Rocktown Bouldering

Just two weeks ago we were fortunate to spend two and a half days sampling the delightful sandstone boulders in Rocktown, Georgia. Rocktown is one of three prized bouldering locations in the southeast, alongside Little Rock City and (of course) Horse Pens 40. The nearby town of LaFayette offers most of the basic amenities one would require on a visit to the area, but for a wider variety of rest day activities, climbing gear, and general stock-up, Chattanooga, Tennessee is a mere 45 min drive away. The bouldering at Rocktown is located on top of a mountain in the Crockford-Pigeon Mountain Wildlife Management Area, and since January 2012 a "Georgia Outdoor Recreation Pass" (GORP) is required to participate in any recreation in the area. A $35 annual group pass covers unlimited access and camping, and can include up to 8 people, which is great.

We were super lucky to meet up with a couple friends we'd met in the Red River Gorge for our short stay. Ben and Marc helped us to get our bearings and showed us around the various problems, plus they were super fun and positive to climb with! Marc is also an up-and-coming climbing photographer who is taking some awesome shots. Check out his work here: http://www.thegnarwall.com/ 

We wish we'd had more time to project some of the awesome problems and explore more that Rocktown has to offer, but that will have to wait until our next visit.

A summary of our stay in photos:

Graham squeezing the slopers on "The Orb" (V8)

Kim sticking the big move on "Nose Candy" (V6). Photo Credit: Marc Bourguignon

Graham cranks through powerful underclings on "The Vagina" (V7)

Graham on his send of "Lab Rats" (V6)

Marc throws for the dyno on "The Comet" (V7)

More flying through the air on attempts of "The Comet" (V7)

Ben delicately steps across the scoop of "The Scoop" (V2)

Kim on her send of "Soap on a Rope" (V4). Photo credit: Marc Bourguignon

Graham does a repeat for the camera after his send of "Paparazzi" (V7)

Kim on her send of "Golden Showers" (V5)

Marc on his send of the classic problem "The Orb" (V8)

Lichen funk.

We love Rocktown!!

Operation Megaproject

Projecting is difficult. Taking on a hard project demands extensive physical strength, stamina and mental fortitude, and of course, projecting involves great risk.

Projecting on a timeline can amplify the difficulties of the process and it certainly heightens the risk of not sending. When visiting a climbing destination it can be scary to launch whole-heartedly into something that pushes one’s limits yet provides no guarantee of success, but it can teach us a lot about ourselves as climbers, our ability to be disciplined and focused, our ability to work under pressure, and most of all our ability to celebrate the process rather than the outcome.

On November 12^th of this year, we had just reached the end of six weeks of sport climbing in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge. We had climbed a LOT of volume, both onsighting and redpointing a wide variety of routes, and we’d both completed several small projects. We were satisfied with our time in the Red and ready to move on, but with the help of a few beers we made a last minute decision to take on a BIG project. We were in great “Red Shape” after a month and a half and there were abundant options for hard routes. What did we have to lose?

With the possibility of extending our stay two more weeks, we came up with a plan:  we would each pick a route that was more difficult than anything we’d climbed, and we would get to the anchors of that route by whatever means possible to assess the moves and feasibility. Then we would launch ourselves at the route, devoting every climbing day to the project. Other plans included no beer (this lasted about 7 days), rest day runs (this lasted one day), rest day core and opposition work-outs (we stayed on track pretty well), and eight or more hours of sleep each night (no problem!).  

