Day 3 - or climbing day 2 - or Pigeon takes flight
Today marked another day of climbing. We were early up and going and made our way to a camp ground. It was rainy so today we practiced on a bouldering wall (climbing lower routes... no rope) and learned around rappelling...which came in handy since we did it later that day. I think if I was a bit more sure of myself I would like bouldering more. This wall was just hard but we practiced individual moves at the bottom. This made it possible to learn a few positions without worrying what comes next.
Case in point I learned to flag.
We hung out at this camp ground through lunch. Which was fun and pretty relaxing. And not too wet. All good things.
After that I think the words "we have a surprise" were used and we were off. Today was a bit nerve wracking for the rest of the day. The surprise was a swing (video coming) climbing thing... Which looked scary, was f-ing scary but so happy I did it. And rappelling (spoiler 1st of 3)... Eeek. My group went to repell first. So we actually had to hike back out of where we were and up on top of the cliff the swing was attached to. Smart guides, things were really close together but split up groups made things move without too much waiting. Though I'll say maybe me going last of the participants in my group was maybe waiting too much. Anyway...
The repell was scary, I'm talking really scary. This one was over a lip with shrubs. So you really had no chance to see anything, at all. There were some tears, and a lot of swears. But the guides Danger and Black Snake talked me through it well. This first time I was able to lower to my knees to go over, which felt more controlled. And long story short. I did it... I didn't need the back up rope (otherwise characterized as as not dropping myself) and I only got attacked by 1 tree on the way down. Which coincidently we all discussed getting attacked by. It was a mix of free hanging and walking down the wall. And I did it..woohoo!!!
Once I was down there was a small matter of getting back to the group, because there was no one around... Initially I couldn't see a path, so I put my big girl pants on and said... I'll bushcwack this way until I find something. Me being a nervous and novice bushwacker... It was very quickly clear that I was wrong. So fortunatly Man Salmon came down about then and found the correct path.... Allowing me to make it back to the group without completing my shrub adventure.
Then it was on to the swing.
This thing was the sort of thing that I would have 100% completely avoided in other situations. But actually now that I'm saying this I also probably would have avoided the rappelling too, so never mind. And from that the video really says it all...
Do you think I had too much fun?
Day 4 - Pigeon swims?
Today was our climbing rest day. Buy you know you're with a special group of people when our rest day involved white water rafting... So it was different muscles, but still musles.
First we had an actual slow morning to explore Fayitville. We walked around the town. Got a cup of coffee at the local shop and had lunch in the town square. It was pretty nice.
After lunch we made our way to the rafting place. Overall it was a really good experience though the head guide guy was an ass... A big ass. Anyway, once we got all the particulars squared away, changed and loaded up with paddles and vests, we took a bus to meet our guides. This was yet another thing I was nervous about but our guide was really good. She was calm and clear and though each rapid made me nervous I was in the back and could hear well. And I stayed in the boat in all the important moments. Happy to have Drapper as my across the seat buddy. One cool thing we got to do was swim the smaller Rapids... Which actually helped a lot with the comfort level... Also helped cause it was really warm. It was a different experience getting in and floating down a rapid... But wicked fun. Also it was fun watching Man salmon and Pedro goofing around in kayaks.
I was pretty spent after that from tensing my legs a lot to stay in, but I did enjoy it and wouldn't say no to doing it again.
My boat
The whole crew
No comments:
Post a Comment