so it’s become tradition to head out east for memorial day. Typically for me (heidi) this means that i have to decide if i want to paddle with the chicago whitewater crew or do i join up with the old NIU climbing crew? Most years i let bela make my decision for me – its just easier that way   This year Bela had a ton of stuff to do at home (pics will be shown as well) so he opted to stay back – which meant that my main activity for the weekend would be paddling with a side trip in to visit WV and my climbing buds. Totally worth the 2 hour trek…

So my adventure began Friday morning at 3:30 AM, not so bright and sunshiney but that meant we’d get on the road at good time- no traffic and plenty of time to sneak in a paddle on the way. Kris was my only driving buddy due to some last minute changes (poor steve got meningitis and couldn’t join us- we were very bummed about this- but luckily he’s on the road to recovery). So after some waiting past his planned arrival time, we decide to give him a call- lucky boy was getting some extra sleep! So we got on the road a little later than planned but it all worked out as Mel’s vehicle (complete with a sleeping Cody) also took the long way around in Indiana (why is it we always get off route in Indiana??) and we were able to get our full caravan set without too much extra time.  I just had a thought- Jack was in Mel’s vehicle with Haley the magical GPS unit- hmm now i’m wondering why they got off track!

The ride out was pretty uneventful and we decided to paddle upper section of Slippery Rock Creek and we were able to meet up with Greg, Susan, Randy and Theresa to make a nice big group heading down the river. Levels were a little low but it was a beautiful day – finally no drytop! We had fun surfing and playing in just about anything we could find

We still had a bit to drive so after a yummy dinner we were off driving again deeper into PA to find our B&B and a good night’s rest. We stayed in a different B&B this year, we love the old one but it does have a train that tends to go by in the wee hours of the morning RIGHT next to us and the screeching can get annoying if you aren’t already passed out or aren’t using ear plugs. So we thought this year we’d enjoy the lack of train sound effects… I think di and I jinxed us because as we were just going to sleep we made the comment about getting good uninterupted sleep, what do we hear just an hour later?? a train of course, actually i think 2! tho at least these didn’t screech and weren’t nearly as close… PA has a ton of trains!

Most of us woke well rested and ready for a fun day of paddling. I opted to go to Seneca Rocks, WV to go climbing while the rest of the folks went to the Lower Yough. They met up with a huge group – Jack & Tina, Mike & George, and i’m sure i’m missing a few… sounded like a great day on the river for them.  Lots of playing at swimmers and no major epics.

I drove on down to Seneca and met up with the group at the campsite – lucky for me they had gotten in late and were sleeping in so i didn’t have to find my own way up to the climbing areas. They were suprised to see me at 9am but it actually wasn’t that bad considering the 3am wakeup from the day before- it felt like sleeping in to me too   So i forgot to put my request in about doing the closer, lower climbs on the day i’m there, so we hike up to the top of the ridge. They hiked, i plodded… with Netty and Neely just staying in site to keep tempting me to keep going. too out of shape but it’s all good- i blame it on the midwest hehe.

So i’m not even sure what climbs we set up- Andy set up a nice TR for us gals who wanted to take it easy, Karen led another right next to it. Joe, Scott and Karen ended up doing a cool multi-pitch that took them to the top of the fin- again i dont know which one but it was near the old ladies route.  We had fun taking pics of each other and just hanging out til the sun came over the ridge. This is where i was stupid and didn’t put back on my other shirt… i got a lovely burn on my back where i forgot to put on sunscreen…

I hiked back with Netty and we decided to play in the river – we hung out below the bridge just watching the strange river critters and mating froggies and cooling down a bit after the hot hike down. We decided then that we’d definitly drive next year- that hike back up is brutal after a long day in the hot sun.  i contemplated just staying in town so i wouldn’t have to hike back up to the campsites, but the rest of the group was up there so i sucked it up.  We ended up taking a nice little nap (more like girlie gab session) in the shade on our sleeping pads. Both Netty and i decided taht we wanted to be Neely as she looked like a model – even after a hot sweaty hike! (that andy is a lucky guy!)  we enjoyed a quiet afternoon waiting for the multi pitch team to return to do dinner by drinking wine and margaritas.

of course by this point i think i realized that i had a form of heat exhaustion or maybe my body didn’t appreciate getting burned so badly and decided to have its revenge… i went with netty to take a cool shower, now i only wanted cool, not freezing! no heat what so ever, but it did feel cool on my back for the 1/2 second i could stand to stand in it   thanks again to netty or helping me during my time of unpleasantness!  I ended up taking some advil and setting up our “bug hut” – our new mesh tent. fly-schmy. of course i was debating on that fly situation when i heard we might get storms but i was so comfy in my little hut that i just made a back up plan-  get in anyone’s tent if it starts raining.. i had lots of offers -it was quite nice. we taunted joe by saying i’d get in theirs but luckily i didn’t even have to decide as it was a lovely night with no rain (at least for us!). so we just hung out by the fire, eating pizza and passing out fairly early as everyone had a wonderfully long climby day