A typical "madness cave" belay experience

Kim chose the iconic arête route “Kaleidoscope” (5.13c) for her project. Graham chose the long enduro-testpiece “Omaha Beach” (5.14a), touted as one of the best routes of its grade in the country, for his project. It was exciting to push ourselves to try really hard, and to focus on one goal. We celebrated the small successes, but we also encountered mental blocks and challenges that were emotionally draining. On Kim’s route one low percentage dynamic move halted progress for several days in a row, and she had to overcome the mental challenge of skipping the final draw, which made the run-out to the anchors a third of the route’s length. Graham’s difficulties were different. Omaha Beach is 130 feet long and climbs through the Motherlode’s Madness Cave, a huge overhanging horseshoe-shaped cave. Graham excels at routes with distinct hard or bouldery cruxes, making Omaha Beach his anti-style - extremely steep sustained V4-5 endurance climbing. Another challenge with any of the routes in the Madness Cave is the huge whippers that are inevitable when a climber peels off. We used all sorts of techniques to help with boinking back to the wall – jumars, belayer weights, boinking prussic, etc, but each time a climber chooses to boink it is still a significant undertaking. 

Graham climbing out through the steepness on Omaha Beach

Kim pinches her way up the arete of Kaleidoscope

Graham prepares for yet another epic "boink"

In the end, our limited time caught up with us. Kim came away with a send on her final climbing day (talk about cutting it close!) and Graham and Omaha decided they needed a bit of time apart to settle their differences, knowing they could reunite some day in the future. 

Kim on her send of Kaleidoscope, her first 5.13c

Regardless of the outcomes, we learned several important things that we will take into consideration the next time we decide to initiate an Operation Megaproject:

1. Start with two projects. Keep one as a primary, one as a secondary.
2. Compartmentalize the route. Break it into boulder problems or sections, then focus on little segments at a time
3. Learn the beta as quickly as possible. Write it down, draw it, or memorize it, then visualize often
4. Spend some extra effort learning how to recover as best possible on the rests
5. Know where the biggest mental difficulties are, and focus extra energy and refinement on those parts so they become the easiest (a hard crux, a dynamic move, a skipped clip, etc)
6. If you and your partner’s projects are at different crags, climb on opposite days from each other
7. In the long term schedule, keep time for onsighting/low-key days and ensure there are enough days to get away, regroup, and still come back
8. Stay positive. Focus on progress, no matter how small, and don’t get dragged down into things that go wrong
9. Try to prevent a forced timeline - start as EARLY as possible in the trip to take the pressure off

We are happy with the experience and looking forward to applying what we’ve learned to the next time we initiate an Operation Megaproject :)

Oh, the woes of projecting

#operationmegaprojecteverythingisawesomeallthetimefuckyeah

One Year of Climbing Van Life

Exactly one year ago today we transitioned into living out of a 60 square foot mobile box. Back in the fall of 2014 we packed our belongings into boxes, built the "Millenium FalcVan" and then on November 20th we moved in to start our dream rock climbing trip around North America. We love our climbing van life, and are so happy we made the commitment to taking this trip. Living in a small space does have some limitations though.... We’ve come up with a list of five things we love that are unique to this lifestyle, and five things that we kind of miss from before.

The Loves

1.     Improved health. We go to sleep and wake up with the setting and rising of the sun. We eat better (in part to save money), we sleep way more, and we are active all day. We experience very little stress, and never get sick.

2.     Living simply. Our van home has a lot of storage space to hold the things we need, but overall we live with few possessions. We do not have phones or constant access to wifi (unless we seek it out), so we live a mostly distraction-free life, spending time with each other and friends.

3.     Our backyard. The inside of a van is a very small space. As such, we are pretty much only inside when it’s raining or when we’re sleeping. All of our every day chores happen outside of the van. Cooking, eating, washing, finding bathrooms… etc. This allows us to truly enjoy and appreciate our existence in so many beautiful natural places.

4.     Mobility. As the saying goes, “home is where you park it”. If we are tired of one place, we simply move to another. Being in a van as opposed to a camper or RV, we also have the advantage of “stealth camping” just about anywhere we go.

5.     Closeness. We simply have to get along in such a small space. Communication and teamwork are essential to keeping our van life successful. And we are forced to snuggle every night :)

The Misses

1.     Friends and family. The van is a great magnet for meeting a lot of people, and we have made some truly incredible friends on the road. That said, being so far from our friends and family back home is a huge challenge.

