Tripping Out West

Dear family and friends –
It’s been a long time since I last posted and we’ve started out roadtrip! We left the New at the end of October. It’s always hard to leave the New, but of course we’ll be back next summer. We spent two good weeks in Pennsylvania (except for the night that two kids went around slashing tires and keying everyone’s cars in town including ours), and then we had a relaxing two weeks in Ohio. Micah left for the roadtrip 3 days early with Toby, and I went up to Wooster and picked up Amber and Addy. Our plan was to stop in Santa Fe to surprise Kate and then Phoenix to surprise Colin. We then had to stop in San Diego to pick up a car that Addy just inherited, then Bishop, CA would be our final destination. But things never work out as planned.
We spent our first night at a rest area in Missouri. Addy slept in the front passenger seat, and Amber and I shared a very skinny bed in the back (there are two cushions, but they’re stacked together until we can take out the only back seat we have with us).You have to sleep head to toe in order to have enough space for both people to lay on their back or stomachs. Then we stopped the next night in Dumas, Texas – about an hour north of Amarillo (where I got the last potato of the day from the Potato Factory – my favorte resturant). Addy’s cousin and her husband and 6 month old son live there. The next day we should have been on our way to visit Kate, but Micah and Toby were in Hueco Tanks Historic State Park near El Paso and I missed Micah. I convinced Amber and Addy that we should go there instead and just see Kate over Thanksgiving. So we headed to Hueco. We ot an empty tank about half way back toward Amarillo and somehow managed to ride another 20 miles before we found a gas station. Amber said “Guys, let’s never do that again”. But what happened after stopping through Roswell, NM
90 miles out of El Paso? In the middle of nowhere? It happens again. We saw a sign for a turn off that said
Dell City 20 Miles
we had to take that turn. To save gas, Amber put the car on cruise control at 55 mph, because what else can you do? It was late and dark and we were in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, that road seemed to be infested with not-so-smart bunnies of all sizes. We had a bunny dart out in front of the car at least once a minute. Sometimes they’d cross the road and then swerve back toward us. My poor vegetarian friends had tears streaming down their faces at the torture that was the bunny road. But Amber only hit one. On the upside, we found a gas station and made it to Hueco with no more incidents. We spent two fun days in Hueco before continuing with our main plan to surprise Colin in Phoneix. We had his address from our friend Catherine who told him she wanted to send him a letter, so we found his apartment complex – which was gated. We sat there for a minute, unsure of what to do, until a resident pulled up behind us and unlocked the gate. At any rate, Colin wasn’t home. Nor was he answering phone calls. Finally, Amber called her friend Emma and we surprised her instead. We spent the night at her house (Colin finally called me back at 11pm and said he’d see us at 6:30 the next evening –after work). But Emma had to work in the morning and couldn’t figure out keys, so we spent the morning in a coffee shop and movie theater (Twilight just came out, so we saw it), and our afternoon in a park in the middle of Phoenix. It was in the 80s and sunny. We finally saw Colin and spent the weekend there. We went bouldering/running around the next afternoon (Emma came too), then we were going to climb Sunday, but Micah called us from Joshua Tree National Park and said Toby was going to visit a friend near San Francisco so we needed to come pick him up. Since we only had 3 seats in my van, we’d have to run to San Diego to get Addy’s car first. We said goodbye to Colin and headed to San Diego, where we met Addy’s family friends who were watching the car (it was her grandma’s who passed away in September) until Addy got there. The family rented us a guest house for the night that had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a laundry room, kitchen, dining room, and living room. It was huge!! The next morning we stopped by the beach for an hour (it was my first time seeing the pacific!! – I think in Alaska it’s the Bearing Sea…) then we took the scenic route over to Joshua Tree. It involved mountains, pine forests, recreational vehicle land, an inland sea, and canyons. It was one of the most scenic drives I’ve ever been on. When we got to JTree, Toby was still there. He’d felt too bad leaving Micah alone, I guess, but he left the next morning. Amber and Addy loved JTree. So did Micah. It was a fun 2 days. Then we ran up to Red Rocks (Las Vegas) for out Thanksgiving trip with Colin and Kate. We ate Thanksgiving dinner at a Denny’s. I felt like I was in the movie “The Santa Clause”. But it was amazing. I ordered a milk shake, pancakes, eggs, toast, seasoned fries, and mashed potatoes and gravy. Everyone else ordered a similar amount of food.
That brings me up to now. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I’ll write more soon!
Love,
Stella

These pictures are all out of order and for some reason the computer thinks I'm writing links...
The beach!


