Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Climbing in SD!

Last week Monday was a bit of a big deal around here- Scott walked across the stage and graduated with his Computer degree!  

I'm incredibly proud of his accomplishments, and I know that he was really excited to be done and take some time to relax.  I also decided to take a little time to relax after a long semester, and on early Tuesday morning, I took off for a climbing trip to western South Dakota!
I went with my awesome friend Val, who I last climbed with in the Red River Gorge in Kentucky!  In five days, we didn't really take any rest days, hitting up sport climbing in Spearfish Canyon and both sport and traditional climbing in the Mount Rushmore area!  
Instead of a long-winded explanation, I'll just dump some pics with small explanations, and say that overall the trip was pretty fantastic in all elements.  I pushed myself a little with some of the first Trad leads of the season for me, and enjoyed good company, good food, and great climbing.  Made me super excited for this summer's climbing!
(Rappelling down after climbing and cleaning a route in Spearfish Canyon)
(At the top of one of the thin needles behind Mount Rushmore!  The weather held out most of the time for us- I even got a little sunburned!)
(First trad climb of the year!  I forgot how heavy all that gear is around my waist...)
(Val and I are excited on Day 4- what adventures will we find next?)
(At the top of Pitch 1- about 150 feet off the ground with about 200 ft to go- of an "Adventure Climb" in Sylvan Lake!  This particular climb ended struggling up a fantastic chimney, then I belayed as it rained and hailed!  The rappel and hike back were also in the rain, but there were still smiles all around!)
(Letting the gear hang-dry after our adventure climb)
(After about 1400 miles and a lot of driving across flat South Dakota, the front of the truck looked like a bug massacre!)
As is the case with most climbing trips, this one only fueled my excitement to go on more just like it.  When I got home last night, Scott and I were already talking about where we'll be taking our own summer climbing trip... so many possibilities!
I have a lot of things to catch up on this week, so stay tuned for knitting updates and dance updates as I catch up after an (awesome) week away! :)

2 comments:

Mark said...

For his graduation, I was expecting Scott to be sporting his 'geek' sweater or whatever it was that you knitted him with 1's & 0's or hex that 'said' something only people like Scott could decode. Maybe it was mittens (still wearable if only just for your blog photo).

Mark said...

Rain & hail & pain in South Dakota should be good training for your marathon.