Treeclimb at Virginia Intermont College

This weekend I had the distinct pleasure of facilitating a climb with Swampy Joe and Dr Clarence Fouche at Virginia Intermont College in beautiful Bristol, VA.

My adventure began at sunrise on Friday and before I new it I was halfway there and sitting down for a waffle and coffee. By noon I was wandering around the first floor of the science building when Joe and Clarence appeared from nowhere and asked if I was "just going to stand there looking stupid, or was I gonna come eat lunch?" I opted for lunch, and it is the last time I will be eating a whopper before a big climb. That's another story for another day.

After lunch and I was standing in front of one big ol tree in the campus quad. Two taglines were already set and we had to rig at least three more settings. Joe wanted to throw, and I wanted to climb, so we did just that. I scooted up to 70' and got busy on one side of the tree while Joe threw on the other side. A little bark burn later we were rigged on and Joe made it quite evident that I was to "quit swinging around up there and get down here and help."

We climbed with twenty students and everybody had a great time. Some where afraid of heights, some were fearless, some had climbed with Joe and Clarence before, and others had not. There was a couple of Aussie style descents, a bit of barefootin', and a lot of laughing in between the oohs and ahhs. The weather was perfect, actually I was told that this was the first climb there in six years with "perfect" conditions. So we all climbed and climbed some more and stayed a little longer than expected because everything was just so nice.

We rigged off and went out for steaks and shrimp. Heaven help you if three treeclimbers walk into your ritzy establishment after a day of climbing in the sun. Rest assured that they will just eat and leave, but keep that water and sweet tea flowing.
Dinner was splendid, and then I was off to find a campground. Warrior's Path State Park in TN to be specific. I cannot in good conscience reccommend this spot unless you really enjoy trains howling by all night long every hour on the hour, but despite the interruptions it was a decent enough spot for me. I had my campfire and cocoa and my guitar, so I was pretty happy.

Saturday morning we were off to climb something wild on the ridge of the Mount Arrarat Climbing Area in Cherrokee National.
The trail is marked by the remains of an old boat that came to rest up in the mountains by unknown circumstance.

The sky was threatening rain and wind was brisk and cool, but the long hike up the mountain kept us warm while searching for the trees with the great view of the surrounding hills, mountains and lake. Kevin had climbed with us on friday and joined us on this little adventure to see what a wild climb was like. As we hiked up the trail it became appearant that we were in an area that had recently had a controlled burn by the forest service. You could smell the ash and charred leaves all around, even though the area was moist and cool. We looked like some chimmney cleaners that had found themselves in the woods with our sooty ropes and random black streaks on our clothes and faces. I led Kevin on his first guided, three pitch climb while Joe and Clarence climbed a couple trees over. The view was treemendous, and the spattering of rain was welcome and just enough to cool us down without soaking us. The weather broke, the sun came out for a bit, and although we weren't in the knarliest of trees at fifty to sixty five feet, we were all very content.

See you there again this Autumn! J~bird

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Waffle Strong
"Every family tree has a nut."

Did I hear somebody say they wanted to see the video? Anybody? Bueller?

Whatever, here it is anyways. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SoDzFChgR8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEEH4L3nvHQ

Have a Nice Day!

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Waffle Strong
"Every family tree has a nut."

Yer a genius J~Bird, climbing backed by Iz...

Here's the story about how he recorded over the rainbow
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5neuWiAlpm4

If only we had the chance to get him into a tree before he passed... a very big and wide tree.
-moss

Jeez, I never though I was a genius, just smarter than the average bear.

Check out Joe in the top of the tree towards the end of the clip. He's moving rope, but I swear it looks like he's playing a eukelele!

I need to do something amazing this weekend to stay on par with the last two.

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Waffle Strong
"Every family tree has a nut."