Bee-cuzzz it's been too long...

"Hey, Archie, nice up-down smile."

Top of Pingora Peak (11,884 feet)

Shannon on unicorn patrol. Cirque of the Towers, WY.

Bitchin'. Pingora Peak summit.

Is this diving board Olympic regulation? Or what?

Devil's Tower- we think? or stunt double?

Sinks Canyon Posse in full effect.

Shannon and Katy, we do climb!

Bee Town, salute that flag homeboy.

"Have fun at your first day of school, and don't
worry, you're not that different."

Another day at work.

"You've been naughty!"

Katy didn't sit for a week.

Last day, closing up shop!

Katy, Shannon, and Rattatouie.

Bringin' Bitchin' Back

"You've been bad!" I heard myself yell. My voice carried through the packed bar and more heads turned. Shannon had that crazy look in her eyes and a spanking paddle cocked back ready for contact. The recipient of Shannon's wrath was a 40-something bleach blond who'd had more botox injections than I've had bruises. "You've been naughty!" I yelled again laughing and then Shannon let her have it. The noise of a paddle spanking an ass rang out in the dusty bar. Shannon laughed, bikers yelled, and $5 was deposited into our tip jar.

Our spanking paddle was a cutting board we'd found our first day of work. It hung from a hook next to a sign that teasingly read "Have You Been Naughty?" This was but one sign we'd made for the coffee/cigar bar that we were running for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Our coffee was bitchin'...according to our sign anyway...and we didn't have any complaints as we doled out caffeine and nicotine to our tattooed, leather-clad clients.

The Broken Spoke, "the world's largest biker bar," was our home for the week. We rode our bikes (the ones with pedals...not motors...pretty sweet) there every morning at 9am and usually arrived back at camp around 2am...our voices becoming progressively more raspy each night as we layed in the jeep laughing with craziness from lack of sleep.

We'd acquired our biker names the first day at the campground from our camp neighbors. Shannon was "Delicious", I was "Yummy." At that point I knew it would be an eventful week. This thought was reinforced as we cut apart a bag full of Goodwill clothes to make our work "uniforms." "I've never gone to work in my underwear," Shannon giggled as she tied the strands of a ripped AC/DC t-shirt around my torso. "What are we doing?" I asked through ridiculous laughter.

I didn't even have time to answer myself. Our two weeks in Sturgis went by in an incredibly entertaining and exhausting blur. Cigars were cut and lit, pot after pot of coffee was brewed, the espresso machine hummed, butts were spanked, rock 'n' roll blared, beers disappeared and all of a sudden Shannon and I were cleaning up and breathing sighs of relief with our new found family at The Broken Spoke.

Our time at "The Spoke" came to a fitting end. With the coffee/cigar bar shut down, we sat at a nearby table. Soon dollar beers lined up in front of us. Shannon had a trained white rat in her overalls pocket and I was smoking a cigar. We looked at each other and laughed. I traded her the cigar for the white rat. "What just happened?" she asked me in her raspy, slightly buzzed voice. We looked like crazy people. "I don't know...but I like it," I replied. We raised our beers to a cheers with a table of new found friends and finally relaxed. The following morning we were headed west to Wyoming, our biker days behind us, Devil's Tower looming on the horizon.
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Even through the day's dying light and the haze brought on by fires burning out west we could make out the shape of Devil's Tower edged on the horizon more than forty miles away. As the jeep quietly (thanks Bill the mechanic for fixing my muffler) steered its way through the hills of Eastern Wyoming the true power, beauty, and magnitude of the Tower became apparent.

As legend has it the cracks and gashes that characterize the face of Devil's Tower were created by a giant bear in pursuit of natives. The natives, seeking protection from the bear, climbed atop a giant rock as it made its way towards the heavens. The bear was left defeated, tearing at the sides of the protrusion with his powerful claws.

As Katy and I stood at the base of Devil's Tower, jaws dropped and eyes wide, we tried to figure out which claw mark amongst the seemingly identical scars would be our home for the day. "I hate this f#$*ing guide book!" Katy proclaimed, "Why didn't they include a picture of the route?" I sighed, sharing in her frustration and continued hiking. After more frustrated searching and a few more swear words we found just where we wanted to be- at the base of a climb known as 'Tad'.

