In the Mountaineers News...
New River Gorge - Here are several shots from the past three weekends spent at the New River Gorge. Pictures are from the New River Rendezvous, Redneck Hoopla, and Big Free Climb V2.
Jon Luers on Disturbance (5.11d) Beauty Mountain
Natalie Sayre on Stim 'O Stam (5.11c) Endless Wall
Natalie on Under the Milky Way (5.11d) Summersville Lake
Red River Gorge x3 - Oh my god the beginning spring quarter has been amazing. Besides the macho men playing frisbee and the teenie bikinis on the blessed oval, many of us have been climbing our brains out. First, Second, and Third weekends all had amazing weather of mid 70's and super dry. Left Flank and Military walls have been recieving much attention. Im betting everyone has climbed at Military at least once and let me say that you're probably missing out on the BEST climbing there! Dont get me wrong, the 12 wall is badass but have you ever seen Nicorette or Minimum Creep?? No joke, they are for real and who better to give an intro to the routes that Chris Snyder himself! We met with Chris below both his routes and I gotta say hes a cool dude....hopefully we cross paths again soon.
Check out Ruth Turner pulling it reeeeall hard on Scar Tissue .12a at the Zoo
This past weekend was just one of those trips where you literally had only one route on your mind. "Project Trip" if you will. We were caving in from anticipation...just the thought of Crack the Whip in the PMRP and Gung Ho on Military brought a flood to our finger tips. Anyways though some careful sweet talking we ended up at Military first and after 4 looooong and painful goals Gung Ho was sent....needless to say I was super psyched. Immediatly after we drove clear cross the entire gorge and went to Crack the Whip (5.12a) on the Playground in the PMRP. After solidifying the super intensive beta, Natalie sent second go....it was awesome!
Natalie Sayre above the 12b crux on Infectious, Left Flank
Whiteout at Hocking Hills - Hocking hills is about 25 minutes north of Athens, Ohio. If you've been to Ohio recently, Hocking hills is the Buckeye State's impersonation of southern Utah. Its not a very good impersonation but hey, its at least a try. HH is fun and there is a lot to do. Some sick hiking through mazes of tunnels, under mezmerizing waterfalls, and below massive overhangs. Theres even good top roping, better bouldering and for the armed few, good ole shootin. 
AMGA SPI Prep Course - On February 13, about a dozen club members and a handful of OAC staff participated in the guide prep course. It was held indoors at Koffolt labs on one hell of a snowy day. One might ask, how can you possibly teach technical skills indoors? All you need to know in that the chemical engineering unit operations lab facilitated just that. There were awesome support beams to allow for solid anchors to be built which then led to the demonstration of several types of hauling systems, top belay methods, and rescure scenarios. Check the pictures below for a better idea of how it all went down. And if your interested in getting a copy of the powerpoint, i left my flashdrive in the pc the day of the class so i may never get it back...bummer. Thanks to Erin Parsons for intruction assistance.
If your interested in attending a future session of a similar course, email Jon at jonluers@gmail.com
