AR Ramblings

Do you ever forget about things in your race pack and then find them a long time later? Me too…

Here is the latest gem I found while searching for spare batteries for the Pitchell adventure run tonight.  Can you guess the ingredients that made up this tasty morsel?

Cracker Jack (5.8) at Table Rock is a climb that has been on my tick list for a long time. I overheard a conversation several years ago that led me to believe it was a bit of a sandbag. It also looks like it has a significant amount of off-width and/or chimney in the upper sections of the climb. A sandbagged, off-width 2nd pitch just isn’t my idea of a good time, so I’ve always gone to other routes.

This past weekend, I met up with Lewis and made up my mind that it was finally time to send this sucker. I’d never even been to the base of this climb, but it was easy to find and the line was pretty obvious once we got there. The first pitch was rated 5.7 in the book, but it had a few route choices along the way that allowed you to make it easier or harder. I was feeling “tuned in” and decided to take the harder path in a couple of spots and found some fun sequences along the way.

It took me a couple of minutes to figure out where I was going to put the belay anchor (based on the gear I had left). I ended up placing a #4 Camelot (#5 in the new C4 style, I think) in the large flaring crack of the 2nd pitch start, and also found a tri-cam and and smaller (0.5-0.75) Camelot placement.

The very first move at the base is a bit of a bouldering move. I couldn’t see from the belay, but I think Lewis had a fun first try at it! He’d been able to give me a spot on it, but with over a 100′ of rope out, he didn’t have as much of a belay once stretch is taken into account. Despite what sounded like a rough start, he quickly cleaned the first pitch, and I re-racked for the second one.

The start of the second pitch (in the picture, at right) was fun and led to a nice stance below another huge, flaring chimney. This second chimney system was super intimidating and looked much more difficult than it actually was. I spent a minute or two trying to figure out the best way to attack it, before I moved into the narrow part and carefully stemmed my way up. Once I had started, things felt much more secure and comfortable.

At the top, Lewis commented that there wasn’t much pro in the big chimney, but it seemed sufficient to me. I was squeezed in there pretty tightly. If I’d fallen, I would have either had enough friction to catch myself and recover, or been subjected to some serious cheese grater action. I had just hoped for the former and kept moving. Just as I started to get into a groove and enjoy myself in the chimney, the climb topped out. I was disappointed that the pitch had ended so quickly, but was rewarded with an awesome view of the Linville Gorge.

Cracker Jack is reasonably rated (IMO), and one of the more rewarding and fun climbs I’ve done at Table Rock. This one is going on my “must-do” and “favorites” list for the area. I only wish I’d gotten around to climbing it sooner.

Next, we started on Hidden Crack. Lewis had swung leads on it a couple weeks previous and wanted to lead the ones he’d seconded. The first pitch seemed longer than the guidebook says and Lewis exclaimed that he’d run out of slings about 2/3rds up the pitch. The party a couple of routes over, who knew Lewis, recognized this phrase as being Lewis’s notorious “super power”. It seems that any time Lewis runs out of slings on a climb, a rain storm will shortly follow.

Sure enough, the sky quickly turned gray, winds picked up, and the rain hit us just as he reached the anchors. I was unable to hear him due to the rain and had to run around the cliff and scramble to a better vantage point. Since there were no signs of lightning, we decided to get another rope and that I would climb up to him in the rain. The only other option would have been to fix the rope and come back later. Climbing in the rain was pretty easy though (thankfully the pitch was only 5.7). I cleaned the pitch and we bailed with no problems.

We later heard that two or three nearby parties had overheard Lewis’s comment, and ALL of them predicted immediate rain! I didn’t learn of his “super power” until it was all over, but next time I guarantee that I’ll be bringing extra slings, and forcing Lewis to carry them!

More pics from the trip are in the Photo section.

I’m sure this is not exciting to anyone other than myself, but I’m always amazed at how great it feels to run in a new pair of shoes. Perhaps this is because I usually wait until my old ones are seriously thrashed and beyond due for retirement. When I compared my new Hardrocks to the old ones, it looked as if the new ones had a half inch more cushion in them and were significantly narrower, even though they were the exact same model.

I have seriously beaten my old ones to hell. It doesn’t seem like they have that many miles on them (but I don’t keep track). I think adventure racing really accelerates the wear and tear on equipment - even shoes. Anyway, it felt like running on pillows when I took these guys out the first time. Awesome, awesome, awesome!

I also realized that I have a ridiculous amount of shoes that have been retired, or are semi-retired. I now have 4 pairs of Hardrocks, a pair of Salomons, a pair of Brooks Cascadias, a pair of New Balance somethings (they were free), and some Asics road shoes. And that’s after I got rid of a few, even older, pairs. If I add the 3 pairs of mountain bike shoes, 1 pair of cycling shoes, and 3 pairs of climbing shoes, that makes 15 pairs of of sport-specific shoes in the garage. That really seems ridiculous. That also may be the reason the garage smells so hellaciously awful!

