MY FIRST 'HASH RUN'

And there I was, Sunday morning, I showed up, sans the obligatory red dress (yes, for the men). It was a blast. A crazy chase through the streets of Barbados, trying to follow the trail. My learning curve was steep, as I did not know what to look for. I finally asked one gentleman, and he replied 'white flowers'. I was dumbfounded as I never saw any white flowers! Alas, towards the end, my error oriented around a quirk in the English language, called a 'homonym'. The gentleman was saying 'white flour' not 'white flowers'! Afterwards, there was a party and food, complete with a mock ceremony where accusations and charges were dealt out, and the accused had to drink beer in order to cleanse their sins. Understand, that Hashers explain themselves as a 'drinking club with a running problem'. It was an interesting experience, and obviously something that the Brits came up with!

NOV 02 - BACKPACKING the OUACHITA TRAIL, AR (Trip # 2)

So, here we go again, but this time with FANTASTIC weather! The leaves were in full swing and the colors looked liked an explosion from a Crayola factory! After 4 years in New England, I still have never seen colors like I saw this weekend. The weather cooperated very nicely except for the wind on the first night. Other that the wind, the weather was extraordinary. The nights were clear, so the moon and stars shone through the trees.

The only dissapointing part was that we didn't see any wild-life at all. Maybe it had something to do with hunting season opening...

NOV 02 - BACKPACKING the OUACHITA TRAIL, AR (Trip # 1)

I went backpacking with a guy from my class. Ah, November in Arkansas, and it rained from before we left Saturday morning until mid Sunday and it was in the 40's. Believe it or not, we never got cold. Mildly wet, but not cold. Dinner was relegated to snacks inside the tent, since I didn't feel like cooking in the rain and dark. Sunday, we stopped along the river and ate dinner to replace the lunch we ate the night before. With me?! All-in-all, it was one of the more difficult trips I have done in a while, but I still had fun. It was Bill's first time backpacking and he didn't seem too rattled by it. Barring some sort of life-threatening occurrence, it was about as bad as it gets. If I can enjoy that, then I MUST be hardcore. We may go again this weekend, too.

OCT 02 - ROCK CLIMBING @ "THE NEEDLES" with THERON

A scouting buddy and I have been planning a climbing trip to The Needles--a classic Southern California climbing area. It's known for not being crowded. NOTE: Always be wary of places that read: "no crowds". Over the course of the weekend we found out why. Climbing at The Needles requires significant commitment.

For starters, the drive to get there is long from just about anywhere you live, and you have a choice of twisty-windy country roads. Of course, they're fun for a little while, but after an hour, it gets a little old, when you've already been driving for a couple hours, and you really just want to get there. I took the southerly approach (since I'm coming from the south), and Theron took the directions that were listed on a website. Talking to him on the phone, I looked at the road and told him "it looks like a piece of epileptic spaghetti!". He told me that my analogy was right-on-the-money. He was in 1st and 2nd gear most of the way. I, on the other-hand, was able to stretch the little Bimmer out a little to 4th and 5th gears.

Getting there and meeting up with him was half the fun. We both drove about 3-4 hours from opposite directions (he lives up the coast) to meet at a place that neither had ever been to before, where there's a big rock, but barely anything else. I tagged the GPS coordinates from a computer mapping software and gave them to Theron, over the phone. We followed the rough directions that we got off the internet. After a little searching down some dirt roads, we almost ran into each other--literally! We spent some time figuring out where to camp, and got the low-down from some other climbers. We decided to go to the lower campgrounds.

Eventually, we found a place to camp by a small stream and started dinner in the dark. With no bugs, I decided to camp California style... no tent. I'm not used to that thinking. With some much time on the east coast with the insidious bugs and tempestuous rainstorms, I automatically think 'tent'. Out here, it's as Theron says, "Tents are only for rain." Which he's right. Camping is so much easier and simpler when I through a ground cloth on the ground and lay the sleeping bag right on it. It was a beautiful night, and it never got cold enough for me to need the tent--which is the only other reason why you would need one. Even in my summer bag, I was warm enough. It got down to around 50, I think.

