April 18-19: Road Trip with M, Part 2, Rest Days in Asheville, NC

After climbing for five straight days, it was time to rest, so we packed up the car and headed to Asheville, NC to hang for a day or so before continuing our climbing trip at Rumbling Bald over the weekend. For the record, whacking your funny bone on the edge of the car door is not funny at all; it hurt less when I broke my wrist, although I was glad that nothing was broken. Oh well, it gave me the opportunity to learn I can drive my car while having an ice pack strapped to my elbow.

We checked in to the Sweet Peas Hostel, then ventured out to explore Asheville. Our initial destination was an art store we passed on the way in, but before we got there, we saw the Gourmet Chip Company. Since this sounded delicious and we were both hungry, we stopped for a snack and we were glad we did! After a thorough reading of the menu, we decided on the Americana chips, a delicious combo of gouda, bacon and pepper. Mmmm. We decided that we'd have a progressive meal, having a bite to eat a various places as we walked around downtown in the afternoon and evening.

Course 1 - Americana Chips

As we finished our chips, the worker brought us and the other customers some bonus chips, Belgium Caramel flavor - chocolate shavings, caramel drizzle and sea salt. Heaven!

Course 1.5 - Belgium Caramel Chips

Our next food and beverage stop was Wicked Weed Brewing Company. We split some citrus marinated olives.

Course 2 - Olives

After some more walking to rebuild the appetite, we walked into Asheville Brewing Company. The menu said the salsa was amazing and M and I agreed. The queso was pretty good, too.

Course 3 - Chips, Salsa and Queso

The bathroom decor in this place was awesome as well!

Love it!

Our next course was liquid, ginger ale for me and a flight of beer for Mandy at Green Man Brewery. We played darts there and I won. Not that it was a very good game of darts.

Course 4 - Ginger Ale and Beer

Four hours into our progressive dinner, it was time to get some actual dinner. We went to Farm Burger and split chicken pot pie fritters and a burger with cheddar, caramelized onions and FB sauce (aka The Number 1). Both were fabulous and I finally found a burger that topped the one I enjoyed (several times) when I was out in J-Tree. They served the burger medium without even asking and it was prepared perfectly; it would have been a shame to cook this burger to well-done.

Course 5 - Chicken Pot Pie Fritters and No 1 Burger

We got our second bonus dessert of the day, a mini vanilla shake. I guess washing our hair and leaving the baseball caps in the car pays off!

Course 5.5 - Vanilla Shake

We headed back to the hostel, since our planned dessert stop was located in the same building. Unfortunately, it's not the only bar located in that building, which we found out when we walked in and discovered we were at The Southern. We decided on a spontaneous course of deviled eggs, which we had seen on the menu at several other places. M discovered a beer that she really liked, so it was a fortuitous mistake. The eggs were tasty, but by this point in the evening, I felt a bit like Cool Hand Luke eating them.

Course 6 - Trio of Deviled Eggs

Our seventh and final course was dessert at The Lab. There were many tasty choices, but we went with the rhubarb sundae - rhubarb ice cream, candied peanuts, chocolate coveted pretzels, rhubarb caramel and cinnamon whipped cream. It was a great way to end the meal!

Course 7 - Rhubarb Sundae

Despite all that we ate the night before, we were hungry when we woke up. The guy working at the hostel recommended the Early Girl Eatery. It was a great recommendation. M and I both got the Early Girl Benny (grit cakes topped with tomato, spinach, poached eggs, tomato gravy and avocado) with a biscuit. Both the meal and the condiments were delicious; the jam was tasty, the O'Yeah sauce provided a touch of heat with excellent flavor and the Fire from the Mountain Smoked Habanero hot sauce gets my coveted* "Not for Wimps" designation.

Early Girl Benny

Yummy Condiments

We did more exploring and then went to some beer store so M could pick up some brews for the weekend, but mainly we were just killing time until we were hungry enough to eat again. Second breakfast was beignets. It made a fine pre-climb snack, since we were heading over to the local climbing gym, ClimbMax, afterward.

