposits you at the crux, which you’d better be ready for, since working through individual moves on the route, whether it be on lead or toprope, is almost more trouble than its worth due to the awkwardness of getting back on and established on the wall. The crux involves pulling up, into, and around a large and desperately sloping left-facing flake. The finish is on overhanging pockets with hard-to-see feet, with one final big move to a deep, incut undercling/sidepull feature. The climbing is scrappy, burly, and a far cry from the thin, delicate, technical faces I usually prefer. My first time on the route was an outright flail fest. I wasn’t anywhere close to doing all the moves without some major toprope assistance – in fact, when I looked back through my climbing log, I noticed that I had written this: “To lead this would have been terrifying…I’m nowhere close to that level.”

The next few times I made it out to Hidden Wall I avoided Slabster’s like the plague, but on a stray weekday in January, the rope was already up, so I decided to give it a few whirls. Definitely not clean, but decidedly less thrashy – still needed a lot of refining, but was well within my range to lead it.

Just a couple of weeks later we were back out, this time on a sunny Saturday in mid-February with a whole posse of people. My first time leading the route was a heartbreaker. I reached up to grab the final hold and literally missed by about half an inch. I took a nice long (clean) fall. Surprised I’d come so close, I felt confident that I’d send it later on in the day. Unfortunately for me, (as well as my poor belayer that had to carry me out across his back), my next attempt ended with a fall at the exact same spot – but this time my foot clipped the belayer’s side of the rope on the way down. I helicoptered around and bashed my left foot into the wall, fracturing my talus bone in two places, along with a decent sprain.

Knee bar clip at the crux

Most of my regular readers are probably well aware of the boot saga that ensued for the next 6 weeks, although thankfully when I look back now, its nothing more than a blur of hangboards, pull-ups, and one really sweaty foot. I can’t tell you how many times I relived that last move, wondering if I somehow could have summoned an ounce more of strength to latch that last hold, and then I wouldn’t have ended up in this mess. Although I can say that it was a learning experience that did have some positives come from it, I definitely came away feeling like I had some unfinished business with Slabster’s Lament.

10 weeks after the injury, I’d been out of the boot for a month and my ankle was holding up quite well. With a couple of trips to the New under my belt, my lead head was starting to feel back to normal, so we decided to get back to Hidden Wall so that I could try and slay a few mental demons. The original fall had happened due to the fact that the section of rope between the 3rd and 4th bolts is in an awkward spot in relation to the body position of the climber. What happened to me was kind of freak and 100 more people could easily take the same fall without the same result. However, for me personally, taking that chance again was ridiculous, so I took a double-rope approach to mitigate the risk. On paper the theory was solid, and in practice it worked, but I obviously was not ready. Despite top-roping it clean, I wasn’t able to rally much of an attempt on lead, probably due to the fact that I was timid and hesitating so much on every move that I had no gas left in the tank when it came time for the crux. It was pretty disappointing to drag up all of that emotion from the injury and still walk away empty-handed – but at least I walked away on my own two feet this time. The saga continued.

Fast forward 5 days later, to Thursday of the same week. My friend Bennett has had a few schedule changes as of late, and ended up with Thursday off, which also happens to coincide with hubby’s work-from-home day, so it was the perfect opportunity for one more shot at redemption, before the heat and humidity settled in, sucking all the friction out of the crux undercling and leaving it unmanageably manky. I was cautiously optimistic, but afraid to get my hopes up too high.

I’m not really sure what happened in only a matter of 5 days, but there is no comparison between how it felt compared to the weekend before. After a smooth toprope warm-up, I pulled the rope and sent. No cameras, no cheering, no fanfare. I felt calm, focused, and not at all hesitant – to be honest it went so well it was almost anti-climactic. But regardless of how it went down…Slabster’s Lament is officially checked off the tick list, and I feel like I can move on, hopefully to better and brighter things. 🙂

 

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Tales of a Broken Talus – 7 Lessons Learned.

Sentimental Snapshots. Climbing. Training. Reflections.
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So it’s been 75 days since my ankle went snap, crackle, pop on an otherwise delightful winter afternoon at the crag.  Since then I have been on a rather emotional roller coaster ride of thoughts, feelings, and mental processing.  Thankfully for me however (as well as everyone who has to put up with me on a daily basis…), that roller coaster has slowed down substantially in the last few weeks as my life has slowly but surely crept back to “normal.”  Looking back throughout the recovery process, Ive realized that this whole ordeal has been quite a learning experience for me, so I thought it might be worth a “cyber-reflection.”

Back to normal - enjoying tent-side oatmeal on a Saturday morning at the New!

1. It could always be worse. As annoying as the boot was, I was constantly thankful that I never had to use crutches. Even though it wasn’t graceful by any means, I still could keep up with Cragbaby. In the grand scheme of life, 6 weeks isn’t even a blip on the radar. Even thought it’s only been a month, the boot already seems ages ago. And I’m perfectly happy to let it fade away out of my mind to make room for more happy memories!

2. One leg is better than none. Though I will say my campus skills have greatly improved from 6 weeks of primarily hanging on my arms, I wouldn’t have lasted very long without having at least one leg to stand on, so to speak. Although it definitely got old by the end, boot-legging my way up the steeps provided a new challenge – again with something healthy to focus on.

