Success, failures and a happy thrashing to all!

Since my return to rock climbing this past summer, Laura and I have been very busy doing crag work and climbing as much as possible. My shoulder injury from last winters rail antics at 7 Springs seemed to take forever to heal into climbable shape. Starting slow and climbing mostly on 5.11 and under seemed to be working at improving my weak shoulder. After only a short time back and feeling a better I upped the stakes and decided to tryPinch Me I'm Dreaming a 5.12+ mixed gear line at The Knobs in Dunbar, PA. The climb went pretty well, except that I aggravated my shoulder during the ascent. Once again I eased back down to vast amounts of sub 5.10's and easing into 11's for the past several months trying to heal it more. I've since recovered enough and managed to climb a few easy 12's without more injury and am feeling OK, but definitely not 100%. I really want to get back into projecting routes and being able to push harder, but I've been nervous about further injury and destroying myself for ice season. Yesterday Laura and I decided to ride into River's End Crag and climb there for a few hours. We climbed several climbs and I decided it was time to see how healed I was. I decided to drop a rope on Sludge Factory a 5.12+ that I've yet to red point. I figured the top rope was best that way I could safely test my shoulders thresholds without over doing it due to red point determination. I've only tried the route a few days since equipping it back in late . Its seen a couple of ascents that I know of and is a solid route for the grade. To date the best I've done is one hang it. There are two very distinct cruxes on this route. One is making it past the first bolt, the second is surmounting the large overhang at the top. In past efforts the top crux has been my Kryptonite. I'm usually so pumped that hanging in for the last clip is not within my abilities and off flying I usually go waiting to hit the ledge below. Yesterday was just the opposite. The bottom crux rocked my world in every conceivable fashion and the upper went without a hitch despite needing a good brushing. I hope this is the sign of better things to come. I've been waiting patiently trying not to hurt myself, but I really miss working near my limits. I've been recently given the pleasure of watching people on our new routes and have throughly enjoyed seeing both success and failure. Not failure because I'm glad they didn't succeed, but glad in a sense that I remembered how much fun failing can be. Failing means you get to have more days perfecting sections that are "tricky" for you, which in turn makes you a more fluid climber. I haven't met a climber that doesn't like success. The more effort, the sweeter the success. Even after the greatest successes I've found that the "send high" is only a short lived moment of glory that is quickly eclipsed by the next line looking to smack you down. Yesterday was just that for me, the fun part... working the line... getting beat by it and getting to come back and try again another day. Failing just means another day of climbing!

Equipping Sludge Factory in

One of the amazing events I recently witnessed was Laura having a great break through this past week. After being dejected by the crux start ofDeliverance5.11+ at Bruner Run on many attempts, she worked out an inspiring sequence that proves that short folks CAN do this line. Using obscure stemming and showing extreme flexibility, she managed to get a clean send. It was quite funny how convinced she was that it was "impossible for her". She declared that it was a line that she'd never get due to the long reach. Only by pure determination and serious effort was she rewarded with the realization that she could send harder lines... Her display of cranking convinced me that I needed to get back to trying harder despite my shoulder. To put the plan in motion, I'm declaring war on Sludge Factory after a couple rest days. Then its on with Devil's Doorway a project route thatI put anchors on Monday. Its a hard line that repeatedly spit me off years ago when I was a stronger climber. Will I ever send it? Hopefully...or not. Getting to try it once again without injury will be reward enough for me! Happy Climbing



On another note be sure to check out the Ohiopyle climbing guide I've put together in blog form. You can find it on the menu at the top of my page! I'm also working on updating my old Breakneck information and making it available. If you find these useful, drop me a comment. I'd be happy to create guides for other SWPA crags if y'all would like them.

Stressed

We finally got rain over the weekend, but the water table is still well below normal. I can't remember seeing the trees so stressed.



It's not really fall yet.



The sycamores in particular seem to be adopting this strategy.

While walking in the woods, we came across these fruits that I thought at first were wild grapes.



But they're not. When I saw the caps I realized that they were actually persimmons! Really, really undersized persimmons.



When I broke one open, they were wormy inside too.

Snake, it's a snake!

Art Lad, the talented 6-year old son of Magazine Man, started a blog recently. The post that started it all is here. (It's great, go read it!)

"I need to find that picture of the Copperhead that I took last year," I told my husband. "I'm going to make a post about how much Art Lad likes snakes, and send some people over to see his new blog."

Only I couldn't find the picture. I'd evidently put it somewhere really good. I just wasn't sure where. Dagnabit.

In between picture searches, I happened to look at my blog's statistics page. My traffic had exploded! Wait, they're all coming from... Art Lad???

Turns out he'd been mentioned on BoingBoing, one of the oldest and most popular blogs on the internet. He was getting thousands of hits, and since he'd linked to me I was basking in the reflective glow.

So, it's not like he needs the exposure now, but go visit Art Lad anyway.

Oh yeah, I still can't find the Copperhead pic. But here's a couple of Black Racers we saw yesterday.

Hubby found this one, curled up off the path.

His close-up.

I found the second one.

OK, I almost stepped on him.

He seemed darker than the first one.

I believe they are both Northern Black Racers, Coluber constrictor constrictor. Despite the name, it's not a constrictor!

The second one slithered away so fast that I was reminded how they got the name Racer.

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Edited to add:

Thanks to commenters Jenn and Ron, who pointed out that the first snake is probably about to shed its skin! Besides the lighter color, the milky eye is apparently also a clue.

Let it snow, let it snow!

As y'all know, Northern Indiana and the Midwest got hit by a snowstorm yesterday. According to the local weather people Whitley county got about 10" and Noble county (where I live) got about 12". I just talked to my brother and he measured the snow in his back yard (in a woods in Kosciusko county where little wind gets to it) and he says they got 15" of snow.

For me, the issue isn't the amount of snow but rather the wind. It whips around the buildings in the complex where I live and causes large drifts. Below is the view from my front window, the first one taken at 10 a.m. and the other at 1 p.m.



The window is about 18" off the ground and the snow is packed onto the front porch. The drift on the outer edge is about 3-3 1/2 feet high. It runs clear across the driveway too. If I get energetic I might go out and shovel a bit this afternoon. Or I might just wait until the maintenance people come and let them shovel it out. My neighbors were out for a while and cleared off their porch and drive.

The delicate lines of the snowdrift outside my front door. It is about 3-3 1/2 feet high.



The view from my front door. Looking south, then looking west.



The sun started breaking through the clouds a little before noon. The day is shiny and bright. And I'm glad I don't have to go out in the cold wind and drifting snow.

Painting with Light in Lake Tahoe

Tahoe, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

I was standing in the water when I took this picture.

With my phone on maximum brightness, I painted the word "Tahoe" in air during a 30-second exposure with my camera. This is the end result...and the best one out of at least a dozen attempts!

Jemez Pueblo

A photo of the visitors center, and one of the places where the Jemez Indians sometimes sell fry bread that they bake on the spot.

Owl & Birds

This owl can be seen from Paseo Del Norte highway that runs right beside the small park where all the wooden sculptures are. It was because I had seen the owl that I finally decided to stop and see what was at the park. I was amazed at how many wooden animal sculptures there were and that I had never heard about them on the TV news or anywhere else.