The next morning, we made breakfast, sorted our climbing gear and piled into my car and drove up to the rock. Immediately, one of the 'suck factors' started rearing it's little head--or heads. Bugs! Just a couple miles away, and the bugs were bad. We sorted gear some more--more deciduously this time, for we had about an hour hike uphill to the rock. Therein lies suck factor #2. As it was told to us from some other climbers, the approach is the crux to the climbs. As we stood there at the turn out inspecting the couple vehicles there, there could only be a handful of climbers at the rock. Great! One vehicle was obviously for hunters. But hunting what?! There's
nothing up here. As we sorted gear and carefully decided what to bring and what not to bring, the hunters showed up, but not without announcing themselves, 20 minutes earlier by their repeated gunshots. I'm thinking, man, they suck! When they showed up, doused in camoflouge clothing from head-to-toe, they didn't sport one postage-stamp sized segment of International-Orange, nor did I see a permit or license on either of them. And here's the good part, the first guy's got his 12 gauge slung over his shoulder as he's walking to the Jeep, and as he's walking, he's looking around--for his buddy, I presume--and the barrel, at times is pointing right at us! I'm walking to one side and ducking, and about to say something when he turns and it points the other direction. People have died from shotguns
going off being slung over the shoulder. There's gun etiquette and there's gun common sense. These guys had neither.

So, we start on our trek up the hill. I do say trek, because that's what it turned into. It was at least an hour up a very steep and loose trail--suck factor #3. It disappeared at times, but in some areas, was marked by little rock cairns. The bugs grew worse. Then bugs grew even worse, and then if that's not bad enough, remember when I stepped on a bee's nest in PA? Yep! Did it again. Enter suck factor # 4. Theron and I are hiking along and suddenly, we feel the sensation of small foreign objects being projected into our bodies in various places. It didn't feel good. With the angry swarm all around us, we ran. I felt like a skinhead trapped in south-central L.A. on a day that Louis Farrakahn was speaking. Now, we're running up this hill on this loose trail, swatting bugs away from our faces and pulling bees, off
our feet, neck, backs and elsewhere. Oh, did I mention that it's hot? We have to carry all the climbing gear, of course, plus lots of water because there is no water up there--suck factor #5.

We finally made it to the top. Now, we understand why those other people said the "approach is the crux"! Again, be wary of things that read: "no crowds"!

Well, we're ready to go. Not another soul in-sight. We have the rock to ourselves. Time to climb! We debate over gear and who leads what pitch for a while and finally Theron is on his way up the rock, with a hefty rack of gear. The route we picked is one of The Needles' classics, called White Punks on Dope, rated 5.8 (gotta love some of the names). I'm guessing it's about 800-1,000' route. He' struggles up the first pitch of six. We decide that we'll alternate leading. He does well, despite fighting his foot getting jammed in the crack and not coming out, a couple times, and the 20-foot run-out at the top where there was no place to set gear to protect himself in the event of a fall. He makes it safely, reminding himself that it's a technically easy climb, and the gear is just for safety, not necessary for the ascent. In all actuality, even if he did fall, it wouldn't have been toooo bad. Climbers know when they're putting themselves in mortal danger, and it would have been an adrenaline booster and resulted in some scrapes and bruises had he fallen, but not fatal.

So he finally makes it to the top of the pitch, sets up the belay for me, and now it's my turn. As do most people not leading a pitch, I scramble up thinking to myself what took him so long? Of course, I know what my frame of reference is, and am acutely aware that it wasn't exactly and easy pitch to lead. In fact, I think to myself how impressed I was. He even climbed with the second rope tied to him, feeding its way out of the bag at the bottom. It's been a very long time since I did any multi-pitch climbs with someone else that lead. Kind of a relief, in a way. "Trad' climbing as this is called, is quite physically demanding and adds quite heavily to the difficulty--and the hazard. Bolts, are usually far more secure than trad gear, plus you have to carry far more gear. And if you don't know exactly what gear you need, you tend to carry a lot of gear that you may very well not use. As if climbing isn't hard enough, now you may be carrying
dead-weight. But, hey, at least it's there if you need it!

As I make it to the top of the pitch, Theron reminds me that these routes are purely Traditional. Meaning that there are no--virtually no--bolts in the rock. Not even for belaying or rappelling. Everywhere else I have ever climbed, there are at least bolts for the belay stations and for rappelling. Not here! Ahhh, Suck factor #6. This presents us with a problem, in that baling off the rock, means leaving some sort of gear in place, in the event that we can't find something to rappel from. We had seen a few rappel stations from the bottom, but they were all low on the rock, not necessarily accessible in a descent, and we had no idea if there were any at all above. Did I mention the lack of information of the area due not having a guidebook? Now you're thinking, well that's not smart. But alas, the book is out of print...suck factor #7.

