Rainy Sunday

This has been by far the wettest summer I can remember in the 10 years I've lived in WNC. Great for bringing the water table back up after the droughts, not so good for the climbing. Ah, well. You take the good with the bad. Melissa and I still tried to get out and find some dry rock, and we met up with Zach and Heath at a wee little cliff Zach's been developing that stayed dry for the afternoon, even during a good downpour at one point. That's the thing about climbing in the South--specifically here in WNC-- if you're determined to climb, it's possible almost any day of the year if you work with the geography.

My shoulder's been feeling better so I tried the two brand new lines, a 5.11- and a 5.12- (those grades are estimates at this point), and I got within about 2 feet of flashing the 5.12! So not too bad for having not trained at all for the last 2 months.

Even though it wasn't a balmy day, we had to partake in the sick water slide nearby. It beats any other water slide I've seen in the region for it's length and magical ability to somehow not hurt your arse. Be sure to check out the corny super hero pose we copped in the pool at the bottom.

As for pictures, I'm loving the new Canon Rebel T1i I just started using. It really captures colors well, especially on cloudy days like this one. I got some really killer shots of Heath on the 5.12 by getting up on a nearby boulder. Check out the crazy flag move where he's basically parallel with the ground!

A reminder about the photos: to see them larger in the sideshow, click on the 4 arrows in the bottom corner to see them full screen. And if you like some and want to download em, click on the image and it'll bring you to my flickr page where you can save them to your desktop.