I had Friday off for Labor Day weekend and decided to go for an afternoon road ride up to Mount Mitchell. Thunderstorms and rain seemed to be all around, and I was sure that I’d get pummeled somewhere between the Craggy Gardens Visitor Center and the top of Mitchell, but somehow I managed to avoid both and had a very nice ride. There was surprisingly little traffic and no tourists felt the need to endanger everyone on the road by passing me at full speed around a blind curve, instead of waiting a few seconds until it was safe. (This is usually more of a problem on the way down when they’ve finished “enjoying” the outdoors and really feel the need to haul ass back into town to marvel at the wannabe hippies who like to beg for pizza scraps while talking on cellphones in designer hemp clothing…or perhaps it is the allure of over-hyped Biltmore wine that sends them into a frenzy. I’m not sure.)

On the way up I rode within 10 feet of so of what I’ll now refer to as the Parkway Turkey. He was just chillin’ on the side of the road. He didn’t seem to be afraid of me or the traffic, but became annoyed with my picture taking and gave me a warning gobble to get out of his business. Not wanting to challenge his Turkey-Fu, I continued on with my ride and was surprised to find him still hanging out 2 hours later, on my way back! I had seen a similar turkey in almost the same place a few months ago. I think it was probably the same one and that he lives around there somewhere. If you see him, tell him I said hi!

A week or so ago I came across a posting for a trail run called the Dupont Waterfall Bonanza - an approximately 22 mile tour of waterfalls in the Dupont State Forest. Matthew Johnson organized the run and put together a map and cue sheet for the five of us that showed up on Saturday. I haven’t spent much time at Dupont and was surprised at the variety of trails and awesome waterfalls. We started from the Hooker Falls parking area and ran up the road to Sheep Mountain Trail and made our way around to Corn Mill Shoals Trail with a stop along the way to cool off (and get our shoes wet) at a stream crossing. Then it was on to Bridal Veil Falls which provided a nice, refreshingly cool shower and was probably my favorite of the falls we visited. I think we probably spent 30 minutes hanging out and cooling off there. It was at this point I realized that I should really get around to buying some new batteries for my digital camera. I probably could have gotten a few cool shots, and this blog stuff would be a lot better with pics, I think.

I forget the sequence of trails we took after leaving Bridal Veil (cue sheets tend to fall apart after taking showers in waterfalls, BTW). Various waterfalls and stream crossings kept our feet wet, and a thunderstorm rolled in for the last hour or two of the run, ensuring we stayed throughly soaked. The cooler temps were nice, but I would have been happier without the lightning.

I was actually kind of glad about all the rain and stream crossings. “Wet shoe runs” are good for toughing up the feet and are good prep for adventure races and other long distance events. I haven’t done one in a long time and only had a very slight hot-spot starting to form on my heel when we finished…not too bad.

After we finished, Beth shared a watermelon she had brought along…Watermelon rocks on a hot training day! Yum!

It was a fun day on some new trails with some cool folks. Big thanks to Matthew for organizing it!

I suspected early on that my attempts at blogging would be a complete failure.  I just never seem to find the time (or motivation) to sit down and write this stuff.  But, I think I’ll try resurrecting this thing and giving it one more try.  If you don’t see another post on here in the next week, that probably means that attempt #2 failed as well.

Pros: small size, elastic band for wearing on your arm, good accuracy in open spaces
Cons: Cumulative distance can be way off on twisty trails and/or under tree cover, uncomfortable to wear on your wrist.
Overall Rating: 5 of 10

If you’re looking for a small, basic GPS at a low price, then the Garmin Foretrex 101 may deserve a slightly better rating than I gave it. Although I didn’t buy it for athletic training purposes I was hoping that it might serve a dual purpose. If you primarily run in a straight line in open areas or along roads then it works pretty good for recording distance ran or biked. However, here in the hills of western North Carolina the cumulative distance counter was significantly off the mark on almost all outings.

My testing was done on mountain trails with roughly 1500ft of elevation gain/loss and under tree cover, though all of the leaves had fallen and the only thing blocking a signal would have been the bare tree limbs. I don’t know how often this unit records position for determining distance traveled, but I can only guess that it is missing the many turns encountered on an average singletrack trail. I ran and biked the same trail and recorded a distance of 6.75 miles with the Foretrex, while my bike computer (recently calibrated) showed nearly 8 miles. Additionally, based on my usual training pace, the 8 mile result seems more accurate. That makes the Foretrex result almost 20% low! While biking along relatively straight forest service roads, the difference was closer to 10%. One thought is that maybe it is not computing the added distance created due to elevation gain and loss? I’m not sure, but the discrepancy is too much for me to consider using it as a training device.

When used strictly for determining coords while standing still, I can’t find any faults with this unit. The only negative thing I can say is that I’ve never seen any benefit to the WAAS mode. It is supposed to allow much greater accuracy, but it has never worked during my testing. I guess I’ve just never gotten the signal for the WAAS in the areas I’ve used it.