Phoenix! (Emma's in the second)
Hueco!


Joshua Tree!
Roswell!

Just something...

I haven't written in forever, so here's a post just so that I can have a new post. We're still at the New for almost a month yet. The summer/fall has been fantastic. I've done 3 5.12s and I'm working on two more (though I don't know if I will get either of them before time's up). We've been living at Roger's and it's been great. It only took a week after the summer crowd moved out for the fall crowd to move in. The leaves are starting to change and the colder temperatures are moving in (except today is supposed to be 85).

We're looking forward to heading out west again, but we will both have money issues soon. I'm really hoping we can even make it out to Bishop.

Anyway - that' all I have for now. It's hard to take pictures of rope climbing, so we don't have any, sorry. I love you all and I'll post again when we head out west.
-Stella

NEW post

we're here at the New and looking forward to people visiting us!

here's the bad:
1/ we can't afford to stay at Roger's
2/ mosquitoes and no-see-ums

here's the good:
1/ our pimp van
2/ we found a seemingly untouched boulderfield at the Summersville dam on the Gauley. We've been putting up some FAs
3/ we made a giant rope swing at the Hole and did the Pinnacle already.
4/ there are tons of sweet people living here and we've had tons of sweet visitors!

Here's some pictures of the Gauley River boulders (when they're not under water):




that's Scurvy in the previous picture. He's 16 and strong as shit!!






I love you all, Stella

It sucks when you forget your camera...

well, we forgot our camera, but our trip was so cool that I had to write SOMETHING about it.

We went down to Annapolis, MD to visit James Varn. Annapolisis pretty freaking sweet, as far as cities go. There are no high rise buildings, only the European-style streets lined with one constant building painted a different color every 70 feet or so. Shops on the first floor, housing above. And round-a-bouts. And brick streets. Also, it's on the Chesapeake Bay, and James' apartment has a Bay view. James says that the downside is that after dark (during the day everyone is sailing) the only thing to do is drink. There are a rediculous amount of bars in downtown Annapolis, all of which are within walking distance. The Bay itself is awesome. The little beach we went to only had little tiny waves, but there were a good amount of shells and polished stones on the beach. It also had that unmistakable salt water smell.

The second day of our trip, we went climbing at Earth Treks. There are 3 of them (the gyms are all huge AND they have their own hold company), but we went to the one just outside of DC. Turns out, some elder WOODSians, Matt, Sam, and Ellen only live 1.5 miles from that gym, so we had a great time visiting them too.

When we got back to PA we climbed with my friend Rachael (we were roomates) and her boyfriend.

It was a great last 3 days of seeing beautiful, new places and wonderful old friends.

I hope you are all doing well and I love you!
-Stella

I had an irrational fear of ticks...

...then it became a little more rational after a bulls-eye rash became visible surrounding Micah's armpit. This is the 2nd time he's gotten Lyme Disease. Luckily, when you catch it early, it's not that hard to treat. You just have to take pills for 3 weeks (or liquid medicine, I found out, if you can't swallow pills) that make you nauseous/puke. So for $100 (doctor visit and pills with no insurance), it's no big deal... except that hopefully-not-too-often puking for the next 3 weeks.

I've gotten bitten by 2 ticks, and I'm hoping not to find a bulls-eye too.

I'm not going outside around here again... until late fall, because the bouldering here is amazing. There are lots of problems that I want to work on more. Unfortunately we have about 6 pictures from the last 2 months of living in Harrisburg, but here they are anyway (sorry Madison, I didn't get any pictures of the camp we've been working at or even anything cool. I'll keep trying)

this tree was actually in Chattanooga, but it's a sweet picture, so I'm adding it to this post

as weird as I look, that is, in fact, me. This problem was cool, but it was sharp!

this is Micah's neice Savannah and I at a playground. We look hilarious. She's screwing up her face hard-core due to the sun being directly in our eyes. Besides posing as Smoky the Bear's face, we also play Chinese Checkers at least once a day.

To get away from the ticks (this was even before we realized that Micah had a bulls-eye), we took a short trip to Cooper's Rock, WV. We met Matticus and his friends Adam and Jack. Poor Adam rolled his ankle during their initial explorations before they even climbed. But here's a couple pictures of Matt and I trying Moby Dick (V2, but I try it every time I go there. I think I will send it next time though), and Micah doing Roundhouse (I think?? V5).



