Bloggy Goodness:
So I decided to take the plunge
and start a climbing/travel blog, the ultimate outlet for unabashed boasting.
I’ve toyed with the idea for a while now but it always seemed, to me, a bit too
much of an ego stroke. Not being any sort of professional anything or someone
who travels further than a post code or two, I would think ‘who would want to
read about my weekend warrior climbing adventures’? But what the hell right?
It’s the social media society we live in these days and everyone seems to be
blogging it up so why not jump on the bandwagon. Who doesn’t love a good
boasting now and then and with a big climbing road trip extravaganza coming up
what better time? So here it is, I hope you get a kick out of it, and hopefully
it’ll keep my mum from nagging for constant updates of my safety, but probably
not…….sorry mum, luvs ya.
Who’s That Guy?:
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| I honestly don't have a better photo. |
For those who don’t know, my
names Rick, I’m 30, I live in the Blue Mountains and like so many others I’ve
picked up the climbing bug along the way and it now dictates so many aspects of
my life. It’s something completely addictive that has determined my friends,
hangouts, weekends, diet (err sometimes), family gatherings, spare time, spare
cash, job, clothing, and so on for the last 6 years. Mostly without intention
all of these and more fall prey to a climbing perception filter that
subconsciously picks and sorts how they could affect whether I tick the ‘proj’
on the weekend or not. And I gotta say, it’s awesome! My quality of life has
improved so much over the last few years and it’s mostly because of this rad
sport. Without Banging on too much about it, I like rock climbing.
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| Latching the dyno on Point Break (31), Blue Mountains, or is it Microwave. Point Breaks harder so lets say its that. |
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| Cowboy Junkies (25), Nowra (not pictured: dogging the shit out of it). |
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| Eye of the Tiger (29), Grampians. Holy crap its good! |
Recently though I’ve been getting the urge, more and more,
that my life is lacking direction. Even though at 30 I’m feeling better than I
did at 20, truth is I need to start thinking about my future, career and all
that, probably something I should’ve done a few years ago. But Uni applications
are harder than I thought and my total lack of qualifications or previous study
apparently wasn’t on the top of their lists. After crying into my chalk bag for
a couple of days I decided fuck it, who wants to study anyway, I’m hitting the
road! Bit of a 180 there I know but may as well get it out of the way first
right?
The Trip:
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| As seen from space. |
USA baby! Land of deep canyons,
high mountains, beautiful valleys and countless fast food chains. I’ve been
tantalised with friends stories of this place for so long and have always
wanted to go on the great American road trip. A place we have all grown up
watching in movies and TV as kids, its muscled its way into our culture whether
you like it or not. Beautiful landscapes, world renowned cities, and some of the
most amazing climbing destinations. At the start of this year I found myself in
a spot where I could stay home and try again for study options or save some
cash and go climb copious amounts of rock on another continent. Not a hard
choice really, study can wait. So I booked a ticket and made my plans for the
ultimate USA climbing road trip. In two weeks I fly into New York, hopefully
buy a badass van and then head on down to Red River Gorge, Kentucky, one of the
sport climbing capitals of America. I’ll spend a couple of months there,
enjoying some redneck hospitality and then start out again with a vague idea of
heading west to some more world class destinations over the next six months.
Heuco Tanks, Bishop, Virgin River Gorge, Red Rocks, Indian Creek, Wild Iris,
Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Owens River Gorge, Smith Rock, the list goes on. Who
knows how many of these places ill see or in what order but hot damn! I’m psyched!
To be Continued:
Well there you have it, first
attempt at a blog of my own. So if you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading
my rabble and feel free to leave some comments/critiques/abuse. Stay tuned for
some more bloggy goodness, I promise there will be some actual climbing stories
in the next one; some recent rock shenanigans that put a smile on my dial and
made me feel good about myself. As well as some training do’s and don’ts (for
example, do: train, don’t: not train, because it’s awesome).
Until then here’s a pretty cool video of some climbing antics at Red River Gorge. So excited it keeps me up at night.
Laterz J
