Well it’s that time of year again where our family likes to get super nerdy with stats and graphs! From a family adventure perspective, we had an AMAZING year. We spent 44 days climbing outside, and our climbing area breakdown looked like this: Starting the roof crux on Manifest Destiny NEW RIVER GORGE (and surrounding areas) – 12 days RED RIVER GORGE – 11 days BREAKS INTERSTATE PARK – 8 days HIDDEN VALLEY – 4 days HAWKSBILL MOUNTAIN – 4 days STONY MT BOULDERS – 3 days CROWDERS MOUNTAIN – 2 days From a climbing performance perspective, our biggest challenge as a family was the logistics of bal ..read more

Big C crushing J Rat’s Back 12a It’s been quite a long time, but welcome back to this little corner of the interwebs! For quite a while now I’ve been wanting to get back into blogging on the regular again, and a trip report about our most recent family adventure seemed like a perfect place to dive in! When I polled some of you on Instagram about specific topics you were most interested in reading about, an overwhelming majority of you all voted for “a little bit of everything!” So I’ll try my best to hit all the highlights from our trip without going down any epic long rabbit trails! (And for ..read more

(AKA…The Comment That Risked Our Marriage But Improved My Climbing) Last week I officially opened registration for an NRG-specific training workshop I’ll be doing later this month. I wanted to use this space to tell you guys not only about what to expect from the workshop, but also to tell you why I’m so passionate about geeking out about NRG specific training! My hubby and I have been climbing at the New since 2007. My 12yo son spent his first night under the stars there in 2010 when he was only 2 months old, and before my now 8yo daughter had turned one, she had hitched a ride down the Endle ..read more

Raise your hand if you like to geek out over climbing stats this time of year?!? I know I do. It’s fun to look back and see what I accomplished versus what I didn’t quite get to, and then use that information to make new goals for the next year. 2021 was a year of ups and downs for me. I sent a lot of routes that were meaningful to me, and also took almost all of the fall season to fail on something that also very meaningful to me. I was blessed to be able to get 48 days out on the rock at 10 different climbing areas in the Southeast. New to me sends broke down like this… Traverse Crux on Sham ..read more

Raise your hand if you like board games. Anyone? I know our famly loves a good game night. So we were thrilled to get the opportunity to check out a new climbing-themed board game a few weeks ago. The game is called “First Ascent,” designed by Philadelphia-based climbers Kate Otte and Garrett Gibbons. First Ascent can be played with 2-5 players, and takes 45-90 minutes to play. It is recommended for ages 14+. From the official game description: “The goal in this strategic and competitive game is to gain the most points by climbing the best route up the mountain and becoming the most skilled ..read more

With temps creeping up into the 90s on a regular basis down here in the Southeast, I think it’s safe to say that Spring is officially “sprung and done.” And with the first half of the year behind us, it’s a good time to look back and reflect on how the yearly goals are coming! Entering the crux of Logotherapy 13a I started this year with 2 very specific goals, but as the months went by, my spring climbing season quickly turned into a season of redemption on past projects! After coming up short on both of my season long projects last fall (Logotherapy 13a and Pudd’s Pretty Dress 12d), my winter ..read more

Grey Goose 12b Anybody else like to look back and do some end of year reflection on how they fared with their goals for the year? In addition to the satisfaction that comes from checking off those goals, it’s also interesting to see how those goals have changed over the course of the year. Sometimes what was deemed “goal-worthy” in January isn’t very important by the time December rolls around, and this year has been the perfect example of this! January 2020 started off with some lofty dreams, but all of that came to a grinding halt a few weeks later when Covid hit. Climbing areas around us cl ..read more

If you’ve been following me at all on social media, you’ve probably seen videos of me taking whippers on various parts of this beast of a rock climb at the New River Gorge. While this route has taught me so much about the art of projecting as well as myself as a climber, I was holding off on posting about it until I was for sure done with it for the season. With the arrival of snow across the mountainous areas of the East Cost, fall sport climbing season has officially ended for me. Unfortunately (spoiler alert), it did NOT end in a send for me. However the lessons I’ve learned while working t ..read more

The Band is Just Fantastic 10a That’s a mouthful to say, right?!? It’s even more impressive to do, considering that said 10 year old only started lead climbing 7 weeks before our trip to Ten Sleep! Considering his lack of experience on the sharp end, the CragDad and I weren’t really sure how he would do, but we were certain that the experience would be invaluable for him. While the bolts in Ten Sleep tend to be a lot closer together than at our crags back home, limestone can be notoriously hard to read. And while he didn’t have much experience climbing on pockets before this trip, we correctly ..read more

Always Keep It Loaded Considering how covid cancelled both our spring climbing season, as well as our gym training options leading up to the trip, we really had no idea what to expect once we actually got on the rocks in Ten Sleep Canyon. (see here for our we prepped using our quarantine purchased treadwall from Brewer Fitness.) Our main goal was to simply get away from the real world for a while as a family in one of our favorite places. I also had a very specific side goal – coming into the trip I was only 4 sends away from 100 lifetime 5.12’s, and I wanted to hit the 100 mark by my 40th bir ..read more