On the up side of things, Micah was playing on the internet, looking at different shoe companies when he came across Acopa shoes. They are owned by the famous climber John Bacher. He also noticed that all of Acopa's sponsered athletes are from the west coast. He e-mailed the company, asking if they wanted some representation on the east coast, and John Bacher himself called Micah back. Well, 2 free pairs of Acopa shoes are in the mail headed for Micah. If he likes the shoes, you may just see a picture of Micah up on the Acopa website someday. When the shoes come, I'll let you know what he thinks of them, and then you can check them out for yourself!

Here's some climbing movies to end the post:
A different Cooper's visit
From all over the east

-Stella

A Short Video

Here's a short video Micah made. It's of our last day at LRC, where I sent two projects I had tried before. It took me 4 days to get Slap Happy, and 2 days to get the second problem (but mostly juts better beta). I can't wait to find out what it is!

Hope everything's going well!
-Stella

video!

A Post for Grandma (and everyone else)

Micah and I went on a hike the other day and we took some wildflower pictures. Also some other cool pictures. Here they are:













Love,
Stella

WOODS in the woods

WOODS came to visit on spring break. There were at least 20 people, which can always make things a bit stressful, but I had a fantastic time! Micah, Toby, and I camped out at Foster Falls with the WOODSians, and even got a free trip to Horse Pens 40 out of the deal (not to mention some really good meals)!

Anyway, here's some pictures (none of them are mine. They are all taken from Evan and Tyler's amazing cameras, and there are SO many good ones!).

Anyway, this probably shows half the people that were there...

This first pic. is from a cool stream near the AT and a white water rafting place. I didn't go, but everyone said they had a blast!
HP40 fun!
Ambdizzle in a sea of slopers
This boulder is called the Turtle Head Boulder. I'm kissing the turtle.
A backpacking trip. The rhododendron tunnel is so cool!

Matthew is from Jamaica. For us it was warm here, but I don't think he felt as warm as the rest of us...
The dictator of WOODS - Emily! Here she is giving you a taste of her climbing style - smooth and flowing. It's always beautiful to watch her climb.
you might not be able to see it, but they're all reading


I thought I'd keep this one short, but maybe I'll add more pictures of my own later. I love you all.
-Stella

A short movie

This is at the Landlord Boulders (that's what we decided to call our landlord's boulders...).

I was trying to make the music go with the movie really well. Please let me know what you think!

-Stella

A post of warm weather

This last weekend was wonderful! We went down to Horse Pens 40 in Alabama for Sloperfest, which is an outdoor bouldering competition and local music festival. We didn't get any pictures, even though I brought the camera to make sure I would have pics for this post.

Micah and Toby didn't want to pay the $$ to compete, so they were just spectators (aka, they paid the normal amount for a weekend stay at HP40 and they got to hear some awesome music and catch some free stuff thrown into the crowd). I paid $45 to compete. I got about $15 back with the sweet t-shirt I got for competing, and $4 more back for the Climbing Magazine issue I got. I also got lots of stickers and some other weird stuff (like a little box of Curves for Women brand cereal).

The comp was a climb-everything-that-you-possibly-can-during-the-comp format. Every climb you did was added up into your score. I entered beginner (Horse Pens is SUPER sandbagged, which means that the hardest climbs I have done there are V2! It kind of sucks to have to enter beginner when I've been climbing for 4 years). Toby's done this comp format before, and both he and Micah advised me to just do as many problems as I could. It's better strategy to do 10 V0s than 3 V2s. Only try a problem once or twice before moving on.

I added up my score at the end, and with 32 total problems (at least tripling the amount of problems I've ever done in a day before) I had 4400 points. During the awards ceremony, I found out that I won by 2000 points! The girls in 2nd and 3rd must not have known the strategy for getting a lot of points. They each did about 10 V2s, while I did 30 V0s (well, I did some V1s and 2s also).

For my troubles, I got some crazy thin finger-tip skin, sore shoulders, and a free pair of La Sportiva shoes of my choice.

The warm weather part comes in because it was 65 and sunny Sat., 69 and sunny today, and it will be 72 and partly cloudy tomorrow. I hope it continues this way!!