Once up close, the rock looked slightly less intimidating (slightly being the key word here). I watched as Katy struggled her way up the first pitch- announcing she felt like she hadn't climbed in over a month. "Don't do that like I did," Katy hollered between grunts as she inched her way through the dreaded offwidth- a crack characteristic we have both come to loathe. In no time we were face to face, re-racking our gear so i could lead the next section. Then, I took my turn grunting up the sustained crack system, resulting in a large family of bruises residing between my shoulder and knee on the right side of my body as i continually jammed anything possible into the crack for support.

After a few nasty, frustrating pitches and a 300 foot scramble to a meadow we were greeted by a breathtaking panoramic of the Eastern Wyoming Black Hills. We sat in silence, catching our breath and basking in the late afternoon rays. Looking out at the horizon it was hard not to imagine all the people who had come before us. The Native Americans, the ranchers and farmers, the miners, the tourists, and other climbers- all attracted to the legend, the mystique, the spiritual power of the Tower. For that moment in time, perched high above the valley, surveying the land, we were a part of it all.

Before leaving I twisted off the metal cap to to a pipe containing the registry for all to sign as the reach the top of the tower. I quickly inscribed a note to Katy, "Happy four month anniversary, Sweetheart!!!" and laughed at the absurdity of our trip thus far as I secured the cap safely in its place. Then I went to find Katy so we could rappel back down to "reality".
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Possible List of Things "B-Town" Could Stand For
1. Bee Bee Town, Iowa (My future home)
2. Boulder, Colorado (what? it's a town.)
3. A town shaped like the letter 'B'
4. A town where only people with a name started with 'B' are allowed
5. Katy's really good friend from Custer State Park, Brian, aka "B-Town"

B-Town lives in Sinks Canyon near Lander, Wyoming and works as a backcountry ranger for the Forest Service. He was a generous host for Katy and me, along with two friends of ours who had met up with us on our travels. Sinks Canyon climbing was reminiscent of Shelf Road, where we began our trip over four months ago. The limestone cliffs lined the canyon and provided a multitude of one pitch sport routes for us to test our growing strength and confindence in a relaxing, non-stressful environment.

Our days at B-Town's were spent climbing, reorganizing our "home", taking turns wearing the bee costume and posing for compromising photos, listening to Cal jam on his banjo while drinking PBR's, playing "dog xylophone" (the newest member of our travelling menogerie, consider him a shelter rescue, complete with dog bone striking wand), and mourning the loss of my cell phone, who was in an automobile accident (i.e.- run over by a car and smashed to smitherines). After much laughter, much reminiscing, many beers, and many hugs we pushed westward to a little secret B-Town let us in on- Cirque of the Towers.
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"How's it goin'?" I asked the gentleman as we passed ways on the trail that led to the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River range of Wyoming. "I'm 80 years old," was his reply. I patted him on the shoulder, "you're doin' awesome." He was my hero for the day. I could only hope that at 80 I would be out hiking somewhere high in the mountains. He was on his way down so I didn't worry about him.

We hiked on, gusts of wind catching my pack and throwing me off balance. We passed under a granite giant, the wind ceased and the sun warmed our faces. I felt the presence of something greater, something powerful...and we stood humbly, necks craned, admiring nature's igneous masterpiece. Soon we'd hiked over the climber's trail and stood facing the Cirque of the Towers.

Clouds skirted over the jagged granite protrusions as if on a mission...not in a hurry...just on a mission. High mountain sun warmed my back and gave contrast to the cracks, corners, ledges, and roofs that made up the rock-laden landscape. Never before had I seen so much granite. The peaks pierced the sky, majestic and strong with perfect posture. "On belay" we heard filtering down the cirque. Shannon pointed out the figures on the distant ridge line delicately making their way up the harsh terrain.

We set up camp high above Lonesome Lake with a perfect view of Pingora Peak rising to the North. We smiled as we scoped out the object of our climbing desire...the south buttress...and went to sleep with bellies full of tortellini. After a rest day of snacks, Yatzee, and Pocket Farkel (thanks mom for the new dice game and NOT thanks Shannon for continually beating me at my own dice games) we awoke well rested and anxious.

