NRG Craggin Classic 2014

I took this picture of the longest single arch bridge in the western hemisphere in like …2008.  When I went to the New River Gorge with my Mom and took way better pictures with my super cool red digital camera than I did this time with my expensive grown up camera.

I took exactly no good pictures of the bridge or the mountains this weekend.  Here are two with unfortunate lighting that are the best I could do.

The path home from Fayetteville Station.  We squished a penny on the tracks!

But I took some better climbing pictures

Andrew looking zen before the One, Two Punch! (aka One, Two, Double Dyno in Andrew speak)

Melise figuring out beta on Black

Andrew off the deck on Sunshine Arete, starting the send train in some cray Tenaya demo shoes

Juliet finishing strong on Way of the Gun

A lot of the boulders at the New were really big and had low angle slabs up top, which seemed scary and cool.

I wrote the beginning of this post right after coming home from West Virginia, but unfortunately didn't finish it until now, after my surgery.  So real quick: The Craggin Classic was  awesome.  I would love to go again; it was full of good friends and nice people.  Matt Wilder gave a really interesting slideshow that was really inspiring.  I never knew how crazy strong he is and how much he likes to dress up.  A bunch of companies were there to demo gear and put things in the silent auction (I won some stuff!!  For $41 and some begging I left the silent auction with a Misty Mountain "mini fashion chalk bag", Misty shirt, a gear loop from Neon Climbing, a Petzl climbing dvd, and so much J-tree that my lips will never be chapped again and I have no excuse for rough hands ever.)  I was super psyched to demo approach shoes since I couldn't climb, but no companies had approach demo shoes small enough for me :(  But no worries!  Because Andrew demoed so many climbing shoes and I tried a bunch on before we left for the day.

Overall: fun times, gear, lovely people, awesome place, you should go!

Step Two

Find a new hobby that connects to climbing:

I've accepted that I can't climb or train, but that doesn't mean that I can't still love it and be involved.  I'm over getting teary-eyed when my roommates share funny stories from the university gym, or not being able to even open my journal to my Bouldering Season To Do list.  I'm on to loving that all of my roommates enjoy climbing, and that my friends in Boone still like to hang out with me without climbing.  I'm back to watching climbing videos during lecture and reading climbing blogs under the counter at work.  And, there are so many things to do that still involve climbing!  Like take pictures that are borderline adequate with Andrew's camera that he traded me for my beastmaker this season!


Here's some of the better pictures I took today, with some basic photography lessons that might be wrong...

With some help, I learned how to work the manual focus with all the other settings on auto.  Scout modeled so patiently for me this morning:

I found out that a high F-stop (synonymous for aperture?) means less light into the picture, making Scout seem dark and mysterious.  (All she wants is to go lick some plastic bags)

Andrew looks so fall with a …regular? shutter speed and low aperture- which means a big hole to let in light, since the woody room is dark with the doors closed.

I got artsy with the manual focus out at lost cove.  Andrew sussing out beta for Black 45.  And then sum bad lighting decisions, but the boulder is gorgeous enough that I thought maybe it was okay.

I kinda figured out settings for a foggy day by the time Andrew was ready to leave.

There are no pictures of actual climbing because I had no clue how to take unblurry pictures of movement until later that afternoon when Jacob explained that a really low aperture- to let in as much light as possible, and a fast shutter speed is the place to start, and something else about ISO that I didn't understand.

Step One

Ever since I got too psyched and tried again and again and again to do Love Rocket with the boys I’ve been having some weird shoulder pains.  I couldn’t do anything harder than warming up on flat walls, and I couldn’t dead hang without pain.  I also couldn’t do things that required me to put my hands behind my back or in the air, like put on a shirt.  After a month of lying to myself and everyone around me, I admitted that I was injured and went to the doctor to get an MRI.  I was sure that I was going to have to go through physical therapy and be fine in two months max. 

Today, I got the results back: extensive superior labrum tear, which the doctor explained was no big deal if I was fine with never climbing again.  I am far from okay with even thinking of that, so he suggested surgery.  The doctor explained that surgery will completely fix my problem, and I’ll be able to continue my climbing like the injury had never happened in about six months.   The next six months, aka, Bouldering Season in the Southeast, aka, the most important thing to ever occur.  My injury ruins everything Andrew and I have planned for the next six months!  We were supposed to get strong and healthy, climb in Boone in the fall, split December between Arkansas and Rocktown, then Chattanooga in the spring.  Triple Crown.  CCS.  My entire life is climbing.  And the other entire part of my life that I don’t like nearly as much is running, which I won’t be able to do for three months post-surgery.  All I have left is my job at Starbucks and going to my four classes at UT.  What a horrible, miserable existence.  No training, no climbing, no running.  I haven’t even gotten to use my new beastmaker that I drooled over until I could afford to buy it.  I’m still staring at it dreaming of tackling the 45-degree slopers and getting super strong on pockets.  All the things I dreamed of doing this season, which I’m totally fine with sharing now that they’ll never happen.  I was most psyched on Residential Streetmap, a burly compression problem at Blowing Rock.  Bitch, also at Blowing Rock, which is a super fun balance-y throw move to latch a crimp(jug) followed by a mantle that's hard for me.  Left Out at Grandmother, which is a beautiful, usually wet, crimp line that nobody really likes as much as I do.

And I had a secret desire to project Portobello and Riverdance.  All dreams that won’t come true.

And then I realized that I was looking at this all wrong.

I was just thinking of all the things I’ll be missing out on, all of which had to do with bouldering itself.  I have amazing friends, and family, and climbing isn’t the only thing that happens outside.  I can still be with my friends and stare lovingly at boulders without climbing them.  I can focus on other things that will affect my climbing when I finally get to touch rock again.  I can put my energy into teaching myself how to eat healthfully for my body.  There are so many different ways people eat; I want to find the one that fits me, and what’s a more perfect time to do that than when I have nothing else to do for six months?  I was also thinking of picking up some kind of art, like watercolor, to pass the time.  The point is: I’m stuck with this for six months, only six months!  I’m going to be fine, and as much as I feel like it is right now, this is not life altering or Earth-stopping. 

I’m going to be fine.  And deciding to be fine is the first step to really being alright.  Everything else will come with time, and I’ll figure it out along the way.  As Melise said in a recent(ish) post on her blog, “The climb will always be there. I will not. With my fragile, accident prone, chuffer body I need to remember to take care of myself and that nothing, not even *climbing*, is worth being stripped of physical capabilities. I will rest, and in good health I'll take it down. Until then, one XL serving of nutella plz…”