Leisured climbing in suburbia

Thanksgiving break for students is traditionally marked by relaxing, sleeping, eating lots of turkey and for some- dreaming about climbing (-; After exercising patience all week, sitting around and eating everything there is to eat, I made some phone calls and made moves for Carter Rocks, Maryland. Carter Rocks sits along the Potomac river just across from Virginia. A mere 60 feet tall at its highest point and perhaps a quarter mile in length, Carter Rocks is nothing to brag about.

My old friend Dan accompanied me and our climbing style for the day was traditional. I led the first route, brushing off the initial joy of anticipation. It was not so difficult, "for good technique combined with fitness is all that is needed to overcome the difficulties" (Gaston Rébuffat). We had only the time for two routes, so after Dan had conquered the climb, we moved on to a simulated multi-pitch route. It was excellent opportunity to practice setting gear, in a safe setting where one is not so tired as to make silly mistakes and time can allow for endless creativity. About 15 feet up, I set up an anchor, I was particularly fond of my nut placements, for the crack was bursting with tapers:

I belayed Dan up to my stance and then he belayed me to the top (another 15 feet). While it was a short route, it high lighted the important procedure to exchanging gear and switching belays quickly.

That is all for now, I am back in West Virginia, hopefully there will be opportunities to place more gear, even with finals looming on the horizon...

Abenteuer in Südwesten Colorado!

Adventures in Southwest Colorado!

This weekend took me to sunny and beautiful Montrose, Colorado. Situated amongst the San Juan mountain range of southwest Colorado, it is in a perfect location for outdoor activities. An hour or so north of Ouray- the ice climbing mecca of North America, an hour from Telluride- an epic ski destination in itself and completely surrounded by public lands offering more to do than time can allow! Montrose really has a lot going for it, the only item missing is an extensive public transit system so one does not need a car so much! I have been staying with a wonderful couple whom I found on Couchsurfing, if you don’t know what this is check it out here: http://www.couchsurfing.com/

My first day here I had an awesome opportunity to see Grand Mesa National Forest. Located an hour north of Montrose, it is one of the largest flat top mountains in the world at over 50 square miles and at elevations ranging from 10 to 11,000 feet! It hosts quite a unique subalpine ecosystem up there, with spruce and fir trees as well several dozen small lakes. At this time of year it was completely frozen up there and we could walk out onto the lakes easily- albeit carefully (-;

I traveled with a fellow couchsurfer, Amanda Harrow who is touring Colorado and the west after spending some months working in Denver on an election campaign. She was kind enough to drive us up there, which turned out to be much longer than it looked on the map (this happens all the time to me here in Colorado- the distances are deceiving!) She accompanied me on a hike where we could not find the trail, so instead we bushwacked a bit and made our own trail through about 4 inches of snow.

The next day our wonderful hosts took Amanda and myself on an epic adventure that culminated in a nudie soak at Orvis hot springs. We had a late start from Montrose, after corresponding silly delays from all of us. Telluride easily made up for that though! What has to be one of the coolest Colorado resort towns I have seen, Telluride is surrounded on 3 sides by massive imposing mountains.

It is easy to see why Telluride is so famous the world throughout for its pop culture, the main street features great shopping, a free gondola takes you to mountain village (where the ski slopes begin), there are numerous festivals throughout the year and the food was absolutely outstanding (try the fish tacos from the stand- outta this world!). I could talk about how cool Telluride is and how much I want to live there all day, read about it for yourself here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telluride,_Colorado. We paused for a group photo of the couchsurfers, from left to right it is Robyn, Rob, Amanda and myself:

Next we embarked for Ouray, home of the infamous ice climbing festival held every year in January. Passing through town, we simply HAD to pause for a chocolate break. Anyone who has been to Ouray knows about Moose’s chocolate. I devoured chocolate in more forms in such a a short amount of time than I would care to admit (on here atleast (-; ), but fresh chocolate is clearly one of the finer things in life. Moose’s has a variety to suit any taste and I might recommend the scrap cookies- a surprise flavor in every bite! Also, an insider tip- wait for when they pull the cookies out of the mini-oven, ask for a glass of milk, devour slowly and deliberately, then walk on clouds as you exit (-;

Outside Ouray to the south we stopped to see box canyon, where the top ice climbing action is held and where a stretch of perhaps a quarter miles is “farmed”. A pipe runs along the top of the narrow canyon and water is dripped through a series of nozzles that makes for perfect ice conditions- including opportunities for dry-picking (mixed ice climbing on rock with ice tools). Just to stand there and see the world class material simply blew my mind, fully knowing the world’s best climbers would descend on Ouray in a little over a month, it was an inspiring moment. Just recently metal structures were built to better able people to view the climbers- that is me standing on the big one which is probably for the press.

More information can be found here: http://www.ourayicepark.com/ The quality of the ice was a bit disappointing (lack of ice any ice actually), but the weather has not been contingent for snow or ice in this part of Colorado lately, sadly enough )-

Moving on from Ouray we continued south along the “million dollar highway”. At the start of the highway is a cool sign proclaiming:

The 23 mile highway was supposedly called this because it cost that much per mile to build, we worked it out in the car to be $9.47 per square foot. It was really an engineering marvel that I would venture to claim rivals the autbahns of alpine Austria. I wonder how much it cost to build the Großglockner-Hochalpenstraße? It is quite a famous alpine road snaking around the highest mountain of Austria. The photo below is of Bear Creek running under the road and flying off the mountain side- gives you an idea of how big the dropoff is and how difficult it was to build this road!

We drove for a while along the million dollar highway and managed to make it to the flat part, called Ironton, before turning around with nice thoughts of hot springs. At Orvis hot springs I had such a relaxing time, whew! The water felt great, wearing no clothes felt great and having a nice conversation with an older gentleman about the history of mountaineering in Colorado was nice. An hour and a half spent in varying pools of hotness, we had to put our clothes back on, kind of a sad moment after being free for so long. Sorry, no photos from Orvis (-;

First ski tour of the year!

Last night brought us here in northern West Virginia a lovely sugar coating of snow! In Morgantown I stepped out to the car to be greeted by 2 inches of snow and lots of ice to clear. I had some paperwork at the University, so I went to take care of that only to find no one in the office. With that I knew I had my chance to go big, Coops style (-: Skis, boots, poles, hot tea and Ipod shuffle loaded in the Volvo I headed up to Coopers Rock State Forest.

After a quick 20 minute drive I was pleasantly surprised by not a sugar coating, but full-fledged powder conditions! At about 2,200 ft (675 m), Coops is distinctly higher than Morgantown and as so gets blessed with much more snow. The average depth during my ski tour was perhaps about 4 inches, though in some places it was as shallow as 2 inches or as deep as 6 inches in drifts. There were no other skiers today either, a bit strange, but perhaps not because it is a Tuesday and most have to work. I took a moment to rig the camera on a stump to shoot this Kodak of me (in ankle pow!) on the trail:

I skied from the front gate near Intersate 68 to the overlook via the roadside trail. I am not sure how long it was, perhaps 6 or 8 miles all together- enough for a fun, mid-week, mid- morning ski tour (-; The view from the overlook was stunning. I arrived to find the clouds had cleared and to take this photo from the overlook block looking down the Cheat canyon:

After a rather agonizing tour back to the car (the inside of my heels were rubbed raw from the ski boots) I made quick time back to Morgantown in time for a brief meeting with my advisor at WVU. I had previously scheduled a meeting for the morning to discuss jobs in Colorado. I hope our area gets more snow and more ski tours come soon!

My roomate's super cool Blog

Hannes, my colleague and friend from Austria has a blog too! If you can read German and are interested he blogs about his experiences here in the states. Hannes and his girlfriend Doris are both exchange students from Austria studying at West Virginia University for this fall semester. His blog can be found here: http://hannes-in-america.blogspot.com/

If you cannot read the text, that is no problem! He is an outstanding photographer and has really done a nice job cataloging his trips with Doris all around the USA. This weekend they will go to see parts of New England and Canada.

Quick run to Coops

Sitting around all day doing course work can really be a drag, thats why my friend Brian and myself love to make these quick trips to our favorite local crag, Coopers Rock. Let it be known that Coopers Rock is a gem of a climbing area for the east coast, the "gritstone" rock quality is topnotch!

We arrived and Brian showed me a sort of new area I had not been to before near the overlook. The purpose of our visit was multi-facteted, Brian studying for an exam and me doing work on my laptop as well as a bit of bouldering (I most just bouldered (-; ).


We got on an overhanging problem that had some nice sort of slopey pockets and really committing topout, I might rate in the low Vs.

Thats all for now!

Colorful Spruce Knob and Seneca Rocks

After many months of deliberation and silly excuses, the ladyfriend and myself made it down to Spruce Knob, WV. We actually killed a few birds with one stone by visiting Seneca Rocks as well- for it was Madison's first time to see it (amazingly enough!). We were absolutely thrilled by the fall colors exhibited down there right now, it was clear they would be in their peak within the week! I must apologize, unfortunately, at the start of the trip my camera ran out of batteries and put the kabash (sp?) on any Kodak moments. However, those in Morgantown can look to yesterdays (Monday, Oct. 6) Daily Atheneum for a sunset shot from up on top of Spruce Knob.

A few short facts about Spruce Knob; it is the tallest point in West Virginia and part of a unique high red spruce ecosystem. All of the high areas were logged and subsequently burned from the slash about 100 years ago, and it is clear the forest is still recovering. These days however, it is quite pleasant to look upon the vast expanse of nearly never-ending forest from Spruce Knob and wonder how it once looked as virgin forest and desolation after logging.

We backpacked in along the scenic Seneca Creek trail right below Spruce Knob and stayed one night. It was delightfully cold that night with temperatures nearing the mid-30's, almost a frost! Aside from running out of stove fuel (always bring full canisters!), we had a flawless campout.

Seneca Rocks was magnificent as ever, in a previous post I mentioned I am a beginner trad climber, we watched and climbers leaving for the day and I was pretty envious (but I know that will soon be me (-: ). The air was so clear we could see for many miles. It was most interesting to hike up the trail and see the subtle vegetation changes as we neared the top of the rocks. It was pretty windy up top and the sheer drop down was exciting, it reminded me of Yosemite I had seen in photos and videos. Well, I am back to paperwork, look forward to a post about my impending trip to the Red River Gorge of Kentucky for this weekend's Red River Ruckus!

Got a Job!

Every now and again a professor sends out an email advertising a job here on campus. Typically they do not catch my attention too much, but a few weeks ago my Entomology professor, Dr. Park sent us a job posting for a Forest Service job (!). The work seemed interesting- identifying and tallying insects for a Hemlock wolly adelgid project. So I applied, got called for an interview and then just the other day I got a phone call that I had gotten the job!

Now, the only downside is that I am actually on the WVU payroll, and so consequently my pay is very low, but I think the experience far outweighs that! I hope to meet some Forest Service folks who have contacts out West (-: The work at first will be at the Forest Service office, which is kind of far to ride by bike, so I will have to drive (cost estimates are $1-1.5 return). However, later on, perhaps when I am more proficient at identification and such, I will be able to work in the Entomology lab on the Evansdale campus.

For the time being though, I am swimming in hiring paperwork!