Although it is designed to be worn on your wrist, I found it to be uncomfortable at best. When bushwhacking through the forest it became very painful when I had to put my hand down to brace myself. The unit extends beyond the wrist and digs into the back of your hand when your wrist is bent back. The additional elastic strap for wearing on the upper arm was much better. The bike mount is very secure and seems bombproof.

The 101 model uses two AAA batteries, which allows easy field replacement. Rechargeable AAA’s seem to give me about 4-5 hrs of continuous use.

My primary use for this gadget has been navigation training and confirming CP placements for training/mock races. It works just fine for these purposes, but not much more.

I decided to go scouting potential climbing areas around John Rock this afternoon. I was hoping to find a ledge of some sort that would have easy (3rd class or less) access to the top and be a good location for covering ropes skills such as rappelling with some folks from the Triangle-AR/Trailblazers Adventure Racing Club. By the time I got away from work and drove to the parking area, I only had about 90 minutes of daylight for scouting.

I started by going almost directly south and bushwhacked straight up the hill. It had rained recently and the wet leaves required the use of both hands and feet in places to get up the steep slope. Ten to fifteen minutes later I had managed to get to the base of the rock. I decided to check out the right (west) side first. It was fairly easy contouring around the mountain most of the way, but occasionally I did have to scramble and bushwhack through some thick stuff. I saw a couple of bolted climbs. They looked kinda mossy and had lichen on them. They definitely hadn’t seen too many recent ascents. One even had some old, homemade hangers on it. Cool, but scary! I saw a few possible trad routes, but everything looked runout. The eyebrows looked flaring and not very deep. It was cloudy and getting kinda dark though, so I may have missed a few possible placements while scouting from the ground.

Before it got completely dark, I was hoping to backtrack and get around to the other side. The cliff face appeared to fade out for a short distance and I was forced to go down a little bit to find a path through the thick brush. Unfortunately for me, the brush just seemed to get thicker the further I went. I haven’t been in rhodo hell this thick in a long time. I’m talking about throw-all-your-body-weight-down-the-hill-and-hope-you-break-through thick. I spent what seemed like an eternity doing this until it turned into a boulder field as well. The brush and leaves were covering big holes between the boulders, and my technique of throwing by body weight now had the potential of breaking a leg. Oh, the joys of bushwhacking in the Pisgah forest. Eventually I thought I saw the cliff reappear and could just make out a waterfall through the branches. A few more minutes of uphill bushwhacking and I managed to find a clearing near the base. The view of the waterfall was worth it.

By now, it was getting too dark to continue scouting, so I pushed, slid, fell, and fought the bush back to the fireroad at the bottom. I didn’t accomplish my goal, but found a very scenic view and had a chance to explore an area I hadn’t seen before. I guess we’ll just do the ropes stuff at Looking Glass. It’s not that much farther anyway.

Well actually, I wasn’t racing this time, but it infuriates me just the same. A CP at the USARA Nationals race was mis-placed by approximately 400m from what I’ve read (See the Enduraventure Blog and the TrailBlazers forums). It wasn’t stolen. It wasn’t missing. It was mis-placed! And even more mind-boggling, it was manned!!!. How the hell does this keep happening? GPS’s are cheap. Could they not verify with one when they got there? And if a GPS wasn’t available, the course director should have marked the area with flagging tape (or equivalent) to allow the volunteers to verify their position. Or, they could have been escorted to the location or had someone check on them later. There is no reason why that should have happened. None! No excuses. I’m not listening to anyone who says otherwise. Those teams paid big money to race, to qualify to race, to travel to the race, and probably spent countless hours training for the race. It was the National-freaking championship even! The results were ruined and should be thrown out. However, throwing out the results wouldn’t make anyone happy either, so some worthless post-race decision (or rule in this case) gets applied as a contingency plan. For those potentially affected by this f**kup, however, it does nothing to make them feel any better. I’m sure the winners worked hard and are great athletes, but no one can say for sure who would have won, if the race promoters had done their job correctly. No matter what anyone says or thinks, a mis-placed CP causes pure luck and chance to become a part of the competition. If I want to test my luck, I’ll blow some money at a casino.

What a disappointment and let-down to everyone whose ranking was potentially affected. Sorry guys. I feel your pain, disappointment, and frustration. That sucks. If there is one thing that will kill this sport (for me at least), it is the problem of mis-placed CPs. AR has a horrible track record with this. I’ve only known of one Orienteering meet to have this happen, and their points usually require much more precise placement than AR. That O-point was only 30m off. The Nationals point was 450m, and I’ve done races with points as much as 2km off! Come on AR directors! Get your sh** together or don’t even bother to hold an event….or one of these days myself (and maybe others) will just stop bothering to show up.

Ok, I think I’m finished ranting for now. Maybe. Yeah, I’ll stop here