Climbing to Success

It felt like it took me all day to learn the knots we would need for rock climbing, and I was sure that everyone else already knew them. There was no way I was going to be able to remember them, but I was surprised to find myself tying a dressed figure eight on the first try. Rock climbing was completely new to me, but I found that it suited me pretty well. I’ve never had this kind of workout on my arms before, but my legs actually did most of the work. By Day 3, I was going pretty easily from hold to hold, much better than I thought I could. When I came down and Paul and Katherine told me that I moved very gracefully, I felt as proud as I have after winning a soccer game. I even led on a couple of climbs, which was a lot of pressure for me, but I felt confident enough to pull it off. I can't wait for mountaineering, but I also want to do a lot more of this climbing. It's so great focusing on exactly where your hands and feet are going, on how you are swinging your body, and where you have to go next. There's nothing else you need to think about, and then you look around and see that you have just climbed a wall.
-Tina

Formalwear in the woods

James decided that tonight we should have a formal dinner to celebrate the halfway point of our trip. You had to dress up with whatever you could make from the stuff you have with you in your pack. I was amazed at the things people thought up to wear: tarp dresses, stuff sack cummerbunds, capes and scarves, and ties out of anything that was narrow and long. Maggie and Cindy made make-up from the coatings of M&Ms, which was really funny. Dave made a top hat out of one of the pots, so we made him clean it three times before we cooked in it. Everyone put on these British accents for the meal, which didn't really fit with the quesadillas we had, but such is the way in the wilderness.
-Naomi

A fun and challenging crossing

We had a fairly substantial river crossing today. It took us an hour and a half to cross a stream that could easily be crossed by any old footbridge. The fact that there was no footbridge, nor will there ever be, was our problem (and our challenge). The stream was not that deep, but it was moving fast. Fast enough that we were certain it qualified as a river. Most of the time it took was in scouting out the best spot to cross. The narrow necks were appealing, but we found them deep enough to be unreasonable. Each wider, flatter spot looked like it would take us forever, and we kept saying, There's got to be a better spot farther up or farther down. Nope. We eventually settled on a stretch of the river that had easy entry and exit, and that had enough space to fit us all in an eddy line. Matt took the lead, and Nate was anchor. We moved across, slowly, step by step. Looking down into the passing current made me dizzy, and it seemed like a bunch of people felt the same. Still, slowly but steadily, we made it across and out. It wasn't until about halfway through lunch that I realized how cold that water really was!
-Geoffe

Awesome Storm

We were getting used to the weather patterns here; clear in the early morning, hot by midday with clouds building up, and storms in the early afternoon. But today, out on the mountain, seeing the storm approach was something different. It just seemed so much more massive, and I guess that's because we felt so exposed. Not that we were clinging to a rock face or anything, but I still felt as though there was not much of a buffer between us and the storm. The clouds were dark and stretched far, and they seemed to move in quickly, although we saw them coming. The rain and wind lashed into us, the lightning was as bright as any I've seen, and the thunder seemed to shake our tents, where we were wrapped up warmly in our sleeping bags. The only word to describe it is "awesome." I felt like the sky was battling the earth. After a couple of hours, the storm passed, and we emerged from our cocoons to find everything warm and damp. I love the smell of the ground after a storm.
-Louis