We left in a dense mist. It was cool on my face. We made our way up the terraced south shoulder of Pingora Peak. It was like a dreamscape. I pinched myself. "I wouldn't even blink if I saw a unicorn fly by," Shannon admitted. "I would just say, 'yep...this is the place unicorns live.'" We roped up in the sun-illuminated fog. The peak itself emerged still partially cloaked in the moisture laden air. Slowly the other jagged summits of the cirque peaked out...glowing orange...basking in the morning sun as they woke up and poked their heads from the clouds. As we climbed, the fog burned away. The sun was cozy, the alpine air crisp in our lungs.

I shot up a crack system. The granite was solid, the laybacks smooth and liberating. Shannon gracefully led up the spine of a K shaped crack. She made it look effortless. She let our a triumphant yell at the top and I soon joined her, smiling. We scrambled the final 200 feet to the summit of Pingora Peak, laughed, smiled, hugged and soaked in the scenery.

T-SHIRTS!!

We still have shirts!!! If you want 1 or if you want 100 email us at nebraskachixrock@hotmail.com. Please include your mailing address and shirt size (Adult S-XL)

Coffee, Tea, and Spankings...

Sorry for the delay in the updates. Shannon and I are currently working in Sturgis, South Dakota at the Motorcycle Rally. Our schedule for the next week is crazy...9am-2am...but we're working hard so we can get back to playing hard. Check back as the stories are piling up...some highlights: dog-cat-mouse guy, spankings, electrical tape and sticky letters, spearfish canyon, harleys, and many more... thanks for all the support! okay...gotta go...katy

I glanced at Katy over a row of sweet peas. She was kneeling in the dirt, hands and lips stained red. There was juice dripping down her chin, onto her already soiled t-shirt. I noticed that her carton, the one she was supposed to be filling with fresh strawberries, was completely empty. I kept watching; popping sweet peas in my mouth like they were popcorn, as Katy consumed her body weight in strawberries before even attempting to collect them in her basket. ‘I could get used to this’, I thought, as I looked around at the tiny little organic farm that surrounded us. Maybe I had found my calling in life.

Appleton Farm is located in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and happens to employ my good friend Becky, whom I met in Costa Rica. She invited us to farm with her that day, offering us all the fresh produce we could handle in return. We rose with the sun, tossed on some old jeans and headed out to the fields. We spent the morning thinning carrots, picking turnips, weeding around the winter squash, and bunching leafy plants that I had never even heard of. We chatted with all the other farmers while kneeling in the rich soil, helping them cultivate the produce they had planted and nurtured into life. The farmers had their system, knowing which plants to keep and which to toss because worms had gotten to them or because they were underdeveloped. It didn’t come naturally to Katy and me however. With each turnip we pulled, we leaned towards Becky, whispering, “What about this one?” Becky would smirk, look at our find then tell us which pile to throw it in. At one point I had cultivated a bunch of green leafy things, rubber banding them together perfectly; just to find out they were nothing but worthless weeds. At another point I looked at Katy, she was eyeing the carrots from a hunched over, head tilted to the ground position, “Do you think I have left enough space between the carrots?” “They said to leave two fingers widths of space.” “Oh, um…” She was using her hand as a measuring device, only she needed both of them to cover the gap she had created. “I think I left too much space,” she giggled. I watched as Becky navigated carefully, deliberately, between the rows of crops, moving precariously around her piles, careful not damage any of the tender plants. “Oops! I stepped on the broccoli rabe again,” I would say as I accidentally mistook a pile of keeps as weeds, rendering them useless.
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“Don’t teach 1st-3rd grade,” our new friend Noah said, “those are the ‘yelling’ grades. You’re better off teaching eighth. Eighth is best.” We were lounging on rock in the middle of a river near Bartlett, New Hampshire. The swimming hole was dotted with some locals. Eight-year-old Noah was nice enough to take time out of his busy schedule of jumping off rocks to offer some guidance about my possible career path as a teacher. I pondered Noah’s words as he reassured Katy that the rock was indeed safe to jump off. “The water looks too shallow,” I overheard Katy saying. “It’s wicked deep, like 10 feet,” Noah retorted. Katy proceeded to humor him by jumping off the rock in the form of a ‘racing velociraptor’ hitting the water with a thud. She planted her feet and stood, the water barely reaching her chest. “Nice ten feet, Noah,” she muttered as she waded her way back to her place in the sun.

