Ah yes another trip across the country and another thick transition in the books! I am writing this blog from my home, Cabin 1, at the NCOBS Table Rock basecamp. Since my last post, I have lived a few lives, covered a few thousand miles, and yes believe it or not, worked quite a few days. Here's the spraydown... Cannon beach & final days in BendDaniel and I opened the book on aid climbing! Pictured here is me at the base of Monkey Face at Smith Rock. We attempted the West Face, a 4 pitch C1 aid climb. Unfortunately, I failed to protect the rope well enough from the sharp edge after the first pitch, so as Daniel ascended, the rope rubbed and became core shot. We rappelled down carefully and learned a great (but expensive) lesson. More to come on this aid journey in the near future for sure. xc drive east boundMost notable from the drive east was our stop in Chicago. We visited and crashed with some of my BFF's from home. Pictured here is Lea (gume) and Mary, and Emily (e) was the one behind the camera. It was such a treat to visit them twice in 2 months, and to be able to finally introduce Daniel to them! We stayed up until midnight and listened to Miley Cyrus' new album, Endless Summer Vacation. A moment in my life for sure. Lots of love. We made a safe trip back east in 4 days, and upon arrival to Table Rock base camp we quickly parked the cars then grabbed our climbing gear and headed up Table Rock for our first multi-pitch lap of the season. We climbed North Ridge 5.5 3 pitches for probably my 8th time but, hey, once a classic always a classic. ncobs training seasonEarly season started off casually with Course Director training. This will be my first season as a CD, and it is an advisory/leadership/administrative role that I am excited to learn more about. Anyway, every night, we'd play Settlers of Catan. Great vibes great people. L to R is Bri, Slada, Daniel, and Brodin. During Return Staff training we did workshops for 3 of 4 days. On the other day we did an off-trail navigation quest. I was a trainer for this training, and I instructed workshops on Choice Theory/ Student Management, as well as Psychological First Aid/ supporting students with anxiety or panic attacks. BFFs and peers of mine, Max and Daniel were also trainers. It is being fun to grow up with those guys here, and see our roles on base change from year to year. Anyway, in the evening we would do community building. One night, we did an Iron Chef competition... Return staff training included a 3 day intermediate rock skills training for staff, which myself, Max, Daniel and our manager David were the trainers for. I worked with Max, and we had a group of 7 staff. It was wild to see myself in this role, still suffering from imposter syndrome, still wondering if I'm faking it. Anyway, as soon as the training was finally done, Max, Daniel, and myself got out climbing. Pictured is Max on the sharp end at The Dump! Last training, and it's still currently underway so this brings us to the present moment. Pictured is a group of NCOBS climbing specialists on day 1 of our Climber Staff Training. We did some trail work with the Carolina Climber's Coalition to improve the climber's trail on the east face of Table Rock. I worked on building a rock staircase (pictured!) and it was fun to get my hands on some rock work for the first time ever. I've done lots of wood work, digging, and clearing, but never rock work. Physical day and super satisfying. Every time I use this trail in the future, I'll use this staircase and think "hey I put these rocks here!" March has been a great month. I'm extremely thankful for another safe transition east, with no car issues or hang ups. I'm really glad to be back home at Table Rock base camp, and in a place to be serving others. I am very excited for my new roles at NCOBS this year, and so far everything has been going just dandy! Worth mentioning that I also turned 26 this month, and had to figure out my own health insurance. I suppose adulthood has its annoyances, but shucks if you had told 10 year old Addie this is how it would all shake out, I bet she would have been stoked at the arrangement. I really feel like I'm living my dream.
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