3. It’s better to do something than nothing. I realized that I don’t do well as a spectator. Hitting the hangboard and the weight room with an intense fervor gave me something healthy and positive to focus my energies on rather than sitting around feeling sorry for myself (although I admit that I did my fair share of that as well…) It also felt really good to feel like I was doing something proactive in my recovery process. Evidently something worked because all of my shirts are now tighter across the back…

4.  Training can make you strong.  I’d always shied away from sport specific training in the past.  Why?  Part of it was due to fears of becoming obsessed with training to the point that climbing was no longer a fun and recreational activity for me – designing workout programs used to be my job, so it’s easy for me to get so regimented with exercising that it feels like work.   Another reason was because it seemed like everyone I know who did it ended up hurt from overtraining.  However one of my goals for 2012 had been to make my gym time more efficient by including some specific training exercises to strengthen my weaknesses.  Little did I know at the time how well the boot would play into that goal…

5.  A little discipline goes a long way.  My experiment with training for climbing was a successful one.  I realized that I’m not the same person I was back in those days where the line between business and pleasure was lost in a blur of spending 18 hours a day in the gym.  I’d forgotten how much I enjoy exploring and discussing concepts of exercise physiology – a few times I definitely caught myself geeking out in training mode, just like my husband does with his dorky intelligent and wise computer friends.

6. The rock will always be there. A lot of my initial fears revolved around a sinking feeling that everyone else was moving on with life and leaving me behind. This was not an unfamiliar place, as I remember having the same sort of feelings back in 2009 when I tore my rotator cuff. It sucked seeing everyone else outside enjoying an unheard of number of warm, sunny, winter days, and hearing about all the projects my friends were crushing left and right. But now I’m climbing again, and while I’m not functioning at full capacity quite yet, I’ve been able to jump right back into the groove again without skipping a beat. That’s the great thing about the rock – regardless of injuries, weather, schedules, etc, it’s always going to be there – completely unchanged, just like I remembered it.

7.  Climbing is about community.  Yeah I like to push myself and climb as hard as I can, but on my first trip back I realized pretty quickly that I had missed to friendship and comraderie at the crag just as much as the act of climbing.  Not only am I blessed to be able to play with a bunch of like-minded people in the middle of a spectacular wilderness backdrop, but I also get to spend precious time with Cragbaby and the Crag-Daddoo – my 2 most favoritest people in the world!

The crew.

 

 

 

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A Whirlwind of Local Press

In the News.
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Any active moms out there wanna know the best way to get your soapbox message about healthy outdoor families out there for the world to see?  For starters, you could break your ankle…It did seem rather ironic that the minute I turned into an invalid folks couldn’t wait to talk to me about my active lifestyle!  While part of me felt somewhat hypocritical touting the benefits of family adventures while I was stuck at home on the couch, it at least gave me something to focus on besides feeling sorry for myself.  Here’s a few quick blurbs about some of the latest Cragmama press…

Vertical Times:  For those of you that are members of The Access Fund (and if you’re a climber, you should be!), you probably receive their quarterly news publication in the mail, called Vertical Times.  Anyway, I was contacted a while back by Laura Snider, one of the writers for the magazine.  She interviewed me as well as a few other climbing moms for an article that discussed a topic near and dear to my heart – kids and climbing.  The article was entitled “Kids at the Crag:  The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful.”  For those of you that might be interested in reading the article but missed the mail-out, you can see the digital one online by clicking here. 

Charlotte Smarty Pants:  On a more local note, I got the opportunity to be featured as a “Smarty Mom” on Charlotte Smarty Pants, an online resource for everything in the Charlotte area having to do with motherhood.  I hadn’t heard of the site before they contacted me, but I’ve actually spent a good deal of time looking browsing the site in recent weeks, and have found a wealth of information that is especially helpful to somewhat like myself who is still a recent Charlotte transplant.  Anyway, my interview with these lovely ladies can be found by clicking here. 

Here's a sneak peek at the title page in the magazine 🙂

Today’s Charlotte Woman:  However the most exciting (and out of my comfort zone) interview was with Today’s Charlotte Woman magazine.  This magazine is a free publication that focuses on local female happenings.  The magazine has been around for a while, but went on hiatus for a few months when it changed ownership. The April issue is actually the celebratory relaunch of the publication. The theme for this month’s issue is “Women on the Edge.”  I was totally psyched when the editor contacted me about doing a story on  me, and only midly disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to do a climbing photo shoot sans boot in time to make their deadline.  The good news however was that they were perfectly happy using my favorite climbing photographer Manuela Eilert’s photos – hopefully that might bring some attention her way as well!  If you are a Charlotte local, you can pick up a copy at any Harris Teeter, or various other stores throughout the Charlotte Metro area.  If you’re not a local, then a pdf of the article can be found here – Lineberry story.

Thankfully my 6 weeks of boot-leg hell personal growth are over and things are starting to get back to normal around here.  This weekend we’ll be working on getting some footage for a video Trango would like to make about tykes at the crag.  (Yes, that means a Cragbaby Project Round 2!)  This project is still in the opening stages, so stay tuned for more updates on that along the way.  Until then get outside and enjoy the weekend!

 

 

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“Not all who wander are lost.” —JRR TOLKIEN