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Columbia - Richland Fire Department
Graduating Recruit Class 12-01

Since I last checked in I've had a trip to Looking Glass with an absolutely fabulous group, I graduated from Recruit training, had an eye opening session at Crowders and I worked my first shift as a firefighter.

Not fun to lead the crux of the second pitch
with all this rope drag on  The  Womb(5.11b).

Looking Glass Rock was out of the blue. I didn't have a car at the time and I was invited to join on a camping/climbing excursion. I was suppose to climb two days and I was pummeled by the rock so I chose to veto the second day of climbing.  We warmed up on the classic Sundial Crack(5.8) and I combined the first two pitches of  The Womb(5.11b) and because of seeping water I couldn't cli... okay okay, I hadn't planned on climbing the third pitch because it is the (5.11b) part of the climb and my wrist was bothering me. I also learned a valuable lesson. When you are combining two pitches, make sure you have enough draws or better yet, invest in a double rope system for multi-pitch climbing.
          The best part of the trip was being able to hang out with good friends. We had a blast camping around a fire, enjoying our food and refreshments, meeting new friends and catching up with each others lives. All and  all, I look forward to climbing, camping and making more memories at the Glass.

Recruit School is officially finished. I am going to miss getting payed to work out and study. I am glad to let my body recuperate from pains and strains.  Recruit Training was a long four month process that deprived me of my climb time but instilled in me new abilities and bigger leg muscles from carrying the old heavy steel cylinders with air on my back. With that said, I have started doing pull-ups again and found that I'm out of pull-up shape. My body feels so much heavier from the extra muscle I've gained. Pro and con, I suppose.

Camping at Looking Glass Rock

          I finished up my first shift today and it was a drastic change from what recruit school was like. My partner said we ran more calls then she had ever run before. We ran a fender bender, an accidental lockout with a baby in the car luckily with the air on, a gentleman with chest pains, a car overheating on the side of the road, a malfunctioning alarm system (false alarm), a brush fire (false alarm), and a elder gentleman have problems standing up. Fortunately, the community near my station was safe at night because there were no calls past ten o'clock.  Now what to do with my first day off?

Pinky Pillar below Two Pitch Wall

Last Sunday (April 29th) I went to Crowders with a friend and ended up climbing with her and a couple of other friends from Columbia that we happened to bump into. I taught them the art of staying in the shade at Crowders. We started off by climbing the Pinky Pillar cliff left of Middle Finger Wall and continuing our adventure onto Car Wall. I was stoked to climb the traditional line Drive On (5.8) on Car Wall. It is a fun overhanging jug  route that is only about 30-40 feet, it's hard to tell because of the overhang, but the feature is very nice a must do trad line at Crowders.
          We gathered our gear and when to Red Wall. Here we I did a lap on the Gimp(5.10d) and then tried Beer Wolf (5.9+) traditional. I got spanked. It was the end of the day and I took on more than my endurance could handle coming off a long stint of not climbing hard. It would have helped if I didn't get off route but I got the onsight attempt out of the way so next time I can hopefully climb it clean and do a couple of other trad routes nearby.

Now that the year is almost halfway over, I need to kick it into high gear if I'm going to achieve what I set out to do. I need to get back into climbing shape and start ticking away at what I have left at Crowders. Until next climb!