To celebrate the Solstice, two friends and I went to Bozoo for some mid-week afternoon trad. I was excited for my first time climbing trad in the US, and we got incredibly lucky with the weather. An almost entirely south-facing sandstone wall makes Bozoo an ideal winter crag. We headed to the river-end of the… Continue reading Solstice Climbing at Bozoo, WV
Eric Hahn: In Memoriam
On the 14th of October, Eric died in a caving diving accident in Roaring River Spring, Missouri. Those of you who knew Eric know that he was a complicated man. He and I spent the better part of the last two and a half years either openly fighting or not speaking to each other, but… Continue reading Eric Hahn: In Memoriam
Post 3.2: C.A. (quarry day)
This post is still incomplete until I get access to more of our destructive testing data. The numbers here are off the top of my head. We spent the last day of the course doing what cavers do best: breaking shit. Quarry day had a few different stations: Pick-offs at fixed anchors and by cutting… Continue reading Post 3.2: C.A. (quarry day)
Post 3.0: Caving Academy in Hungary (pre-course activities)
I arrived in Budapest late at night on the 7th of September. Mark Dickey picked me up at the airport and drove me to the hostel in downtown Budapest where we would spend the next two days. It was there where I would meet (or be reintroduced to) the people with whom I would spend… Continue reading Post 3.0: Caving Academy in Hungary (pre-course activities)
Post 3.3: C.A. (post-course activities)
On the 16th of October (or thereabouts) we made a desperate effort to purge ourselves of borrowed gear, loaded the van far beyond its reasonable capacity, and hauled ass back to Budapest. We spent the evening at a real thermal bath (far warmer and more legal than its hobo counterpart) and ate one last dinner… Continue reading Post 3.3: C.A. (post-course activities)
Post 3.1: Caving Academy in Hungary (the course)
We spent the first day of the course aligning our SRT systems to Hungarian standards, and more or less getting on level ground with eachother skill-wise. Our class included a pretty wide variety of Americans from different sport, project, and rescue backgrounds, and we’d all had differing levels of exposure to alpine rigging techniques. For… Continue reading Post 3.1: Caving Academy in Hungary (the course)
Post 2: Lincolnshire and Derbyshire
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Post 4: Croatia Continues!
Jonathan and I spent the first day heckling kayakers in the Zrmanja [Zer-mahn-yah] river, on the other side of the mountains from Graĉac. I decided our lunchtime picnic on the river would be a great excuse for a swim, but the drysuit-accustomed diver thought otherwise. Rather than do much real caving, the exploration-hungry Jonathan and… Continue reading Post 4: Croatia Continues!
Post 1: the Yorkshire Three Peaks
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