Beignets

The only thing better than a pre-climb snack of beignets is a post-climb meal at Farm Burger. Given all the tasty restaurants in town, it seemed a bit silly to repeat, but that burger was really good, plus, we didn't sample the fries. We ordered the No 1 again, plus the No 6 (bacon, sunny side up farm egg, pepper jack cheese, salsa verde) and an order of the pimento cheese and jalapeno fries. Delicious again!

Burgers

Fries

Our time for eating in Asheville was over. We drove to our campground and got ready for a weekend of climbing and camping.

Asheville is a great place to get your eat on!

* Coveted by exactly no one.

April 12-17: Road Trip with M, Part 1, RRG and The Obed

It's time for another climbing trip with M! Our first stop was the Red River Gorge in Kentucky. We stopped for dinner on the way and I was excited to see sopapillas on the menu. Unfortunately, my excitement turned to disappointment, as there seems to be confusion over just what the heck a sopapilla is. I was served a flat, fried tortilla, similar to the one pictured below. While it was tasty, it was not a sopapilla. 

THIS IS NOT A SOPAPILLA!

We joined other volunteers with the RRGCC for a trail day on Saturday morning. Our group helped move a bridge on the approach to the Motherlode. I found rocks, dug sand and clay and stayed out of the way of people swinging tools. There was still plenty of time afterward for climbing, so we headed over to Chica Bonita. My highlight of the afternoon was leading my first 5.10a, Raindancer. Gotta love those short (30 foot) routes! We met some friends and had pizza at Miguel's. Also met a young woman who honestly seemed to believe there is no difference between turkey bacon and regular bacon. I am glad my taste buds work better than that!

At the top of Raindancer
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We headed back to the PRMP on Sunday and joined the crowd at The Shire. Fortunately, only one group had members who probably should have written up in the ongoing weekly idiot report forum. I'll just leave it at that. We got up three routes (I led two) then met with the rest of our group at Left Field. They were stuck on a 5.9. J dragged up the stick click to get to the crux bolt, but got no further. I gave it a shot, but backed off. M, however, went for it and made it to the top! Our bail biners would have to be used another day. We said goodbye to our friends who had to be at work on Monday, then headed over to The Rockhouse for some tasty dinner.

We took advantage of the lighter crowds and headed over to Phantasia Wall. After a nice steep, but short, climb we warmed up on Lord of the Flies. We hoped to do Pogue Ethics next, but another group was on it. We walked the other direction and got on a fun-looking 5.10b, Overlord. This was the first time for both of us to put up a 5.10b and together we did it. Yay! Looking forward to both of us leading it cleaning the next time we go. Pogue Ethics was still being climbed, so we headed over to Creature Feature. What a mistake! Two-and-a-half unfun hours later, we gave up and the next party retrieved our gear. (Thanks!) We headed back to Miguel's for a refreshing shower and back up camp before driving to the Obed Hostel, our home away from home while we climbed at The Obed.

We went into town and hit the hot breakfast spot, Hardees, to fuel up before a day of bouldering. Although quite a few boulders/problems were wet (must have something to do with the trees and moss on top of many of the boulders) we found plenty of problems to keep us busy. We warmed up on some V0's and V1's on the warmup wall, then headed over to the KB Boulder to work a couple of V2's we hadn't finished the last time we were here. (M finished one of them last time, but I didn't top out either of them.) It took a little work, but we both topped out (but not very beautifully) KB Arete and Honker. After we explored the bouder field looking for problems that were both interesting and dry, we conquered Maestro Madness, avoiding the worm that was hanging out near the top of the problem. I'm pretty sure this was my first V3. We did a couple more problems, then went back into town and grabbed dinner and groceries. The evening's entertainment was watching the lambs eat grass.