In the morning i had to head back, as i needed my day on the Lower too. On my way back i got sidetracked by pretty things- which tends to happen but i made myself stop for the good ones I scared the crap out of 2-3 deer who apparantly couldn’t jump over a wire fence so they tried to squeeze themselves through it – they finally did it but i have no idea how… the holes were like 8″ square. I also stopped for a cool looking barn with fog and then again at the top of a major hill/mountain for some wind turbines.. on just the other side i saw one of the most pretty views that i’d seen in a very long time. the hills were totally covered in big fluffy white clouds but with some of the tops just peeking out. it was hard to get a cool shot as they were kind of blocked by trees but i think it was still worth the stop

Back with time to spare, we packed up for the Lower while Kris packed up to take on the Upper!  We were all a bit anxious for him as it’s a bit harder than most of the rivers we’ve paddled but he looked super solid the day before so decided to go for it   I’m sure he’ll have his own write up but it sounded pretty cool (and he made it back alive, in 1 piece, with randy’s boat and my car all in perfect condition). The rest of us had a great day on the lower. Lori, Randy and Thersa joined us for the Loop. We were very proud of Theresa for making it through Entrance. We also decided that Randy will never lead her down Cucumber again- we’ve decided that Diana has that pleasure next year – no hero routes!

Speaking of hero routes, i think we’ve created a monster- or maybe cody has rubbed off on Bob – he’s a machine taking every hero route possible. We’re very proud of our Conant creations   the rest of us continued on and had a nice day surfing, playing, and just enjoying the river. I even attempted to get into Swimmers – just once it took too much energy to get up the stupid eddy! maybe next year i’ll get in more than once I was pretty happy with the day- i made my 1 goal- catch the eddy at river’s end next to snaggle tooth. i am pretty sure it was the first time!  As usual a great day on the river with good friends.

We got dinner and wandered through town for a bit before retiring for the night (and finally meeting the B&B owners). We all tried a beer Bob had brought – a belgian cherry ale.. i didn’t make the face! so that’s 2 now that i can drink…

Monday we got our usual yummy breakfast at the sisters cafe and decided to run the Loop one last time before we headed back. Jack and I opted out and decided to hike down to Cucumber to take pics. I saw a copperhead snake (we think) – i almost stepped on it! Luckily a couple warned me before i did, they ended up being from Chicago and actually an old CWA member- one of the originals! I absolutely love the small paddling world and chatted with him for some time before our group showed up. I took a ton of pics and jack and i ended up hiking back up to the falls to explore. by the time we had shuttled all the cars to the takeout our group was already walking up, so we were on the road home in very little time.

The drive back was also pretty uneventful – luckily we didn’t run out of gas this time!! Yay! actually we got super awesome mileage and didn’t really need to fill up on each stop – we’ll take those 2-4 gallon “top off” stops! nothing like spending a total of $90 in gas for the whole weekend (and that included both side trips for me and Kris!)

Now I forgot to mention what bela was up to the whole weekend. for some reason he can’t get anything done while i’m home (haha i wonder why!) so he ended up cleaning out our garage (much needed) and the office – putting in a new desk. he even got all the networking stuff setup correctly

after his days of cleaning and organizing he was enjoying some down time on the couch when all of a sudden he hears a “whap!” against the window. he looks out and sees a suicidal bird just lying on the ground, not really moving. he went out with some gloves to take a closer look and it seemed to be still alive. so he picked it up and it seemed to grasp his finger. so he took it to the front of the house and put it on a branch of our evergreen tree where it again grasped the limb and seemed to be able to stand up now on its own. he ran to get the camera and took a few pics as he petted it. he went to grab something again and this time on his way out when the door shut the birdie flew off. it was ok! which was good because he’d been considering what it would take to nurse it back to health hehe. we’re such animal suckers….

so we both had great long weekends, hope everyone else did too!  Full galleries can be seen of Seneca and Yough.

The comp went pretty smoothly as usual. Claytor MCed again and it seemed like everyone had a good time. For finals i decided to go up on the catwalk again. Ben joined me this year so at least i wasn’t alone The lighting made photos a bit difficult but i had a great view of the women’s advanced which passed right by me. The last picture if of Alex Johnson who won the men’s advanced group.