2.     Lattes and Restaurants. Graham likes lattes… a lot. Back in city life, we’d often go out for a coffee a day. Being on such a tight budget, we are simply unable to indulge in these luxuries. Same goes for ordering out pizza…

3.     Theft. Although we haven’t experienced this (knock on wood), theft is a worry. Our whole life is currently in our vehicle and a break-in would be devastating. There is nothing more haunting than parking in a lot with signs up that say “Don’t leave valuables in your vehicle”.

4.     Clutter. For the most part, we are pretty darn organized. We just have to be. However, after a hard day of climbing it is a lot more inviting to have a beer and relax with friends than it is to tidy the van. So inevitably, clutter happens.

5.     Showering. You really learn to live without it, and to be honest this one doesn’t really bother us all that much. The reality is, that frequent showers disappear from your life, as paying for them quickly adds up. We often have friends in different places say “you’re welcome to stay with us when you’re passing through!” We usually respond with, “Oh we’re very easy house guests. No need to put us up in a spare room, we’re happy in the van. But could we hit you up for a shower during our visit?” Same usually goes for laundry…

<3 Kim and Graham

a post box sticker from a few years ago

The FalcVan holds up in the snow!!

<3

Six Weeks in the RRG

Is it actually possible that this rock is real, that these holds are natural, that we are climbing on these angles??? Wow. We’ve spent the past six weeks enjoying our first trip to the Red River Gorge (aka “The Red” or the RRG) in eastern Kentucky. The RRG is a sport climbing mecca – this is the only destination in the USA so far where we’ve met more international travellers than we have Americans, and even the Americans we’ve encountered have travelled far across their country to climb in this incredible place. 
 

Graham climbing one of the routes at "The Zoo"

Scalloped iron bands in the sandstone

Overhanging horseshoe after overhanging horseshoe of solid sandstone walls make up the climbing in the Red, and autumn is definitely the season to be here. From early October through mid-November we watched the leaves on the trees shift from green to brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows before eventually falling to the ground (and making it harder and harder to find suitable pee spots!). It feels almost tropical here, with the rolling hills of dense deciduous forests, ever-high humidity, huge prehistoric-looking leaves, and so many interesting creatures. 

Stick bug!

Leaf bug! Katydid?

Turtle.

We spent the first three weeks of our stay with Dan and Nicole and Shep which was AWESOME! They’d been here for a while before we arrived, so they had a bit of a routine going already and toured us through some spectacular crags. They invited us to stay with them at Lago Linda’s, which is a lovely campground with a pretty chilled out feel that caters almost exclusively to climbers. 

Shep chillin'

Rest day activities...

Throughout our stay so far we've participated in a few events that have added some depth to our experience beyond simply climbing. We visited and volunteered at the Rocktober Fest, an annual event that the Red River GorgeClimber’s Coalition puts on to raise money for land acquisition and maintenance. We’ve discovered that access issues are a lot more finicky out here in the East compared to the West, so it felt great to contribute to helping access in this region. We also attended the annual Woolly Worm Festival in Beattyville, the small town that is nearest to Lago Linda’s. It was pretty interesting to see where the woolly worms are raced to predict the outcome of winter and take in some live bluegrass music. 

With our Albertan friends, Victor and Kyle, heading to the Woolly Worm Festival

The championship race is a pretty big deal

Coaxing a woolly worm into a practice lap

We wrapped up our time at the festival with some maple bacon donuts... mmmm

It took us a little while to become accustomed to the steep angles and long enduro-style routes in the Red, but once we got into the groove we were able to enjoy climbing a ton of different lines and come away with a few great successes. We've been pushing hard and climbing tons of great routes... here's a sampling of some of the things we've been on:

Graham warming up at Purgatory

Graham flashes "Table of Colours" (5.13a) as the sun sets

Dan in a hole

Graham on his send of "Ultra Perm" (5.13d) - Photo credit: Bonar McCallum

Nicole hiding in a hole and making a biiiiiiiiig reach on her send of "Check Your Grip" (5.12a)

Kim on her send of "Easy Rider" (5.13a) - Photo credit: Marcin Szymelfenig

Kim on her send of "Massive Attack" (5.12a) - Photo credit: Kyle Melnyck

Lea cranking moves on "Bettavul Pipeline" (5.12a)

Bonar on his send of "Kaleidoscope" (5.13c)

After so much good climbing and finishing up most of our projects, we were all set to pack up and head further south today. Cool temps have arrived, crowds are dispersing, and change is in the air - BUT we've made a spontaneous decision not to leave! The plan is to stay up to two more weeks unless the season ends earlier, and we've set some mighty ambitious goals.... time to get our focus on.

Performance Rituals

We all have rituals that, placebo or not, assist us in climbing at our best. Over our time as climbers, Graham and I have acquired a wide variety of habits that we believe enable us to “perform” when we need to. We are ready to share our secret (or if you ever climb with us – not so secret) strategies… some of these apply more to one of us than the other, but regardless of that, here they are in no special order:

Hand Balm

Climb On, Palmistry, Wabi Sabi (formerly Cynthia's Soaps), F-Balm, Metolius, Grand Wall, J Tree Salve, etc…. we are obsessed.

All of this is so important to us....

Because this is all too frequent...

Theracane

We are both in love with the theracane, and will sit happily working out knots for up to an hour at a time. I like to use the theracane in the evening most days, and Graham likes it on the night before a rest day.

It speaks for itself

Liquid Chalk

There is something about applying liquid chalk before a red point burn… the ritual just helps. Our favourite is the Mammut Liquid Chalk. Oddly enough, sometimes we intentionally switch it up to NOT apply liquid chalk, in order to take the pressure off.

Liquid Gold.

Hour-long Rests

When we’re pushing our limits in sport climbing, we find it critical to give our bodies abundant rest time between burns when we’re giving 100% of ourselves. This means after a thorough warm-up, we bring on the long waits between working burns and the hopeful send attempts that follow.

Time to watch others!

Time to snooze!

Time to chill out!

Time to sun bathe!

Sugar

Food is so important to us when we’re pushing our limits.  We cannot exert ourselves at the highest level of our ability if our tummies are growling or our blood sugars are low – we also believe that we get a significant boost in energy if we consume something small just before we climb. We pack tons of food to eat throughout the day... wraps or sandwiches, and quick snacks with healthy sugars like fresh and dry fruit, carrots, granola bars, trail mix, jerky, cookies, etc. A wide variety of snacks each day helps us make sure we have enough food to eat before every single attempt.

Back in May of this year we dehydrated several cases of mangoes for crag snacks!

Nom nom nom

Chocolate is good sometimes too ;)

Pee Breaks

Most people experience the “nervous pees”… needless to say, whatever is in the bladder must be emptied before a send attempt. Unnecessary weight after all ;)

Water

If we even begin to think we are dehydrated, climbing well is a no go. The repeated eat-pee-drink ritual simply must be adhered to, and usually in that order. In Kim’s case, basically every time she pees she feels the need to replace volume out with volume in immediately. 

Gatorade powder ftw.

Stretchy Bands and Finger Massagers
Our fingers are arguably one of the most important body parts for climbing, and it is essential to respect and maintain them. In addition to stretching and massage, we use a few other tools. We are also super keen on thera-bands - to help warm us up, to help stretch muscle, and to help with opposition strengthening.

Happy fingers!

Route Memorization
When we get really psyched on a project, we essentially live in the sequences, running them over and over in our minds, dreaming about them at night. A few things help to get the beta well-ingrained, like visualization, talking the sequences out, drawing them, and/or writing descriptions of the moves.

Excerpts from our climbing journals

So there you have it. The tricks we use and love all too much! Happy climbing :)