End of the Summer, beginning of the fall

Miso escaping Kentucky's typical 90 degree and 100% humidity weather.

Photo credit: Erica Toivonen

Every year at Miguel's brings a completely new crowd with a totally different attitude from the previous years. Some years are low motivation years, others high. Fortunately this year was a high motivation year for those living in the Gorge. This year was full of total joy and sending enthusiasm. Everyone was eager to venture out to the crags even on the most God awfully hot days. (Nothing like going though a gallon of water a day and not peeing once) I've always just treated the summer as training, but this year I watched people reach new grades and personal goals that inspired me to try and do the same.
This was also one of the more productive years. The Ventura's bought one of their neighbor's houses and completely refurbished it as a rental house for climbers in time for Rocktoberfest this weekend at the same time as finishing up the shower house that now has hostel style bedrooms above it. The below pictures are from the "Raising the Roof" party after the roof had been finished at the neighbor's house.

Some of the gals from this past summer.
Photo credit: Sara Purcell (well at least her camera)

The hardworking men!
Photo credit: Sara Purcell

Along with all the Miguel's productivity, crag maintenance was not left behind. This year's Johnny and Alex Trail Day was a HUGE success. The PMRP's trails were spruced up and belay stations were made safer. Massive amounts of people attended from all over the US. My 8-year-old sister, Julia, even attended and did her part.

Julia signing up for the trail day.
Photo credit: Elodie Saracco

JR doing his part.
Photo Credit: Stephanie Carson

Our Home in Kentucky
Photo credit: Erica Toivonen

Something a little unique about this year was that I lived in a house! Jordan, my boyfriend, and I were lucky enough to stumble upon a fantastic opportunity for any dirtbag couple. Keith Ladzinski, a well known photographer in both the climbing and skating community, owns a house down at the Red and he was looking for some climbers that would be willing to watch the house so rednecks wouldn't burn it down...FOR FREE! The only catch was that we had to pay utilities. But seeing as we're dirtbags and don't use as much modern commodities as normal people, that was not an issue at all. (Not to mention we were living there for free) Out of the three years that I've spent living down at the Red this was defiantly the most clean I've ever been. It's going to be rough having to go back to the car and tent life after living the cushy house life.

So that catches us up to speed to where I am currently. We are now well into the fall which is both a blessing and not. With the fall comes the good climbing season, but school also begins as well. I am currently living in an apartment in Columbus, OH and commuting to the Red for the weekends. I have once again rigged my school schedule so that I only go to school Tuesdays and Thursdays to maximize my outdoor climbing time. I still work at Miguel's on the weekends and Vertical Adventures on Wednesdays. It's all a bit hectic, but worth it all the same.

Pebble Wrestleing Season Over

It's been awhile since I've updated because I've taken a few months off of climbing. I was sick for the first month with multiple viruses and then there was some unneeded drama going on at my gym that I just decided to avoid. In all honesty it was kind of relaxing taking a few months off climbing. Those two months off were the longest amounts of voluntary time that I have taken off climbing in 9 years!

I am now living at the Red River Gorge again Friday-Monday working at Miguel's Pizza. Then Tuesday-Thursday I'm in Cincinnati going to school. My first weekend back at work happened to be the weekend of the Red River Reunion. Naturally we were super busy every day that I was there. It was great seeing old friends again and meeting new ones.

On Saturday we had one of my close friend's (Thalia) baby shower. The shower was a huge success. Friends came from all over the US. (Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, Indiana, Wisconsin, etc.) She received the majority of things she needed from car seats to strollers to first aid kits.
I know I've posted this before, but seeing as I accidentally deleted some of my posts I decided this one I really wanted on here.

On a different note. I'm sad that the bouldering season is over, but I'm super psyched for the upcoming route season. Since my previous blogs got deleted somehow there in one that I would like to repost:

On Monday November 3, 2008 two of my friends passed away in a climbing accident. Ben Strohmeier, my close friend and coworker, and I had known each other since we were beginner climbers and gym rats. His death effected me greatly and and I decided to dedicate my crash pad to him. Josh Helke and the Organic crew were so much help in putting together my crash pad.

First: I found a picture of Ben that always reminded me of him whenever i thought of him.

Second: My mom and I configured a design that was similar to the picture of Ben.

Third: I picked a color scheme that was representative of Ben:

Yellow- happiness, enery, intellectual
Green- life and nature
Brown- earth and order of life

Finished Product. Thanks so much to everyone over at Organic.

