It has been an enjoyable and productive shoulder season. This past month of transition basically consisted of returning to Montana briefly, then heading back to North Carolina... with some cool stops in between major destinations. My first stop after leaving Bend, Oregon was Jackson, Wyoming. I visited my friend Ben for one day of backcountry skiing. We did a 1600 foot bootpack (cardio!) up Mount Glory then descended 3000 feet to where one of our cars was. This was my first time skiing in any style in the Jackson area, so I was pretty stoked! It was awesome to visit and chat life with ben, who was my first ever co-instructor back in 2018 when we both worked for the Appalachian Mountain Club Teen Wild program. Next, I drove 30 hours over 3 days from Las Vegas, NV to Asheville, NC. I moved into NCOBS Table Rock basecamp on March 11th and had a ropes course training the same day. Since then, I've been pretty much climbing every day and helping out around base to earn my keep and help the program fire up for the season. The reason I came back early was to prepare for my climber specialist check off. I completed the check off last week, so I will spend some of this summer doing climbing specific work in addition to instructing courses. The check off consisted of a 5.8 trad onsite, the AMGA rock rescue drill (50 min drill), and a 2:1 mock guide of a student multi pitch route. With that complete, I have been able to get in plenty of casual climbing as I anticipate the start of the training season here in just a few days. Here are a few more photos of my NC climbing the past week or so... Well I suppose that's it. Fortunately, things will not be settling down even though I have moved into my home for the next 7 months. It definitely feels great to have moved into Cabin 1. Training season starts imminently at basecamp and I'm super excited to see all of my friends again and be receiving so much professional development. We are getting very close to working with students again! Lots of good stuff on the horizon.
Shameless plug once more, my roommate, Julia, and I started a podcast about seasonal life, instructing, climbing, paddling, etc. It's free on Spotify and Anchor. |
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February 2024
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