Wednesday's forecast wasn't great, with the chance of rain increasing as the day went on, but we decided to risk it. After a decent hike, we reached our warmup route, Cocoa Puffs, in the South Clear. It proved to be a bit of a challenge, as the rock was a little slicker than I'm used to and it was necessary to make a top-out style move (not my strong suit) to get to the anchors, but I managed. Next up was Best Seat in the House, so named because the view from the top is quite nice. I was first up on lead, but was having difficulties unlocking a move, so turned it over to M to see if she could get up it before the rains came, because at this point it was becoming clear it was a matter of when than if. She figured it out and then cruised to the top. As the skies darkened, it was my turn to get up and clean the route before the rain came. At least, that was the goal. A light rain greeted me as I reached the anchors. If it had just stayed a light rain, it would have been fine, but it turned into a downpour shortly thereafter, drenching me, M and the rope, which ended up in a puddle that formed very quickly at the base of the route. I got down safely and we headed to the shelter of a roof to eat lunch while the rain passed. Once the rain stopped, we made the trek out, which was a bit more challenging than the trek in, because now we had a few creek crossings to navigate. It was a soggy end to our trip to The Obed. Looking forward to going back and getting on some more routes.

The same spot, before and after the rain. Notice anything different?

The Climbs

Obed Bouldering

Warm-up Wall

Hot Dog V0

Something we made up V0/V1

Soldier V0

Dipsy Do V1

KB Boulder

Tippy Toes V0

Eco Terror V0

KB Arete V2

Honker V2

Piano Boulder

Maestro Madness V3 (first V3)

Beer Boulder

Bud V0

Obed Sport

Cocoa Puffs 5.7 

Best Seat in the House 5.9

April 5-7: Bouldering at Stone Fort

Another weekend, another climbing trip, this time to my favorite (to date) bouldering destination, Stone Fort. M & I met T at his place, loaded up M's car and headed out Friday evening. After a tasty (and cheap!) dinner at Acapulco Burrito south of Nashville, we checked into The Crashpad, a sweet hostel in downtown Chattanooga. It was a gorgeous weekend for bouldering, as the forecast called for sunny skies and temps approaching 70. We wasted no time making ourselves breakfast and heading to the boulder field Saturday morning. We warmed up with a few problems on the Blind Spot boulder, then headed over to the Two Shoes Jack boulder to work Tom Jones, a long V0 traverse with a tree in the fall zone of the crux move. The length and lack of feet provided a great workout, T discovered the tree provided an uncomfortable slide to the ground. M put all the moves together and got to check the problem off her list. Sweet!

T on Tom Jones

After a break for lunch at the clubhouse, we headed back to the Two Shoes Jack boulder to do some more problems, including one of my projects, Slow Poke, a V1 with one long move. After a few tries, I finally stuck the move, then held on through my shock to finish the problem. Yay!

The long move

At the top!

We got on a few more problems throughout the afternoon before our stomachs took over and let us know it was time to get some dinner. We made our way to Taco Mamacita, which was delicious as usual. This was my first visit since I started eating ground beef again, so I finally had the Sloppy Jose taco M has been raving about - fabulous! (The Sloppy Jose is spicy ground beef, jalapeños, monterey jack cheese, sour cream and Fritos. Mmmm.) Afterward, we hung out at the firepit at the Crashpad and watched some of the Sport Climbing nationals on the computer before crashing for the night.

We fueled up with breakfast at the Waffle House then got back on the boulders. Two of my triumphs for the morning were topping out the Fire Crack Flake quickly (I've hung out at the top for quite some time in the past) and getting off the Bowling Ball boulder without sliding down the downclimb tree like it's a fireman's pole. I also made some progress on Gutter Ball. We headed back to Tom Jones and T sent it on his first go. We hit the Frontside boulder next, then ended on Milk Money, which featured a dyno to a ledge, which was both fun and made for awesome pictures. We stopped at Mellow Mushroom on the way home, and while the pizza was fabulous, none of us would recommend the pretzels appetizer.

M on Milk Money
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March 21-April 4: Louisville, RRG and Columbus

One of these days, I am going to make time to stop and visit the Vacuum Cleaner Museum when driving back from Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, but this trip was not it, as I drove straight to Louisville for more climbing with friends. The original plan was to camp Thursday night then climb Friday and Saturday at the Red, but given that the temps were going to dip into the low 20's Thursday night, we opted to drive down Friday morning instead. It was much more pleasant sleeping in M&L's guest room in Louisville than being serenaded by bullfrogs in sub-freezing temps.