Waaaaccccoooo

Departure from Cincinnati, Ohio: 9:55pm January 26, 2009
Arrive in Louisville, Kentucky 11:40pm January 26, 2009
Arrive in Nashville, Tennessee 2:25am January 27, 2009
Arrive in Memphis, Tennessee 7:00am January 27, 2009 (2hr and 15 min delay)
Arrive in Little Rock, Arkansas 12:40am January 27, 2009
Arrive in Texarkana, Arkansas 2:25pm January 27, 2009
Arrive in Dallas, Texas 6:15pm January 27, 2009 (19 HOUR DELAY)

The rest of the Greyhound trip is not important. What IS important is how long Kathryn and I were delayed in Dallas, Texas. Upon arriving in Dallas we discovered that our bus to our next stop, Abilene, was not just over booked, but over booked by TWICE as many people. The employees could not have been more worthless. One employee, who we later found out was the manager, told Kathryn that she was "the reason for our bus being over booked and she wasn't sorry about it". Not only were we going to have to wait for the next bus but apparently atrocious weather hit the Dallas area causing there to be black ice...either that or people don't know how to drive through winter weather in the South. (I'll leave that up to you) So now on top of missing our bus we were stranded in Dallas because of weather. The employees at the Dallas Greyhound Station made us move THREE DIFFERENT times while we were trying to sleep, finally they pointed us towards one of the abandoned buses where they were sheltering other stranded passengers for the night. Talk about uncomfortable. Very grudgingly they let us (the stranded passengers) have food coupons, but only every 8 hours, and even then they would only give out 10 at a time. Needless to say there were more people stranded than the mere 10. Sometimes the employees would tell us that they weren't going to give us the coupons for an hour just in case a bus came for us so they wouldn't have to give us free food. uuugggghhh But we did eventually make it to El Paso a day later than planned.

Total Hours with Greyhound from Cincinnati to El Paso: 52


Hueco Tanks- an area of low mountains in Texas. It is located in a high-altitude desert basin between the Franklin Mountains to the west and the Hueco Mountains to the east. Hueco is a Spanish word meaning hollows and refers to the many water-holding depressions in the boulders and rock faces throughout the region. Hueco Tanks is thus a redundant phrase.

Hueco is a giant playground for climbers. I have never seen features this unique, nor have had to use heel hooks quite so much. So many of the uber classic problems have the coolest holds and features. The Moonshine Roof is a prime example, there is basically a giant surf board sticking out of the bottom of a roof. Hueco is known for it's highballs, history, and of course huecos!

All of which I experienced:

Climbing a warm-up highball on North Mountain. Notice how small the crash pads are and my super spotters.
Photo: Eric Stevenson
Sending Sign of the Cross- Sherman’s template for all V3's
Photo: Matt Hughes
Jamie lounging on some of the huecos
Photo: Matt Hughes

Hueco is one of those places where spending a week there only begins to scratch the surface of what the bouldering has to offer. I felt like I was only just beginning to understand how to climb there. After sending a few problems the initial feeling that absolutely every hold is super greasy begins to become less of an issue as your body adapts to this unique style of bouldering. That's when you really start to enjoy the climbing. I recommend spending more than a week at Hueco...
Climbing Jigsaw
Photo: Matt Hughes

Eric sending Animal Acts
Photo: Matt Hughes

Kat on Lobster Claw
Photo: Matt HughesMatt sending Big Dick JimSending Daily Dick Dose
Photo: Matt Hughes

**Note: somehow I think I accidental deleted my other posts, whoops. Bummer**

New addition

A lot has happened since my last post. I recently rescued a Husky-Border Collie mix from some farmer in Slade. The past few days have been kinda rough so I decided to go down to the Red to visit some of my friends and some how Dario convinced me to get one of the same puppies that he got Emily. I didn't take much convincing...I've been thinking about getting a dog for awhile now and Miso (my puppy) was free and I'm not doing anything but work, school, and climbing these days so why not? She's VERY unsocialized and is taking awhile to get out of her shell. But she is completely adorable:

Kris and I have been taking a few trips down to the dirty south for some boulderin. I've been super amped about climbing lately, and I think it has a lot to do with all the bouldering outside. Here are some of the pictures from New Years at Rocktown:

Emily sending The Wave
Em's sending face
Katy sending The Wave
Katy's sending face
Kris on The Orb