Tag: usa

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general

weekend of no climbing

West Virginia has proven to be rather wet of late, with three of the last four weekends involving far too much rain. And it’s unlikely to let up any time soon, as Hurricane Katrina will be headed that way after doing its best on New Orleans (of course, it won’t be a hurricane any more, just a patch of nasty weather).

It stopped raining for about 46 minutes* over the weekend. Long enough to set up a slackline in the campground, and fall off it a few times.

slacklining

In other news, the fabric on my thermarest has started bubbling, so when I inflate it, it now looks like it has a tumour. I didn’t like to mention anything infront of it, but I think perhaps its days are numbered. On the plus side, I now own down booties (and I hadn’t realised I could construct a sentence using the letters ‘wno’ so many times).

* Time quoted may be an exaggeration

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climbing general trip reports

deep water deep water deep water

The weekend was spent playing in the water at Summersville Lake (deep water soloing if you will). We had a pontoon on Saturday, until a thunderstorm came along, and some people started to get dubious about how well lightning and metal boats go together. So the boat was returned, we were pelted with rain for 3 minutes, then the weather was perfectly fine again. Of course!

Lara and Captain Ducky (or possibly Admiral Ducky?), one of the more awesome floaties from the weekend.
 

lara and captain ducky

Boer jug hauling his way up the arete
 

boer climbs at summersville lake

Plans to go bouldering at full moon were ruined by the weather, which kept getting overcast and thunderstorming on us. Come Sunday morning, everything was soaking wet, and most of the crew were keen to get back to civilisation – except for the hardy group who fought their way down to Pirates Cove and swam around in the sun, enjoying the views and gorgeous sunny weather for a few more hours. I don’t know how we managed to do it, really I don’t.


Val in Pirates Cove on Sunday morning
 

summersville lake
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general

random interactions


 
“Maam, excuse me, maam… how long you been working on your hair?”
“About a year.”
“Oh yeah, you got it going on.” [gives me gentle punch on the arm] “Thanks.” [smile at man, keep walking down the street]

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general

as promised…

The triumphant arrival of my new camera.

camera

It appears to take photos, which is what I was hoping for, so I’m rather pleased.

Getting it home was interesting. I cycled back from Fedex in torrential rain: visibility was low, thunder and lightning overhead, I was completely saturated, and not getting any drier as I pedalled through inches of water, with vehicles driving past throwing even more sheets of water at me. I had trouble keeping my eyes open in the rain; by the time I got home they were thoroughly bloodshot. The camera stayed dry though.

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general

gavin the cockroach

My ninja-like reflexes intercepted something crawling around in my bed this morning. Half-awake, in the pitch black* of the early morning, I sensed it – reached, grabbed (heard slight crunching noise) and threw. As I gradually became properly conscious, I noticed there was a cockroach leg on my bed sheets. I brushed it off, and turned on the light, and looked over to the wall, where a half squashed cockroach lay upside down, dying. That’ll teach it to make me feel like I’m leaving in some sort of ghetto slum.

(* poetic licence may have been invoked, it’s never dark in DC)