On Friday, we climbed at Muir Valley. It wasn't exactly my best climbing day, but it was a lot of fun. A little bummed I didn't get Bethel clean, but I'm stoked to try it again. J was on fire, though, putting up five of the six routes we climbed. All that climbing worked up a big appetite and after setting up camp we went to the Rock House for dinner. We hit the the PMRP on Saturday, where I came tantalizing close to flashing my first 5.10b outdoors (Murano) but blew it two moves before a nice rest spot. I was so mad, but then I got back on the route and finished it. Next time! After an ugly lead up Darwin Loves You, I climbed it again on top rope cleanly, after remembering that the key to making the first few moves easier is to use the wet hold. After one more climb and a few more dodging of falling icicles, we called it a day. Actually, we called it a weekend, since the forecast called for a 60% chance of rain on Sunday. We stopped off at some pizza place in downtown Lexington, then realized that an NCAA tournament game was going on at nearby Rupp arena that appeared would be ending as we were finishing dinner. Oops. We were rooting for overtime, which didn't happen, but we managed to beat the traffic.

Beware of falling ice!

Sunday, despite not climbing, ended up being great. M and I had a delicious breakfast at Toast (a tiramisu pancake and the eggs dish with the harissa hot sauce), then went to see the play Appropriate, which was part of the Humana Festival of New American Plays; I think the play was even better than breakfast! I spent the rest of the week catching up on TV, hanging with my friends, climbing at the gym and doing my taxes.

We headed back to the Red on Friday morning for two more days of climbing. Muir was even more packed than the week before, but we managed to get in several climbs and teach a couple of people how to clean. I had a lot of fun working Beta Spewer and am looking forward to climbing it cleanly the next time I do it. Was quite happy to eat my first slices of Miguel's pizza this year at dinner. Mmmm. Was not happy that my tent was covered in frost Saturday morning; I just love packing a wet tent. We did some climbing at Pistol Ridge after a nice workout hiking in.

M on It's a Wonderful Life

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I drove to Columbus to visit the family for Easter and to hang out with my sister over her spring break. The drive took a little longer than I expected, since I entered the wrong street name for her address. Smooth. We went out to eat for Easter, then got together with some relatives for dessert. This was a nice change from the usual, although I did miss having my mom's fabulous scalloped potatoes. My sister kindly made the green bean casserole we typically have on holidays, so that was tasty. Unfortunately, we were unable to find any shredded chicken at the grocery store, although if I had thought to consult the Root's Poultry website before today, we would have discovered a couple of places that sell it. It was a good week of hanging out with the family. Looking forward to seeing everyone when we go on vacation this summer.

The Boys and Blue Magic

March 15-20: East to HCR

After saying goodbye to my friends A&M after our great climbing trip in Joshua Tree, I got back on the road for three long days of driving to meet my friends D&S for a last-minute climbing trip to Horseshoe Canyon Ranch. Fifteen hundred miles is a long way, but getting to climb with friends at the end of it is worth it.

The highlight of Friday’s drive was the sopapilla gifted to me by a couple at dinner. Mmmm, although I guess that’s more of a highlight of dinner than one of driving. I made it to New Mexico before calling it an evening.

Cool old sign

Saturday’s drive was long, as I decided to go all the way to Oklahoma City, where I knew I could find a Buffalo Wild Wings to watch UFC 158, with the hopes that I could enjoy some victory chocolate cake when GSP defeated Diaz. (For the record, I was eating the cake regardless of the outcome of the fight, but preferred it to be victory, not drowning my sorrows, cake.) By the time I got to the restaurant, there were no seats available and it was likely there wouldn’t be any until after the fight. A couple young boys next to me worked their own MMA moves until their dad broke it up with a well-executed time out, which was unfortunate, because their thirty-second fight had more action in than fifteen minutes of Ricci-Fletcher.