Today we went back to rhododendron so i could make an attempt at leading. I felt semi-confident and gave it a go. I felt like i took too much gear at first but ended up almost running out – seeing as i was placing gear just about everywhere i could. There was 1 section where i got a bit freaked but after a few minutes i just forced myself to go and i didn’t even cry, yay! This was a pretty big step for me, i haven’t lead outside in a very long time, possibly 3 or 4 years – maybe more! We befriended a few locals who had set up a few top-ropes nearby and ended up sharing the climbs. So we hopped on Laurel a 5.7 with a tough start and then Double Chin – a really fun classic gunks climb – with two big roofs. We found a black snake as bela was about to start bouldering- he almost stepped on it until i pointed it out! After those few climbs and a little bouldering for bela we were done for the day and decided to get lunch before we headed back to the city.

We’re staying in New Jersey tonight to save a few bucks on the hotel. We’re planning on getting up early to head into the city and hit central park so we decided to order some food. The front desk had a faxed copy of the menu which offered a special for pizza, pasta and few other things we couldn’t quite make out. So we called them up to ask about the special and they seemed confused, so the 2nd person we talked to was like ok you want the special? and we’re like yeah. he didn’t ask what kind of pizza or any thing and was like, “ok goodbye”. so we had no clue what we were actually getting. the delivery guy got here half the fun was seeing what we ended up getting (pizza, spaghetti, mussels marina!)

So tomorrow should be interesting as we head into the city!

On Sunday the parking lots were insane once again so we opted to go to the state park just down the road, where there was a geocache . It was a bit chilly, but we got moving to stay warm. There weren’t too many cars when we came in and we tried to stay away from the other hikers as much as possible. We really enjoyed the hike around the lake. We found some froggies and a salamander eating a moth in the water. The area had some awesome rock- tho the park didn’t allow actual climbing, but that didn’t stop us from scrambling all over hehe. We found what would have been the perfect beginner spot: big blocks and wonderful ledges, right on the lake… the hike took us past one of 2 resort buildings set atop rock cliffs in the area. This one was abandoned – the other is right by the gunks and is still in use (so we hear). It looked amazing but we’re guessing not terribly stable. Much of the area has carriage trails which are often used now as hiking/biking paths. The geocache we found was right off one of these with a lovely view of the lake where the ladies used to stop on their way to the resort. We decided to keep caching and started back to the car. By the time we got back, it was getting crazy- just about all the lots were full (we had parked in the first one that was only 1/4 full). We had timed it perfectly!

So on we went, the next cache was just up the road. We pulled off at an viewpoint, and started our way up what looked like a trail. It took us up to a ridge where we got some spectacular views of the catskill mountains off to the north. The gnats were a bit nasty so we didn’t stay long.

As is usual on our vacations we always see a movie – well if we’re near civilization we do… so when we saw that the traffic coming into town was backed up all the way out of town we thought it’d be perfect timing to hit the cinema. We grabbed a quick bite, and saw “The Brave One” with jodie foster- probably not the best choice considering the movie is about her getting attacked in central park and that’s exactly where we are heading this weekend! But it was a good movie (and don’t worry we’ll be careful- no late night excursions to the park!)

Not sure what to do next, we figured we’d do some more caching up the road a bit. we took the interstate highway but probably should have just taken back roads… the next exit was way far up and we ended up driving farther beyond the cache than where we started! so we started randomly driving using the gps to get us in the general area. after a lot of u-turns we finally found the trail they were near by parking in the local cemetary (it did tell us to!). it was pretty fun wandering around the countryside. we found the 2 caches in the area and started heading back. We noticed 2 deer in the woods just off to our side. so we stopped and just played peek-a-boo with a few moments, which apparently was when another deer was just passing behind us (a couple just up the path told us just after). On our way back, we happened upon even more deer- this time with 3 little babies! I told bela we had to turn around to try to get a pic, but the people traveling on that road are maniacs, so i only got 1 very blurry shot as a huge truck roared by and almost hit them as they ran across the road… we were just happy they didn’t get hit.

Monday morning we hit the rock. I was glad we had waited as my knee and hand were still healing from a bike accident i had had early in the week (i could finally bend my knee- which makes climbing way easier haha!) We went looking for a nice classic climb to start off with, we ended up with Minty a nice 2 pitch climb with a little exposure. Bela did a nice lead and decided to pass up the belay and just do it in 1 pitch. I followed up, and said the usual things… “he’s crazy”, “no way in Hell i’m ever leading”, even tho it was an easier climb the exposure made it feel harder in a few sections. But the climb was more than worth it- the views were just amazing.

We’d passed a really nice crack on the way to Minty, so we headed back to give it a run. Bela of course led again and sewed it up nicely. I had to follow to clean, but i had a bit of a harder time. You can see my true feelings….

Bela had a good laugh at me. That was my rest ledge- i really liked it… i also really liked the tree when i got to the top- i gave it a hug! We both were pretty tired… so we packed it up and went out for yummy seafood. We’re off to massachusettes tomorow, so we’ll have another update soon!

Happy Travels!

Heidi & Bela