Last month our crew went to Grandmother to boulder (“Winter Bouldering“). It was a fun but icy affair. This month I determined to return when the Parkway was open in order to walk into the central bouldering area. We warmed-up on Chainsaw, but I didn’t seem to be making any progress toward a good climbing day. It is always good to see others have a good day and spend time in the woods. All but one of those along had never seen any of these boulders. That has been more or less true since the beginning of this crew last July. I get the privilege of showing them new climbing areas and new climbs, and I have gotten to see two new areas myself. Later in the morning our more experienced colleague showed up with two more pads and “advanced techniques” and “secret weapons”, as he said. His additional enthusiasm, beta, and hard climbing inspired us, and perhaps I was properly warmed-up by then. I climbed several climbs I hadn’t even been on in years and didn’t expect that I could pull off this day. Check out some of our efforts at “Boulder Magic“.
Posts Tagged ‘Bouldering’
Boulder Magic
Posted in Climbing, General, Nature, Outdoors, tagged Outdoors, Climbing, Rock Climbing, Bouldering on April 5, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Winter Bouldering
Posted in Climbing, General, Nature, Outdoors, tagged Bouldering, Climbing, Rock Climbing, Winter Climbing on February 27, 2026| Leave a Comment »
You want to get out. The temperatures are low. The ground is frozen. You get a few warmer, sunnier days. You get out. The other details are trivial, right? Check out the details at “Winter Bouldering.”
Playing along the line
Posted in Climbing, Exercise, Nature, Outdoors, Photo, tagged Biking, Bouldering, Exercise, Nature, Outdoors, Tweetsie Trail on May 15, 2023| 1 Comment »
One way I keep my little exercise outings fresh and real is to change them up and mix and match. I recently did that by way of mountain biking along the Tweetsie Trail in Johnson City with my bouldering pad on my back. This arrangement allowed me to try out some small outcroppings that I had seen and thought good for climbing when my son and I were there a week before (See that outing at “A Few Quick Miles“.) but would be beyond walking distance. The Tweetsie Railroad, begun in 1866, “the ET&WNC line… was to operate from Johnson City, Tennessee, to the iron mines just over the state line at Cranberry, North Carolina. (1)
On the way back from riding and climbing I took some pictures which you may see at “Tweetsie Special.”
Bouldering with Friends
Posted in Climbing, General, Outdoors, Photo, tagged Bouldering, Challenge, Outdoors, Thankfulness on March 18, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Wow, time flies whether you are having fun or not. So many challenges and unknowns have come our way in the last 3 months, but God is faithful and His providential care and guidance is unerring even when we can’t see it. We are thankful that our house sold, but we don’t know where we are going next. Houses are hard to get in this rarefied real estate market, and direction for where we should be is even harder at the moment. I am by no means a control freak, but I like a little predictability and consistency in my life, and that is all out the window at the moment. My climbing partner said just today that I seem to handle uncertainty (“the unknowns” as we called it) pretty well. I testified to God’s work in my life to make that so. If I say that I trust God, then I need to prove it by not fretting and by waiting for His guidance.
Having said all of that, I am also thankful for decompression times like hiking hard on an approach to a cliff and climbing hard on climbs that are very challenging for me. That was today. Last week was more chill (or was it?) on a bright sunny day and friends trying hard at the boulder field. Check out a few pictures of that trip at Bouldering with Friends.
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