As in waaaaaay east . . . and slightly south.
Four of the WZ members got together yesterday for a little climbing party in Atlanta. My wife (Lady Bulldog), myself, and John (catpappy) met up with Kent (Trailrunner) for a little technical climbing instruction. Kent lives in Orlando, but was in Atlanta on business (he is fairly often), and he brought along a bag full of technical gear to initiate us into the world of rock climbing.
The backstory is that Bob Pickering had invited me to climb Cathedral Peak with him this July when I and my family are out there for our two-week Sierra getaway. I've done my share of scrambling, as well as some pretty exposed class 3/4, unroped stuff, but nothing that required a rope was in my resume. Cathedral is a 5.6, 4-pitch climb according to Bob, so I damn well needed to get some experience before July rolled around. Kent, who I had corresponded with prior to and after his MR ascent last year, and whom I had met with once over dinner here in the ATL, read that thread and e-mailed me with an offer to bring his gear to Atlanta his next business trip up and cover the basics with me.
The thing morphed over the next few weeks, and by the time Kent hit town yesterday - just a couple of weeks after his blistering Boston Marathon, by the way - he had 4 of us on his hands, including our 11 YO daughter Bri ("Bullpup", if she ever registers on the board
). We met at a place called Allenbrook Crag in Roswell, (which I had no clue existed just a few miles from my home, but Kent was quite aware of it). This buttress of rock is short - it maxes out at about 40 feet in height - but offers a wide variety of trad climbing routes between 5.6 and 5.12.
The story is really in the pictures
here , but we all had a wonderful time with Kent and his impressive teaching style. He got
way more than he bargained for, especially with my daughter, but he handled it with incredible aplomb. He got us all up and down the crag twice each, and then spent additional time working on rappelling with us. His instructional manner is calm, patient, quietly comical, and very, very safe. In retrospect, I can't imagine anyone else I know being able to coax my daughter into scooting off a 30-foot ledge when she's terrified.
So Kent, a huge thank-you from our family (that includes John - catpappy is pretty much "family" now. We abuse him like he is, anyway). We know we kept you way late, and that you still had a long drive ahead of you to Augusta. Hope the brownies and tea helped you stay awake! We owe you a huge dinner your next trip to town! I can't tell you how many times last night and today we've heard Brianne say, "Kent is
so cool!"
And the one thing that came up almost immediately yesterday: here we all were, together and having a blast, due in large part to a mountaineering message board 2000 miles away in California. Without it, John, Kent and my family never would have come across each other's path. How 'bout that?!