Micah made a video of this weekend, but we were all so busy climbing during the comp, that this is all footage from today (Sun.). We all climbed so much this weekend, that the video is only of Toby, who was the only one out of us man enough to keep climbing today...
HP video


also, Micah made another short video a while ago with some random climbing in it. It's a good one. It includes LRC, a random creekside area that's really cool, and our landlord's awesome boulderfield. Here's a link to that one:
Cool video

Next week is Wooster's spring break, and WOODS will come down for 2 weeks. I'm so psyched! Micah's dad is coming the middle weekend of WOODS being here, and his mom is coming the weekend after. So many visitors this month! It looks like it will be a good one!

-Stella

Is this one working right?

I'm just getting rid of the old post, but check out the end. There's a short movie I made and some pictures.



And here's some other things:

Toby fell off Micah's skateboard at about 20mph. This is his bruise/hematoma


Our landlord, Andy, said he had some property with rocks on it. Normally when people say that, they take you there and show you shale or something that you can't climb on. But not Andy. He's got a lot of super high quality rock. Perfect boulders to perfect 90 ft. cliffline. Here's the view from his house. His wife told us that some of their friends have seen the view and said it was the best in Chattanooga. It was really damn good!
And here's a small video we put together of the first FA done on Andy's property! It's a V3/V4 - the mantle's easier if you're short! I called it The Distance - it's not too long, but it's a lip traverse, so it doesn't go straight up. I thought it would be longer when I first looked at it.

Warmth in Chatt-town!

Hey everyone! I decided to post again because I have some pictures now.Things have been going really well until just recently until we all got sick except Kirk. Hopefully he can manage to stay well! So far I've gotten off the easiest, and I keep hoping it won't get worse. Micah got the worst of it, with a peak temperature of 104 degrees! He's doing a lot better now, though, just a low grade fever and a bad cold.

Since the last time I posted, we've done a lot of climbing. I keep feeling really weak on the rock, and when we went to Leda, a sport climbing area, my concerns were justified when I fell all the way up a 5.10. On the other hand, it was fairly overhanging, and my endurance isn't what it used to be because we've been almost solely bouldering. A couple days later, a flashed a 5.10, so I'm feeling better about my climbing skillz now. We don't have any pictures of rope climbing, unfortunately, but I found a picture on the internet of a 4 star classic crack at T-Wall. It's called "goldenlocks", 5.8+. I thought it was pretty hard for a 5.8!

We did a 5.10a next to it called "Cakewalk". It was so much fun! I decided to try and be artsy while we were there, so I took some pictures of the unbelivably green grass patches that were up there. They're not spetacular pictures, but the green is a crazy contrast to the normal bland colors of February.

We also went to Rocktown for a day. I didn't get too many photos, but here's one. It's Micah on "Golden Harvest", V10. The climb was named well, because the boulder is a perfect golden color, with patches of red. It was amazing!

And last but not least, some pictures on Micah and Toby at LRC. If you can tell which are Micah and which are Toby, I'll give you a heart, made with my hands. :)

So there's the pictures! Not too many, I know. Hopefully we'll do better once we stop being sick and start climbing again.

In other news, we went to the bouldering gym here one night and had a blast climbing there. Then, we found out that the next evening there was a competition! We had been climbing the comp problems all night, but the employee said that we could climb in the comp anyway. So we showed up the next evening for the comp. It was a pretty fun comp. You paid $10. $5 went to the gym, and the other $5 went into a pot for each category (beginner M, beginner F, intermediate M/F, etc., so the more people in your category, the more $ the winner got) They divided all their problems up into categories. Green-taped problems were beginner, yellow intermediate, blue advanced, and black was open. You could only climb the problems in your category and the one directly below it (so Toby, who was in advanced, could not climb any of the green problems). The scoring system was very unique. Each hold on the problem was worth 10 pts. for green, 20 for yellow, 30 and 40 for blue and black respectively. So, if there are 5 holds on a green problem, and you fall off before hitting the top hold (you got through 4 holds), you can still count it as 40 pts. It kind of makes a natural grade curve, because the harder the problem, the less holds it has (for the most part). The other crazy rule was that if you flash the problem (get to the top first go), you get 50 pts. extra! That meant that if I flashed a really easy green problem, I could easily get more points than if I worked really hard on a difficult yellow problem. Once I figured this out, I felt pretty good about my chances at winning female intermediate.
When they tallied up the scores, they realized that there weren't enough intermediate girls to have their own category, so we were put in with the boys. Even though that happened I still won! And, because there were more people in my category than any other, I won $55! The winner of Open (the hardest category), got $20. Needless to say, I loved that comp!