The following day we bushwhacked our way to White’s Ledge with our new friend Huck (the name we endearingly gave him after getting to know his barefoot, boyish charm, mischievous grin, and aptitude to create everything from his own two hands). We were in search of a climb known as ‘Endeavor’, which Huck promised we would love. I took my time leading the first pitch, not because I was scared of the nearly 200 foot climb or because I had lost the route in the seemingly endless sea of cracks, crevices, shrubs, bulges, and roofs, but because I was amused and I didn’t want it to end. In recent weeks trad climbing has taken on new meaning for me. It is a giant puzzle, the desired result always different and unknown. The rock is a constant challenge; where to find good gear placements, how to make the rope drag less and how to make it as safe as possibly for myself and my partner. Instead of the paranoid, completely intimidated climber that I was, I am now smiling when placing a solid nut, or when slinging an almost overlooked needles eye in the rock. I am constantly excited to follow Katy up a route, looking for her blood markings on the rocks, checking her creative gear placements, laughing when I reach her smiling face at the top of a pitch. “Man, I’m glad you led that one,” is usually the first words out of my mouth. That day wavering on a ledge somewhere between the unknown pine tree which was my target and the stability of the ground where Katy and Huck lingered, I grinned. I was on my way and there was no place in the entire universe that I would rather have been. I would have stayed there forever, lingering in the moment, had it not been for the black flies, those damn little vampires.

(Side note: After finishing our climb that day, between the three of us, there was no less than 200 mini-hickies, spotting our exposed flesh. Thanks for nothing, black flies!)
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“Hey, nice mustache.” Yet again Shannon was proving her ability to interact well with strangers. On this particular evening she was doing so in her bumble bee costume and hunter orange stocking cap. My friend Casey was belaying me up Kiddy Crack on the North End of Cathedral Ledge. By the time my feet returned to the ground Shannon had convinced both of the strangers to don the bee suit for their climbs. I realized in the fading light that I had spent the entire day laughing at the ridiculous things that came out of Shannon’s mouth. Earlier, as we drove into North Conway, she had called-on (teacher style) a twelve foot overall clad bear statue that was raising its paw. “Yes, you in the blue,” she had said in her best teacher voice. Tears had streamed down my cheeks as I exploded in laughter. What a day. We gathered our gear in the light of our headlamps and made plans for a BBQ with the strangers.

The next morning we awoke to light rain but soon Shannon, Casey, and I were making our way up ‘Recompense’ in the sun. The following morning we balanced carefully up the slabby ‘Sea of Holes’ on Whitehorse Ledge before parting ways with Casey. It was back to the two of us and I enjoyed the return to the comfortable rhythm of climbing with her. I watched as she led up ‘Pooh’…meticulously climbing and down climbing, setting gear, taking it out, adding and adjusting slings until reaching the top with zero rope drag. I was impressed and proud and even more so as I followed the awkward pitch. I was swearing and sweating as I decided that Shannon was now leading every pitch the guidebook described as awkward. At the end of the week we had merely scratched the surface of climbing on the impressive cliffs and I was disappointed to watch them disappear in the rear view mirror as we pointed the Jeep toward Maine.
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We were in Maine and it was almost time to board the lobster boat…I mean lobstah boat…but first we had some business to tend to. “Shannon, put this on your face. I’ll give you a dollar.” “Hand it over, I could use the money,” she replied matter-of-factly as she flopped open her palm. I started to hand over the starfish that was gently writhing in my palm, but I stopped short as our new friend Adam called to us. “The Sea Hawk’s leaving.” I put the weird creature back into the water and we ran down the dock to meet our new friends. We had met Adam in Bar Harbor two days prior. Shannon and I had ducked onto a side street after weaving our way through the tourists. We needed a beer to overcome culture shock and I was scared that if we didn’t get off the street we’d end up getting swallowed by the hoards of Hawaiian shirts and fanny packs. Adam, along with an assortment of climbing and kayaking guides were gathered on the patio of the watering hole we had selected. Soon we were all engaged in conversation making plans to climb the next day, Shannon and I having narrowly avoided a full fledged crowd induced anxiety attack.

