More fun in West Virginia- Rock Climbing!
We stayed an extra two nights at ACE after Lori and Dave left. We did a half day rock climbing and rappelling excursion which was so much fun. We luckily booked on a Monday so we were the only ones on the trip and had our own very cool guide Paul all to ourselves. I've never rock climbed other than an occasional rock wall, but Alex is somewhat experienced and is a very good climber, and has done rappelling with fire school and his rope tying came in handy. I was a little cautious about the climbing because these were real rocks and they were very vertical and pretty technical.
First we did a rappel of about 60 ft. The top 10 feet is rock and then after that it is a "free rappel" where you just lower yourself with no wall to walk your feel down. This was fun and we did a few of these.
Then we did three climbs, two of which were very difficult, and one that was hard but fun that took us up through a huge crevasse. Alex was like a little money or a frog or something. He was really good. He went pretty quickly and went on some paths up the mountain that Paul hasn't seen many take. He impressed Paul for sure and Paul would say , "Oh that move is called a..." or " Oh, that's a really tough move". I didn't know there were moves other than to hang on to the rock for dear life and do your best to get up. So I listened to Paul while Alex climbed and tried to do some of those things when I was in a tough place. Alex really enjoyed it and I was so proud of him for being such a bad ass.
We took tons of pictures. Here are some of Alex's best climbs.
Here's the zoomed out version of one of our climbs-- rugged all the way to the top, with some difficult features like the outcropping Alex is about to make it over-- it leaves few options for your feet making it a lot of arm work, which you try to avoid and use your legs when possible.
Several times when we were climbing I made it half way and felt I couldn't go any more or that I was satisfied with how far I made it, but Alex and Paul encouraged me to go on and with a lot of hard work, determination, and scraped up legs I pressed on. I was able to complete every climb in impressive fashion. It was the most proud I've been of a personal physical accomplishment in a long time. It was something I've never done and I had to use all the strength and agility I had. Paul says that little girls are good climbers but he's not sure he's seen a woman scale all the climbs to the top. Made me feel good just a week after my 29th birthday!
Here are some of my best climbs
My best move of the day!
At one point on this climb I was out of strength and didn't see how I was going to finish the climb. I was at a mixture of wanting to cry so bad and at the same time wanting to punch Paul and Alex for making me go on, but being unable to reach them that I was laughing making it hard to climb.
But in the end I made it and here I am victorious!
After climbing Alex decided he hadn't had enough so we did some mountain biking, which was miserable for me. The trail was about 18 inches wide with a drop off the mountain to the side. The trail was so rough and rocky and full of tree roots that you couldn't pedal more than a few times before literally running into a rock wall and having to walk or lift the bike. Then I slipped and hit my who-ha on the bike bar leaving me to shout nasty things at Alex. Then we at least made it to a nice overlook of the World Famous New River Gorge. The pictures didn't do it justice, the view was too vast.
We finally found a better trail to get us out of there and after a while realized it was a combo bike-horse-ATV trail, so it was full of a mixture of mud and puddles the ATVs left behind and horse poop that was hard to ride through and spit mud up all over us when I wasn't falling over in the mud. The only part of the trip I didn't enjoy.
We camped out one more night and Alex's obsession with searching for fire wood and building campfires continued. We had a nice dinner by the fire and slept well with the cool breeze coming in through the tent. We had an awesome weekend and thoroughly enjoyed West Virginia.
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