After a few more fights, including one between two people at the restaurant, it was time for the fight! Since M couldn’t join me in person this time, I texted her round summaries, which were all good news, as GSP won all five rounds. GSP! The place emptied out and I could finally eat, wolfing down a half-dozen hot wings before enjoying victory chocolate cake a la mode. Mmmm.

On Sunday morning, I got back on the road for the last bit of the drive after fueling up with a nice breakfast at Waffle House. I actually was going to switch it up and go to the IHOP, but it was too packed. Maybe some other time. Had to stop a couple of times to take pictures of awesome signs, but I eventually made it through the fog and rain to D&S’s cabin at HCR. It was great to know I’d be staying in one place for a few days with friends.

More cool signs

Although the forecast wasn’t ideal for Monday (rain overnight with 30% chance of showers during the day, highs in the low 40’s), we headed to the North Forty area to see just how wet the rock was. Turns out while some routes were indeed wet, plenty more were not, and we got up seven routes, five of which I led. I was particularly stoked to have led the deceptively pumpy African Herbman. There were quite a few people climbing, but it appeared we were the only climbers not on spring break. Overheard a couple of interesting stories. Story 1 - the guy who claimed he had accidentally peed on one of the retired ranch dogs earlier in the day discovered that the dog was now napping on his gear bag. His friends thought he was getting what he deserved. Story 2 – On a previous climbing trip, this group found a snake and brought it into their car. Once they got to the crag, the left the snake in the car. The car got hot and the snake went into the steering column to get some shade, but it wasn’t cool enough and the snake died. The car stunk of dead snake for some time. After all that climbing and listening to stories made us quite hungry, and we wasted no time making dinner once we got back to the cabin – beef tacos with Sriracha sauce, mmmm!

Putting up Paul's Redemption

The weather was gorgeous on Tuesday, sunny with highs in the 50’s. We went to some areas that were new to me, Cliffs of Insanity and the Far East.  We warmed up with a couple of easy routes then moved over to Swamp Rat, a fun climb with awesome views of the ranch. Next up was the long 14 bolt Orange Crush at the edge of the property line. (Remember to give the barbed wire fence some distance. Ouch!) We got up two more routes before calling it a day and heading into town for dinner. Unfortunately, we were too late to hit the Ozark Café and most other places, so we ended up at Subway. I’ll trade a long day of climbing for an OK dinner.

D on Swamp Rat

The temps dropped on Wednesday and the sun went away, but no rain showed up, so we were set for another day of climbing. We didn’t do as many climbs as we had the previous two days, but got on harder ones. I flashed my first 5.10a outside, Gimp and Wheezer. Yes! The 5.10b, Hassenpfeffer, we got on next stepped t up quite a bit, and we all spent significant time getting up it. (Nice lead by S!) We ended with Hickadelic Jazzgrass and I managed to keep my distance from the barbed wire fence. We made it into town early enough for dinner at the Ozark Café Mmm. I had the flamethrower burger, which did not disappoint in the heat department; I had to get a scoop of ice cream for dessert to put out the flames!

The rock was cold on Wednesday. Yay for no hands rests!

We hit the Ozark Café again for breakfast (chocolate gravy, mmmm) before our long drives to Chicago and Louisville. I’m already looking forward to my next climbing trip with D&S!

Got to wear that hat I bought in J-Tree!
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The Climbs

Monday (North Forty)

Perfect Hair Forever 5.7 Lead

Paul’s Redemption 5.7 Lead

Lion Tamer 5.9- Lead

Frankenberry 5.9+ TR

African Herbman 5.8 Lead (no stick clip!)

Stiff-Neked Fools 5.8+ Lead

Local Hebrew 5.9- TR

Tuesday (Cliffs of Insanity and Far East)

Little Sprout 5.6 Lead

Fesic 5 .6 Lead

Swamp Rat 5.8 TR

Orange Crush 5.9+ with falls TR

Montezuma’s Toe 5.8 TR

Sphagnum Esplanade 5.8 TR

Wednesday

Solid 5.9+ TR with fall

Gimp and Wheezer 5.10a TR (first 5.10a flash outdoors!)

Hassenpfeffer 5.10b TR with falls

Hickadelic Jazzgrass 5.8 TR