“You ready?” I asked Shannon the next day. She nodded and I lowered her over the granite cliff toward the crashing ocean waves. I was trying to convince myself that I wasn’t in a dream. The sun warmed our faces from its post in the periwinkle sky and a channel marker let out periodic dings as it swayed in the Atlantic Ocean. Shannon grinned and I decided not to pinch myself. Dream or not, it was unbelievable. We were climbing in Acadia National Park having worked our way up from Texas. I shook my head and smiled as I watched Shannon gracefully make her way back up the cliff. That evening we cooked our dinner in the parking lot and accepted Adam’s invitation to spend the 4th of July out on his boat. As he gave us directions to the dock, the look in Shannon’s eyes told me she was already plotting a pirate-like adventure. I made a mental note not to forget my eye patch.

“Man, this is a big lake,” we told Adam and his friends as we boarded the Sea Hawk. “How deep is it?” We tried not to laugh but erupted into giggling. “You know this is the Atlantic Ocean, right?” I furrowed by brow and gave my best confused look…Shannon did the same. We certainly weren’t doing anything to squash Nebraska stereotypes. We laughed some more.

We bounced with the waves as Adam navigated the boat into perfect position for fireworks watching. The anchor sunk with a splash. The hum of voices floated through the salty breeze and around the community of boats that rocked gently in the cove, waiting for the culmination of the day’s festivities. I heard the familiar reggae beat of “Jammin” playing over the speakers on our vessel. Soon the sky was exploding in color, lighting up Shannon’s grin. It was not our night to shine as pirates, but rather our time to stand quietly in awe, totally immersed in the moment.

Shot through the heart and you're to blame, if you like pictures we added some more.

Look over there....---->

Southern Delicacies, for 200 Alex

Shannon leading Loosen Up, Red River Gorge, Kentucky

An evening passtime at Miguel's

Katy leading Fast Food Christians, Red River Gorge, Kentucky

Shannon coming across the South Peak summit ridge, Seneca Rocks, West Virginia

Shannon and Katy at the House of Trad with the guru, Tom

“Shannon!” Katy hollered out from ahead on the trail. “Look.” As soon as we were standing side by side I saw what it was she was yelling about. After all of our searches, our documentaries, our interviews with farm animals, the turtle found us. Katy let out a squeal of delight and amazement as she crouched and circled the turtle. With the video footage rolling Katy picked the little box turtle up with two fingers and made like Steve Irwin when he first came in contact with a poisonous and deadly species. She blinked twice, gulped, and then looked wide eyed at me, speechless. “That was easy,” she finally managed, “all I had to do was bend over and ‘get the turtle.’” Needless to say, crossing paths with the turtle, right at our feet, an arm's reach away was a little anticlimactic. We had built up the day in our heads; we even had some new “turtle-ing” boots. Katy was supposed to spot the turtle from the car window, cruising 30mph on a back road somewhere, I was going to slam on the brakes without even looking in the rear view mirror, then Katy would bust through the car door before I even brought the car to a halt. I would grab the camera as Katy took off, tearing through a wet bog in hot pursuit, a look of pure determination on her face. When she finally reached the turtle she would be covered in smelly mud, possibly a leech or two sucking at her toes. I would trail behind her, capturing everything, trying to steady the camera as I ran towards the breaking news. The turtle would put up a fierce fight and it would take the two of us, with all our new strong muscles, to pin it down and capture the final interview necessary for the completion of our turtle documentary, to be released in theaters summer of ’08. But I guess things don’t always work out like we imagine. That day, wandering frustrated, through the hills of the Red River Gorge in Kentucky, we were looking for Purple Valley, not a turtle. We explored for three hours before coming across Louie, the name affectionately given to all the turtles of Katy’s youth, and realized our venture led us right where it was supposed to. We turned around and headed back to the car.

The rest of our stay at Red River Gorge proved true to what we had already learned about Southern climbing. The sandstone was tough, overhanging, and much of it gave us a run for our money. We found every type of climbing to challenge us there, from overhanging walls, satisfying flakes and trad routes, to awkward or exposed climbs that tested our mental strength and abilities. We set up our home base at Miguel’s Pizza. Between the bright green front porch picnic tables and the back pond filled with bellowing frogs, Miguel’s hosts a bustling climber’s village. A sign proclaims the 2$/night campground is for climbers only, perfect for two gals on a budget. We added our tent to the many already sprawled out under the deciduous trees, a slack line creating an obstacle course in the main area of the campground. The nights were quietly reminiscent of our childhoods in Nebraska; the fields alight with fireflies and the evening air comfortably warm and sticky, only with the added element of a mysterious mist.

Aside from climbing, most of our time was spent at Miguel’s with our fast growing posse of friends. Ben was our favorite “neighbor” and Yatzee competitor. Mark, who was eleven and the owner’s son, beat us in basketball, Yatzee, bike riding, extreme walking, and just about everything else we challenged him to. Dario, Mark’s older brother, allowed me to give him a new summer cut…enough said. The most generous of our new friends was an eight-year old who came up to me one evening and held out a marshmallow, “Would you like my last marshmallow?” he asked. “That is really nice of you,” I said, graciously accepting. Then he walked over to Kate, held out a half full bag of marshmallows and asked her if she wanted one too. He had glow-in-the-dark shoes and pushed me into a pile of sticky garbage bags during an intense game of basketball. And let’s not forget our newly adopted brother, Greg, who was a justifiably cocky climber, and somehow wavered on the side of endearing to the point that Katy and I wanted to take him home and make him our own. And true to our fashion of attracting strange hounds there was our favorite pooch, a German Shorthair Pointer named Snoop Dog…and last and certainly least in this case were the guys that introduced us to Kentucky Moonshine, complete in a Mason jar. If we had had to drive the next day the one-inch rule certainly would have been in effect.

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“This one’s on me.” I watched Shannon slyly slide a plastic gold pirate coin towards the bartender. The guy at the end of the bar lost his excitement as he realized the bartender was not going to accept the booty and he would therefore be responsible for paying for his own drink. I had the same realization and pulled a plastic sword from my boot and pointed it at Dave, the bartender. “Argghh. You better take it,” I said in my best pirate dialect…then erupted in laughter. I was sitting next to my friend Jeff. Shannon and I met Jeff in college and now here he was in West Virginia working as a raft guide on the New River Gorge. Jeff’s friend Amy seemed to be in shock. “They need to quit spending so much time in the car,” she said quietly to Jeff. I silently disagreed…it was too much fun. Our stint at the New River was short lived, our pirate career didn’t really pan out (no one wanted to accept our currency and our weapons were made of low grade plastic.) We stayed only a couple of days in the tent commune the raft guides called home. It was time to move on, so we built Jeff a table with scraps from the junk pile, wrote him a “Dear John” letter and headed out with the promise of a lake where we could swim and climb.

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Imagine the Caribbean Ocean, the pristine blue waters, crystal clear from surface to sea floor. Now imagine shrinking the Caribbean into a largish lake and placing it in the middle of West Virginia, surrounding it with 60 + foot slightly overhanging cliffs of sandstone. Then, give the lake a name like Summersville. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would want to visit a place like this, right? Well, unfortunately Katy and I were forced, 100% against our will, to ascend the walls around the lake, in our bathing suits, sun gently warming our backs, only to reach our desired height, and then plunge into the deep cool water below. We spent the day like this, fish with climbing shoe fins, and lizards with a strict basking regiment. But I don’t want you to become deceived; this day of ‘fun in the sun’ was by no means our choice. We would much rather have been macramé-ing hanging plant baskets or playing dodge ball with blind children. Between swimming and deep water soloing we met up with our friends Jeff and Jordan who we had left behind in the New River Gorge. They met us at a climbing area called Orange Oswald Wall, Katy and I had familiarized ourselves with the area the day prior. Katy, Jeff, and I took turns leading routes, and appropriately enough we climbed one called Jeff’s Bunny Hop. Jeff was excited to climb a route with his name in it and Katy and I were excited to get back to climbing routes with fluffy cotton animals in the title. After not enough time we packed up our belongings and headed north-east to Seneca Rocks.

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"No sense letting good meat go to waste." The words of our camp neighbors were ringing in my head as I bit into the tiny leg and tore the meat off the tiny leg bones. I am really eating road kill squirrel, I thought to myself. I looked over at Shannon, I could almost hear the vomit rising in her throat. Then I looked back to John, the proprietor behind my rodent breakfast. “Not too bad,” I told him. It was probably the best meat I’d eaten in a while…after all it didn’t come from a can or in log form….and probably no hormones, steroids or antibiotics either…just a little critter whose luck had run out as he tried to cross West Virginia Highway 33.

Shannon and I were staying in Yokum’s Indian Princess campground, just up a little gravel road from a pavilion (which we naturally assumed was for illegal dog fighting and not picnics), just across the street and over Seneca Creek from Harper’s General Store where we made phone calls from a pay phone on the porch and bought a six pack of Coors Light. The ‘town’ had two stores…one owned by the Yokums and one by the Harpers. The word on the street was there was something of a family feud between the two and this feud played out in my head in cartoon style complete with shotguns, yelling, and line drawing in the dirt. Our campsite, the two stores and two climbing shops that made up the town were nestled in the shadow of Seneca Rocks. The quartzite cliffs stood 1000 feet over the valley, like sentinel guards, protecting it and it’s few inhabitants. From this valley, I watched in the fading light each evening as the cliffs soaked up the last golden rays of the gloaming.

I sat perched high above the valley watching a vulture spiral upward on the thermals while I belayed Shannon up the last pitch of Old Ladies Route, a relaxing climb with astounding views. I was lost in the moment…a tiger swallowtail fluttered below as I fed rope out and it disappeared into the chimney. Minutes passed and soon I was not lost in the moment. I was in the chimney cursing Shannon’s name. “Hey Shannon,” I yelled. “Guess what I’m doing.” “Uh…” I could hear the shit-eating grin in her voice… “getting that little nut out?” These nut placements of Shannon’s had become somewhat of a signature move of hers and I smiled as I finally loosened it out of it’s rock home…a solid 15 minutes after I had first tried to pull it out.

Our days at Seneca were spent climbing the labyrinth of routes. I say labyrinth of routes because Seneca Rocks is not a ‘crag’…routes are not lined up, execution style to be crossed off like items on a grocery list. Rather, routes spring up all over the uncharacteristically large rock protrusion. Routes meet up with other routes. They top out on different tiers. You can climb one pitch of a route, walk along a ledge, go past two large trees and start up the second pitch of another route. Each climb brings you to a new perch, with a different vulture's-eye view of the valley. My favorite climb, Tomato, actually ended with a traverse across the narrow summit ridge of the South Peak of Seneca Rocks. Shannon put it best when she looked at me, her eyes wide like a kid with a new toy, and said “it’s like a real life choose your own adventure book.” It’s an area steeped in tradition (people were climbing in Seneca as early as 1905) and sitting on the summit is a gratifying yet humbling experience.

We had spent a day feeling out the rock and felt confident to push ourselves. I sat at the top of the first pitch of the route we had selected for the challenge. A man was rappelling off a nearby route. “Hey Kate, you on ecstasy?” he asked. This was a question I had previously regarded as one I might be asked in the artificial glow of a black light, with techno music blaring, somewhere in the depths of a city…but, from my rock perch, the answer was simple. “Yep,” I told him with a smile. Shannon and I were on Ecstasy, but not the drug reserved for raves and people who are masochistic when it comes to their brain cells, but a three pitch route with great exposure. The man inquiring about our climbing pursuit (not our drug habits) was Tom and he had leant us his guide book.

Borrowing Tom’s guidebook turned out to be the best thing we did. When we went to return it, he invited us into what a sign above the swinging saloon-style doors proclaimed was “The House of Trad.” The House of Trad was an outdoor porch overlooking Seneca Creek. A wooden mandala from Thailand hung on the wall and a plastic hula dancer stood motionless on the TV which was playing music from the Jam Bands channel of a satellite radio station. A bar swung out from the main wall and we sat with Tom and had a beer. Ben, one of the climbing guides at Tom’s ‘compound’ soon joined us, bringing his friendly smile and calm company. Like a bigger wiser bird and two little birds learning to fly, Tom soon took Shannon and I under his wing…and it was cozy. He gave us a thorough crash-course in anchor building and then fed us mouth watering barbequed chicken legs (a much more appetizing meal than squirrel.) Two days later he looked over our shoulders while we placed nuts, hexes, tri-cams and camalots in the walls of the climbing center he had designed and built. It may sound cliché, but words cannot do justice to the time we spent at Tom’s and Seneca Rocks.