Mounted somewhat awkwardly atop the 190-foot pitch #1, we are looking upwards at pitch #2, and it doesn't look good. The crack is horribly off-width for the gear that we brought, and it was evenly sustained for about 25-30 feet, before going back to varied placements. We knew we didn't a lot of wide stuff with us...not on us anyhow. We might have had what we needed in the car, but we didn't bring it because we were operating off the information that we got from some other climbers claiming, "bring a standard rack". For gear, the book quotes "Thin to 3 inches". It doesn't mention that you should bring 3 or 4 pieces to 3 inches, and I believe that the crack was
closer to 4 inches. Theron and I looked at each other thinking, what's their idea of a standard rack?!?! Obviously not what we thought. We would have needed about four 4-inch cams to make it up that portion. Did I mention it was my turn to lead?! Honestly, I would have done it, I think, if it hadn't been for our horribly dwindling water supply and other issues. Re-enter suck factor #5. Remember, there are 5 more pitches, and we still don't know whether we can rappel down from the top or we have to hike all the way around from the back of the rock. Making it to the top and back down also could have been a daylight management issue.

With some serious contemplation amongst us, we decided that the suck factors have been adding up, and there was no sense in pushing it and getting into a situation that went from difficult to plain miserable or even dangerous. It's tough for a couple Type-A personalities to retreat from a climb, but ask anyone familiar with Everest and they're tell you discretion can save your life. My fear was that water would have been the biggest factor. So we rappelled off the one single bolt that was there. We didn't like rappelling off a single bolt, but it was new and secure.

We got down, and decided that we should be able to find a decent single-pitch climb to at least make our efforts worth-while. We found a
crack that went up to a beautiful anchor, but we could only see a portion of the route and what we could see looked to place me in a position of where to go. I kicked it around for a while before I finally said, "Ah, let's go do this!" The first 15 feet was definitely the hardest. Sticking my hands and arms in a crack almost up to my elbows, I clawed my way up, setting a couple cams along the way until I got a ledge. There was virtually nothing for my feet, and they were feeling left out, so, with an awkward knee-up on the ledge, I set a couple marginal nuts into a thin, hollow crack. When I say hollow, I mean that Theron could hear that it was hollow from the bottom. I clambered up on top of the ledge and peaked around the corner, hoping that there was something. There was. Great sigh of relief.... It was easy up to the top. I rappelled down and Theron took his turn donating skin to the crack.

When we were done, we pulled the rope, packed-up, satisfied that it felt like it was more worth it than if we had only done the first pitch of White Punks on Dope, though we have no idea what the name of the route we had just done was, it we figure it was about a 5.9. When were about ready to head down the hill, I'm calculating why it seemed like we were so short of water. Then it hits me. Ahhh, yes, suck factor #8.....ALTITUDE! We're at 8,000 feet! No wonder why we were using so much water. Three liters can go very fast in warm high-altitude climates.

Soon, we were heading down the hill, into the midst of the mist of bugs. Suck factor #1 was even worse! Faaar worse! Almost running downhill, we eventually made it to the car, rehydrated the dog, and then to camp, to break camp and head home. Theron followed me down the route that I used to get there and assured me that it was far better than the way he came.

I have to hand it to the dog. He's still tough, despite his age. I wish a hadn't brought him, though. It was much worse than I expected, and we didn't even have enough water for ourselves, I certainly didn't have enough for him. I gave him almost half of my ration. We escaped injury and serious dehydration. I can't imagine how heavy our packs would have been with all the climbing gear and at least twice as much water.

On the way home, I was so tired that I had to pull over twice for a 2-3 hour nap. It was about 5 a.m., Sunday morning when I got home! Sunday, I spent napping some more, giving the dog a bath and assorted domestic duties. So, there's my weekend. I left out the boring logistics of Friday.

All-in-all, the climbing trip was a lot of difficulty with an intense period of enjoyment and a lazy night around camp. Whether it was all worth it, or not, I'm not sure. I'd have to say that I wouldn't go there again unless it was a little cooler (the books calls for May-through-October) and I knew the bugs weren't going to be as bad. The climbing was great, and now we have some better information to plan another, more productive trip in the future.

Going climbing usually offsets all other difficulties, and this one did, but not by much. I feel that baling-off the top of pitch #1 was the right thing to do, and continuing on, would have gone from an enjoyable climb to utter misery at the least. Now we know what to expect/bring, instead of operating from minimal information sources. It is also a moment that teaches me about the person with whom I am climbing, and his character and judgement. Your average climber, is often not the egomaniac that people think they are. But I have climbed with people that would have pushed on, whether it be ego, ignorance or innocence. Theron and I discussed a famous climber that died some years ago doing something 'stupid'. "There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity". I feel that we now know that we have similar tolerances and decision-making, and it is that which makes a good climbing partner, perhaps more than anything else.

Hopefully, this whole story doesn't read to be more dramatic that it really was. Just thought you might enjoy the story, and I was feeling some creative juices flowing this morning. Guess, I have to actually get to work, now