I love you all!
-Stella
PS - sorry all the pictures are so weird!

life has been very laid back

Hello everyone! Here's a brief overview of what's happened since PA:
1. Drove to Chatt. and spent 2 days apartment hunting. The first day led to such great un-success that we all went to bed feeling entirely hopeless (also we were under a pavilion and it was thunderstorming). The second day looked brighter when a landlord called us to report that a lady who had claimed one of his apts. still hadn't contacted him. He said that if she didn't call by 1pm today, we could have it. We went and looked at it, and it was awesome! A split level, where each level was a different room (1st floor: living room. 2nd floor: kitchen. 3rd floor: bedroom, bathroom, closet). 1pm rolled around, and the apt. (well, duplex, actually) became ours. On top of that, we met a guy from the New named Kirk, and he moved in with us, thus lowering the price of our new home. Our neighbor (other half of duplex) is cool too. He's a musician and followed the Grateful Dead for a bit.
2. we spent the first 4 days w/out water
3. As soon as we moved in, it became cold. Not as cold as OH, but highs have been in the 40s mostly, with some days in the 30s. I have been to Rocktown twice, and LRC (Little Rock City) 3 or 4 times. I've actually climbed about twice. Oh, and the gym once. Today, Micah and I are going to hike up to T-Wall to check out the cracks. I've got some projects planned for LRC, but they're all V7 and I still haven't sent a V4 there.
4. I applied to work as a stockboy in an organic foods store, but haven't heard back yet. My next plan is to apply to the TN Aquarium. It's $20 a person to see it, which I'm not paying, so hopefully I can see it for free this way.
5. We haven't taken a single picture yet. I'm not sure why.
6. We now have a library card. It was difficult to obtain, and it still costs money to borrow most items.

That's the overall story. Oh, my friend from Kendall Cliffs, Jared came to visit. He moved to CO then NC, and came down. It was really nice to see someone from OH (originally).

I love and miss you all.
-Stella
PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY CATHERINE!!

Pennsylvania

Hey all! I'm not sure if anyone's reading this anymore, but I'm going to keep updating it anyway. Now we're in PA at Micah's house. Things are really different here than they are in OH. First off, due to not being my parents, Micah's family isn't as good at cooking my favorite meals (but they still do a fantastic job). Second, there's babies around all the time! Micah's mom runs a daycare, so during the day there's 6 month olds - 5 year olds running (or, in the 6 month old's case, laying) around. It's kind of fantastic, especially when Micah wakes me up in the mornings with a baby to play with. :) There's a lot more hiking and climbing around here, so we're outside a lot (except the past couple days have been too cold for me, so Micah and Toby have gone out without me).

As for hiking, I've already been on the AT tons of times! We hiked up to Hawk Rock - a sweet overlook - and that was on the AT, then we met up with Tony D - who I first met in Flagstaff, but he's here visiting - at a climbing area. Toby showed me a cool boulder problem that had a huge white paint splotch on it. It didn't take me to long to realize we were on the AT again! And, of course, the AT goes right through Micah's town, so we drive on the AT almost everyday.

Micah's stepmom took some Hawk Rock pictures of us, but we don't have them yet.

The climbing here is pretty amazing. Obviously you can see more by visiting chetroy.com, but here's some pics we took in the last week:
Isn't this rock cool? And there's so many different kinds of rock! Besides this conglomerate, there's Gniess, Schist, Diabase (technically granite-like, but doesn't climb anything like granite. Also, note that 3 or 4 places around Harrisburg are Diabase, as well as a place in NJ. Those are the only two known outcroppings of it in the climbing world), sandstone, just plain white quartz like you see in people's yards, except big enough to climb on, and tons of rock that no one knows what kind of rock it is!Micah's toproping! Ahaha! Make sure to laugh at him when you see him. Sorry the picture's sideways! But this is still Boxcar Rocks, the conglomerate rock.
This is Savannah. She's Micah's niece. She's a freaking cool 5 year old. She came out to climb with us that day. It was cool, because she made up and sent her own boulder problem. I sent it too. I put my foot on top, and stepped up. It's nice to be so much taller than someone. This rock, we think, was gneiss with quartz veins running through it. Cool!

Okay, that's all for now. We'll hopfully be leaving within a week for Chattanooga! Wish us luck finding an apartment!
Love,
Stella