Time Off is Working

This weekend was another with no climbing. Tough, seeing the weather was incredible with highs only in the 70s. Just had to keep telling myself that it's only a weekend or two in the summer and I'll be much better for it come the fall. (For those who don't know, I tweaked my shoulder and knee in separate climbing incidents in the last month.) Still, I had to get outside this weekend, so Melissa and I went to Courthouse Falls outside of Brevard. It was a great choice with easy hiking (since my knee is still rough). Once we got there, we pretty much had the place to ourselves, which was sweet since it can be very crowded.

The image below was taken using a rock as a tripod and a very slow shutter speed, hence the slight blur!

Now I'm off to get some stretching in tonight. I'm realizing that with all of the training I undertook in the last year, I foolishly let stretching slip from my routine over time. It's probably a large part of the reason I'm having to take time off now. Stretching's like vegetables: you might not like it, but it's good for you so you gotta suck it up and do it.

Still Resting

It's been a little over a week with no climbing, and the rest is going a long way so far. My left knee is feeling much better, and so is my left shoulder--although the pain there has moved from the collarbone area down and around to the left shoulder blade. I guess it's migrating. I'm working the PT and Ibuprofen steadily, so hopefully another week or 2 and all will be reasonably well.

The flipside is that I went kayaking this weekend instead of climbing--which was a fun diversion. I went down the lower Nolichucky (class II) and it was pretty exciting and very scenic. Melissa did a great job on her first river kayaking trip--she only came out of the boat once at the bottom of the biggest rapid, and that's mostly b/c her kayak was full of water (no skirt on her boat). She really impressed me...it seemed as if she had been doing this a few months already the way she had a handle on the basics of paddling and finding the best lines. I'd like to go back and do the upper section (class IV) in a guided raft later this year. I hear it's one of the prettiest runs in WNC/TN.

Nite Bouldering / Area E

Since I was off work on Friday for the Fourth weekend, I thought it would be sweet to finally hit up some night bouldering in Boone on Thursday. Ben Newton, his gf Courtney, and me headed to the high country at about five pm. The weather called for a 0% chance of rain, but when we got there the skies were low, dark, and the weather felt about 15-20 degrees cooler than it had been in Asheville and the wind was blowing. It was almost too chilly. Luckily, the front passed with just a few drops of rain and we had a pretty good session at small boulderfield called Area E off the 221 circuit. I took a bunch of flash photos, but the ones using just ambient light were definitely the coolest. Pictures #1 and #3 in the slide show are by Courtney Ford.

As a side note, I'm thinking about taking a couple of weeks off of climbing. My left shoulder's been bothering me for a month now, my left knee is a bit tweaked from my weekend at the new, and I think I'm developing a hernia. So as fun as last nite was, it was made somewhat less enjoyable by the constant stiffness and pain. So hopefully just a little rest will go a long way.

New River Gorge

I've been a complete slacker about posting lately. Must be the summertime is making me lazy, or at least less inclined to sit in front of a computer processing photos and blogging. Since the last post, I went to the Red over Memorial Day weekend, Hawksbill mtn, and the North Side of Looking Glass. I also just got back from a 3 day trip to the New last weekend, and while the climbing was good as usual, swimming and deep water soloing in Summersville lake was the most fun. Here's a pic of Ben Newton getting airborn off the diving board rock at the Coliseum. More pics to come soon...if I can get myself in front of the computer again, that is.




Updated Pics: