rombooutdoors

Cognitive Paleontology (Read to learn what that is)

Posted on May 9, 2013 by crrombough

I made my first cross country trip when I was two months old. When I say cross country, I mean we drove from southeast Alabama to central Alaska, the epitome of cross-country. We continued to live in Alaska for four years after that. Unfortunately, I have very few memories from Alaska, however few they are, I feel lucky to have them. I sat down and tried to remember everything I could about Alaska. I remember a lot of water. Lakes, streams, raging rivers, snow, ice, glaciers, waterfalls. I only remember tiny blips of major events; little snapshots of somewhere but I couldn’t tell you where we were or why we were there. It got me to thinking, what is my first full memory?

It’s an odd thing to think about. The earliest occurrence your mind can store? It’s an archaic piece of information that your conscious found necessary to keep around. It’s like searching for a fossil in the ground, in a way it defines a lot about you right? Just like a fossil defines a lot about what Earth used to be like? Cognitive paleontology if you will.

My dad and my brother Ryan a long time ago.

I thought about it for a long time, just when I thought I had it I’d remember something else. It took a while, but I think I’ve finally hit rock bottom, my oldest complete memory.

We had just moved to a new house in Alaska. I can see little details about the house but can’t really remember the house. It had a steep driveway, and a playground with a sandbox next to it. (I remember trying to ride a bike sans training wheels for the first time and crashing into the sandbox, but this one is even earlier). I remember there being a large field next to our house, with a sidewalk winding through it. On the far side of the field was a forest. When I think about the forest, it seems incredibly far away, as if I’m going to have to partake in an epic, Narnia-esque journey across that field to get there.

My parents (and maybe one of their friends?) were in the house doing something. The house was still relatively empty and I was bored and decided I was going to get to that forest, even if I had to enlist a giant lion and an army to help me there. I don’t remember getting there but now I’m in the forest. It looks huge, as far in as I can see, it’s trees. Trees standing tall, trees growing small, tress leaning sideways, trees on the ground, trees all around (that was my try at some Dr. Suess). I was playing on the edge of the forest and I stepped up onto an old tree stump.

Below me there was a depression in the ground. Filling the depression was a swarm of flies. I remember thinking “wow, that is a LOT of flies.” My three year old mind was fascinated, and I could picture myself standing in that swarm of flies and flailing my arms around, and what cooler way of getting in there than jumping right? I squatted low till my butt was touching my heels and jumped as high as I could above the swarm of flies, landing on my feet in the middle of the winged tornado. If this were a slow motion scene in a movie, I’d have the biggest smile on my face as as I spun around (the camera would pan opposite my spinning for some dramatic effect) arms in the air, childish giggles would be the only sound you could hear over the buzzing. I remember I could hear them buzzing way louder now that I was dominating them.

They were bees.

(scene change, music change, fast motion now, only sound is a kid screaming).

With the first sting, my flailing turned from joy to pain. Screaming, I sprinted across the field as fast as my little legs could take me. The “flies” still stinging me. Tears running down my face, mouth wide open in that typical three year old scream I flew into our house covered in bee stings to find my mom frantically scrambling to see the problem. End memory.

I don’t remember what she did, if I felt better, how many stings I had. Nothing. The entire memory stops with me getting into the house and seeing my mom sitting on the floor.

What is your first memory? Type it in a comment, or leave it for me on Facebook, I’m intrigued!

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: alaska, bees, childhood, children, first memory, flies, growing up, kids, memories, memory, screaming, stings | Leave a comment

Sacrifices

Posted on April 15, 2013 by crrombough

The older I get. The more experienced I feel, and the farther I travel, the more I feel like I grow even farther away from figuring life out. One thing I’ve come to realize is that life is a series of ups and downs and you’ve got to learn to traverse the valleys and enjoy the summits. At almost 23 I haven’t even lived a quarter of my potential life span, and yet a single day can still get me down. A single person, a single action can affect my entire day, or my entire week, or linger even longer. I get all wound up around a single thought, but then I realize; the rest of my life will be filled with these, day in and day out I will be dealing with people coming and going in my life, problems arising, and problems being solved. It’s thoughts like that which ease my mind. Whatever I’m dealing with now, will be minuscule in a year, if I even remember why I’m upset. Once you realize that, you can wash away the stresses and traverse your valley.

I’m constantly looking ahead in life and wondering how my life will look in ten years and whether or not I’ll be happy. It always seems to sway in multiple directions. Sometimes I see future Reed the same as I am today. Working for enough money to travel for a while, still feeding a lifestyle and finding myself pitted on a few crimpers hundreds of feet up some rock face. That future Reed sleeps alone on the couches of his happily married friends though, and while that future Reed is happy there’s always doubts to every choice in life. Other times I picture future Reed waking up in a warm bed, to an alarm clock set to the same time every day. The face of a pretty girl sleeping next to him as he goes through the motions of his morning. The kids get their breakfast and catch the bus just in time for him to drive to the same job he did the day before, only to look forward to the pretty face he woke up next to. The happiness of his life lying in his family instead of his endeavors. That Reed looks really happy too, but what are his doubts?

All those ups, all those downs, all that experience, all that traveling, all that growing all revolves around sacrifices. Coming to terms with which sacrifices are worth making is turning out to be the hardest thing about life. However life turns out for me, whether I’m holding little hands at the bus stop every day or I’m hitting the approach trail at sunrise every day, somewhere along the line I’m going to have to make a sacrifice that will change future Reed to present Reed.

Categories: Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Outdoor Living

Posted on April 8, 2013 by crrombough

I constantly try to pinpoint a time in my life when my outlook on living changed. A single event that swayed me towards this life of outdoor pursuits instead of being a video gamer, or a couch barnacle which so many others my age have become. My family and I lived in Newport News, VA for about five years, or about 5th grade to 9th grade. It was the time of my life when I was trying my hardest to impress girls and have cool friends (wait that’s my entire life). I remember I wore a pair of khaki cargo pants, a yellow fleece vest and a pair of silver slip on shoes to my first day of 5th grade. Obviously, I was still reaching for a grasp of cool. I spent the entire first day surveying the girls in the room trying to decide which one I thought was the cutest in order to make her my “girlfriend” and be the coolest kid in school by association. My friends and I used big boy words to talk so other people around us knew we were tough. We talked about video games, you know, who had the highest scores, who had the best aim, who was the fastest racer, who had the most games. Video games were really fun for me but I got bored of them easily and before long I’d venture outside and hike through the woods or throw rocks at something, maybe build an infamous plywood and bricks bike jump in the front yard. However, if I had friends over we’d stay inside and play Madden until our eyes burned. It was an easy peer pressure to slip into at that age.

Every year my dad would load up the F250 and drive us out to Douthat State Park in the Appalachians. I was always a little jaded towards it because we had to drive “forever” to get there and it would eat up a weekend I could spend with my friends. One year we spent Christmas in a cabin in Douthat, and my dad took us for a hike Christmas day right after we opened presents. It had snowed recently and the temps were in the upper 30′s leaving all the streams running on high. Our hike led us up to some of the highest elevations in the Appalachians as we boulder hopped along ridge lines looking down on the massive expanse of trees and rolling hills below us. We dropped back down into the comfort of the dense forest. I remember at this point we weren’t even on a trail anymore and I was concerned we were going to be lost. My dad told me we would simply follow this stream straight down hill and it would cross our original trail and from there we could make our way back to the cabin. At the start of the hike, Dad had given me a full gatorade, which of course I failed to ration so my parched throat was itching for a little wet. My dad took the bottle and squatted down in front of the tiny stream that we had been following. He looked at the water and told me it was clean enough to drink. At the time, my ten year old mind couldn’t fathom the idea of drinking water straight from a stream. I don’t remember exactly what he said but it was along these lines:

“Kneel down here I’ll teach how to tell if the water is clean. This is a state park so there aren’t any cattle that can taint this water source with any viruses. We’re pretty close to the ridge line and you can tell by how small the stream bed is that this stream is only around during melt times and the rainy season. So it doesn’t travel over farmlands or through human traffic areas so it has no real contaminants. So what we’ll do now is find a place where the water is falling off of a lip so we can get the bottle under there without stirring up any sediment. Make sure you don’t stir up the water above where you’re going to fill up so there’s no sediment in the water. Lastly, never take water from a standing pool because it could be stagnant.”

At that point he dipped the bottle under a small drop and filled it full of crystal clear, naturally chilled, Appalachian Mountain stream water. He took a big swig of the water and held it up for me to see. I took a drink too and couldn’t believe how much better it tasted than water from the tap, or water in those bottles labeled “Spring Water.” It was absolutely the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me outside. I remember all I wanted was to run back to the cabin and show Paula (step mom) that we had collected stream water and drank it without a filter. I think if I had to remember a time when the outdoors began to outweigh everything else in life, that would be it. From that point on in my life I began to find a lot more joy in the things I found outside than the things I saw on the TV screen. Before long I completely stopped using video game consoles and by the time I graduated high school I was maybe playing video games for an hour or two a year and that was usually when I was with someone else. I went to college and had the only room on my hall that didn’t have a video game console for the entire time I lived in the dorms. That one little bottle of fresh mountain water might have completely changed my outlook on life and the way I live it to date. Above all of the deer I shot, the runs I ski’d, the trails I biked, the rivers I rafted, the tents I slept in, or the rocks I climbed, that little bottle of water signified a purity I couldn’t find in any video game, and has led me to barely scratch the surface of a long life outside.

Categories: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The End of Travels, for a while.

Posted on March 29, 2013 by crrombough

If you’ve ever seen the Grammys, the MTV Awards, the Emmy’s, the Kid’s Choice Awards etc, then you’ve seen a thank you speech. Here’s a generic one;

“Wow….wowwwww, thank you guys so much! I don’t know what to say. This thing is heavy! Um, (insert corny joke here) (laugh at own joke here). I’d really like to thank my family, especially my (spouse) who’s been there for me since my start. Also I’d like to thank (name) (name) (name) anddddd (name) and (name) and God. But most of all, I want to thank my fans!”

Well, I didn’t receive an award, or make any money (the opposite rather), and I have no fans. So I just cut half of this rigamarole out. But really, I traveled for two months on a relatively small amount of money, and hung with some great friends, had some great food, some great beer, enjoyed great climbing and pretty much had a blast for two months.

I started off the trip by flying to Alabama from SLC for a week. Thanks to Ryan for driving me to, and picking me up from the airport. Thanks to Alex and Ryan and Sean for letting me stay at your house for a a few days, and more specifically Sabrina for letting me crash on your bed in your absence.

I left SLC after my return from Alabama and drove to Ft. Collins, CO. I climbed with Ben in Poudre Canyon for a day and had some good best friend time with Kristen as well. I appreciate you Kristen for letting me stay at your place! and Ben for climbing with me that day!

After that I cruised up to Rapid City and hung out with Bryce and climbed for a few days. Thanks Bryce for letting Ryan and I crash on your couches! Thanks to Ashten for having a wedding and letting Ryan and I drink all your free beer!

I left there and drove through to Brookings and taught a route setting class for my old climbing gym. Thanks to Holly for setting that up and the whole SDSU Rockwall staff for coming out and letting me hang out! Thanks to Logan and Tony for letting me crash with you guys.

From here I drove to Nashville where I went to one of my best friend’s concerts in downtown Nashville. Thanks to Stewart, Holly, OJ, and Cory for letting me crash with you guys and for getting Waffle House with me! Thanks also to the cute bartender at Tequila Cowboy for talking with me for the 6 hours I was at that concert, and to Chris who came and joined me.

I tried to climb for a few days after this to no avail due to the weather so I headed south to my hometown of Enterprise, AL. I spent the next three weeks hanging out with old friends (Thanks to Christian, Teegarden, Tyler, and Dexter for entertaining me as much as possible in that black hole of boringness!) Thanks to Jessie for climbing with me (already thanked you for this but worth saying again!). More importantly, thank you to my mom. You always told me if I needed anything I could come home, and you pulled through! I loved spending time with you and Rory again and I appreciate your hospitality wholeheartedly. I’d like to thank my Grandma (Shy) for always being positive! My grandpa was really sick and was going through a series of surgery so I spent a lot of time in the hospital with him, I’d like to thank him for being strong during the surgeries and the nurses for dealing with his stubbornness and sarcasm.

Thanks also to Ryan B. and Maddie for letting me crash at your place and hang out with you guys…even if we didn’t go to Waffle House. (Still bitter)

I left Enterprise and drove to NW Arkansas to meet up with some old college friends for a week of climbing. Thanks to Logan, Cory, Jerra, and Ozan for being rad and to Horseshoe Canyon Ranch for also being rad!

I drove north to Sioux Falls, SD through some shitty road conditions, thanks to Cory for riding with me and keeping me company. I stayed with my cousin Samm for a few days in Sioux Falls. Thanks to her for opening her apartment for me, to my cousins Dale and Jess for going to dinner with me, and to my Aunt Holly and Uncle Dan for making dinner for me one night.

After Sioux Falls I drove an hour north to Brookings to party four days with old college friends. Thanks to Logan and Tony for letting me crash at your places, and to John H. for stealing my dog! Thanks to everyone I saw downtown, there’s too many names to mention.

I then stayed with my Aunt Dawn an hour west of Brookings, thanks to her for giving me my first bed for a while! After that I drove across the state to Spearfish, SD and stayed with Ryan and John, thanks guys! I climbed a few days with Mark Ellefson, thanks for showing me some sweet new lines in Spearfish, Mark. Then I stayed with Bryce again for a while, thanks again! And from there I’m currently back in Huron, SD with my Aunt Dawn.

Tomorrow I’ll drive to Miller, SD to pick up my grandma and drive to Sioux Falls. Sunday morning, Grandma and I will fly to Orlando, FL and be in the Tampa area for the week following. My dad is retiring from the Army as a Colonel. Thanks Dad for a future week in the sun!

Thanks Everyone! I took a job in Dallas so I’m moving down south to work for a while, wish me luck!

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: friends, road trip, thanks, travel, traveling | 1 Comment

Traveling Leg 6: Arkansas Crushing

Posted on March 18, 2013 by crrombough

Leaving Alabama marked the beginning of my true homelessness. The night before my departure, I toiled away trying to prepare my truck for living. I folded down the back seats to make a platform for gear. I put all of my camp cooking essentials, extra sleeping bags and other camp equipment into a giant tub in the back. Next to that went a bag with some pants, undaroos, and socks in it. On the other side of the truck I put Sadey’s kennel next to her dog food and some shoes.

In the bed of the truck, all of my shirts and jackets are hung neatly from a clothes hanger I had installed to the ceiling of my topper. Behind that is another tub full of a lot of climbing gear. Behind that is a box full of easy to make camp food essentials. My dirty hamper sits at the very front of all of that. Just to the right of that is my bed, which is a queen sized memory foam mattress top cut in half, stacked on top of each other and cut to the length of my truck bed. A small shelf above that holds my accessories when I go to sleep. My crash pads slide right in on top of the bed and come out when I’m ready to sleep. To top it all off my roadie sits on top. I’m basically living like a retired rich man with his RV and commuter car being pulled behind it. Only I have no money, no career, no tv, no real bed, ok so I’m not living like that at all.

Sunday morning I went to the hospital one last time and spent a few hours with my grandpa. I was able to help him on his feet one last time and do a few more laps around the hospital so he could harass the nurses again. After that I hopped back into the truck and Sadey and I were on our way once again. I arrived in Russellville, AR around 1:00a.m. too tired to make it the last 90 minutes of windy road driving through the Ozark Mountains. I parked the truck in a Hampton Inn parking lot and snuggled in for the cold night.

The next morning I drove through the iconic Horseshoe Canyon Ranch entryway (you know, the one that’s in every HCR video ever) with sunlight tickling the tops of the cliff bands all around me. The best part of this leg of the trip was the group of climbers I was meeting there. Some old college friends had planned their spring break to HCR and I just decided to invite myself along. None of them were awake yet but before long we were basking in the sun of the North Forty area pulling on steep sandstone features.

Our group was awkward, kind of a hodge podge of rando’s from the midwest. It’s funny, three years ago I took a trip to Hueco with some folks and we invited a “n00b” along named Logan, he was our bro of the trip. The year after that we went to the Red River Gorge, the LRC, and Horse Pens 40, and Logan was no longer the n00b, Jerra was, but Logan was still the bro. This year, Logan was leading the trip (still a bro) Jerra was no longer the n00b but Ozan was.

Logan started climbing 3 or 4 years ago. He was born and raised a down home farm boy with a superheroe’s jaw line and big frame. He was a high school football player for the small town of Clear Lake, SD and graduated with about 20 people. Jerra (pronounced like Sarah with a J) is a girl. She was born and raised in the same town as Logan and was a gymnast there. Ozan, which we deemed the “Big Ass, Bad Ass Turkish Man” is Turkish, if you didn’t gather that already. He’s tall, built like a wrestler and looks like a mountain man. Then there’s the wild card, Cory. Or as I deemed him “Dad.” He’s 34, actually has a real job, and has a fiancé and two kids. So here was our group line-up: Myself, a homeless, unemployed traveling dirtbag with a puppy. A farm raised bro with a jaw line turned climber, a quiet small girl obsessed with harry potter and youtube, a large, super smart, super hairy Turkish man and an old guy with a real job, two kids and the mentality of a 20 year old.

Horseshoe Canyon Ranch was originally established as a dude ranch. Nestled in a shallow valley in Northwest Arkansas, HCR is surrounded by 50-100 foot cliff faces that virtually fence in both sides of the canyon. On the valley floor, boulders are scattered about with perfect problems ranging from techy friction slabs to gymnastic, foot cutting roofs. HCR offers a trifecta of climbing. It doesn’t offer much trad but it does exist. A plethora of sport lines can be found all across the ranch and plenty of boulder problems from V0-v13. We spent the first day doing a few sport lines, and a single trad line. I tried Cradle of The Deep (5.12d) but got crushed on the lower section. It’s a short line, so its bouldery and powerful with virtually no rest. The lower section has a long vertical rail that’s slopey and is tricky to use because you have to bump around your rope. That rail caused my tendonitis to flare up so bad I could barely feel my arm when I clipped the second bolt. I stepped off defeated, realizing that I was no longer as strong as I had been in Utah. The next day we decided to boulder the whole day. I felt strong moving into the day, and was gleefully onsighting everything V5 and under. We blazed through classic problems all morning until I was rightfully wrecked. Of course, I then decided to try Miho, which is a core intensive V6. I couldn’t figure out the beta and everyone else was getting bored watching me so I moved over to one move V4 that others could try. It started on a slopey crimp rail about eye level. A diagonal, really crappy foot was all that was available. Once you were set on the wall, you just rocked up and slam dunk style slapped for the slopey top. It all relied on whether your foot stayed on or not. It’s silly, because if it were indoors I would just never do it, however, I fully enjoyed it.

The next morning we decided to take a rest day and see some sights around the Ozarks. We hiked to Eden falls but took the off-trail approach and found some pretty cool places. We crawled on our hands and knees for a couple hundred yards back into a cave to see the underground Eden Falls. Sadey joined us for her first caving adventure, and her bulging eyes below can tell you how much she enjoyed it.

After that we drove to a little backwoods diner. When I say backwoods, I mean there were no other commercial properties within 30 minutes of this place. Everyone was a little skeptical but I kept saying “places like this are where you find the best food.” Reluctantly, they pulled in. The tables in the diner were made of plywood. The owner then covered the plywood with a finish and called that good enough. There were three other people in the diner when we came in, and we sure didn’t fit in. But then again, our group wouldn’t really fit in anywhere. The menu had about 10 items on it and there were about 10 more on a chalk board that I guess weren’t good enough to make the menu cut. Turns out, I was right. The food was phenomenal and you could tell they actually made everything, instead of just microwaving it. Afterwards we asked the owner lady if she had any dessert. She chuckled and responded with “Oh….I’ve got desserts.” Her dramatic answer was 100% warranted, she brought us all a giant slice of some concoction of regular cake, and cheesecake, and cream cheese and sugar and I don’t know it was good. Some of us ordered multiple desserts, and each one was brought decorated individually for each of us.

While we were all paying our checks, a large, cliche southern mountain man strolled in and assumed we were climbers from HCR. He asked us what we were up to so we explained we were taking a rest day and doing some hiking. He told us we HAD to go to Hawksbill point. He started to give us directions. He turned to face the direction we’d have to go so he could get his bearings and in a voice fit for a concert he said “Well, yer gonna go down the road here and head this way (waves his hands) and go about a mile down teel you git to Boxley. Go right on through Boxley and there’ll be a breedge, right before that breedge you gon make a right and go up a steep ass hill (shows us how steep with his arm). Follow that till you see the trailhead and then you gon hike a while before you sees it.” So we went about five miles until we got to Boxley. We passed about four bridges out of Boxley before we found one with a big hill, but sure enough it lead us straight to the trailhead. The trail out was maybe a mile to a mile and a half, but he was right about Hawksbill point, it was awesome.

Thursday consisted of trad lines and tape gloves. It was good to plug some gear and give the hands a rest with some jamming instead. Friday morning Logan and I woke up at sunrise and went to the North Forty for some bouldering. We got some mileage in, busted through our tips and made our way across canyon to join the rest of the crew. Turns out that was one of the most fruitful days of climbing. After the 6 or 7 moderate boulder problems that morning I climbed 9 sport lines to close out the day. Crushed we decided to leave after a short morning the next day. Saturday we went to a place across canyon that we hadn’t been to yet. After a few moderates everyone was ready to go but I really wanted to try a route coming out of an impressive cave, the Goat Cave. Dubbed so because the floor of the cave is literally a sandbox of goat pellets. It reeked like a petting zoo but the impressive roof above outweighed that for me.

I had my eyes on a 12b. The holds all looked super positive, just a super steep jug haul, I was really only worried about my endurance. The first three bolts worth of climbing were easy and I quickly gained the main roof and the crux. I pulled out onto the long seam that split the roof and my feet cut away from the main wall. I got my feet back on and moved out across the roof without much issue but realized I was in a pickle to clip. I should’ve made a long reaching clip from the jugs at the base of the roof but now that I was out in the middle I had no feet to clip off of and the hold I was on wasn’t big enough for a one armed clip. Gassed I dropped and roped back up. I rested for a few minutes and repositioned and was able to make the clip. I cruxed out to the lip of the roof and tried to make the clip there, but barndoored off. I figured out the foxy clipping beta, you had to flip out and exit feet first getting a super rad toe hook out the lip of the cave. Your other foot was toe cammed with a drop knee in a pocket in the roof. From there I could clip with ease, then I had to flip back round and pull the lip making the clips there. Gassed on the headwall I struggled to the chains and lowered feeling ultra defeated. I could’ve shook out and hopped back on and had a decent fighting chance at the red point, but my ego was hurt at not being stronger on 12b anymore, and everyone looked really ready to head out, so we packed it up and I’ll add it to my long to-do list for the future.

I’m back in South Dakota now. I’m typing this from the comforts of my Aunts house in the tiny town of Huron, SD. I’ll be out in Rapid City this week and will be out there for the rest of the summer, and possibly forever. Sorry this post is so long!

Categories: Climbing | Tags: adventure, arkansas, bouldering, camping, climbing, friends, hiking, horseshoe canyon ranch, sandstone, sport climbing, spring break, spring break 2013, Trad climbing, travel, traveling | 1 Comment

Traveling Part 5: Extended stay in Alabama for my Grandpa’s Recovery

Posted on March 12, 2013 by crrombough

I know, I know. I’ve already got a “Traveling Leg 1: Alabama” post. Sue me, I went back! I wanted to be home again for a while during my grandpa’s surgery time frame. He was scheduled to go back in to have his colostomy bag removed and his plumbing hooked back up. Going into this portion of my trip, I knew I would be bored.. I was going to be home for three weeks, the longest stint in many a year. I knew for certain I’d be spending a large portion of my time itching for something exciting to happen to no avail. That proved true.

I’d like to dedicate this paragraph to Jessie Sewell. Among other friends who eased my boredom, Jessie stands out. She is an exciting and motivated person and I appreciate all the times she brought me to the military gym (it had a rock wall) as a guest so I could get my climbing fix in. Jessie I wish you all the best you little poop mongrel.

However, this is about my grandpa. Not only do I have a post about Alabama already, I also have a post about my grandpa. I wrote it over a year ago so it’s a few “Older Posts” clicks back. In a nutshell, he’s my idol and my best friend. My grandpa is the most selfless person I know, and I wanted to do my best to mirror that to him in his time of weakness. I know for damn sure that if I ever had to spend some time in the hospital my grandpa would be there for me, and I was determined to do that for him. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to stay long enough to see him out of the hospital but I hope he understands my love and gratitude for all that he is based off the time I spent with him.

He is back at home and on his way to a full recovery.

As far as excitement during this leg of the trip. I traveled to Tuscaloosa, AL where the University of Alabama is and spent a weekend with some high school friends. I also attempted to go to my favorite South Alabama landmark, the hanging tree of Geneva, AL (shown below). However, flooding made it impossible to get any closer than 100 yards away. Other than that nothing particularly exciting happened so this will be a short and sweet post.

I also run another blog with my brother called Making Once Enough (www.makingonceenough.com). It’s a video website that we use to post our adventures. With that website we hope to motivate others to put down their video game controllers and big macs and seize what this world has to offer. I put together a video of my time with my grandpa and you can watch it there. Stay tuned, for I have a good piece to write about my seven day climbing stint in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.

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Review of Salt Lake City

Posted on February 28, 2013 by crrombough

Now that I’m no longer a resident of Salt Lake City, I feel I can properly and fairly issue my critique of the city.

I moved to Salt Lake City early May of 2012. I rolled down Parleys Canyon from Park City, winding slowly downhill to the valley floor with what might be the largest smile on any human ever. The Wasatch Range tickled the upper reaches of the blue sky around me and left me staring up a lot more than at the road. Salt Lake seems to keep that hold on you. Throughout the time I lived there, at any moment that I could see the mountains I seemed to be staring at them, and not at what I was doing. The captivating backdrop had me in a constant daydream at every point that I wasn’t actually part of the backdrop.

I pitched a tent in my brother’s backyard and that became my home for a few months. I’d use my brothers house to eat, sleep, etc and would crash in the tent every night. I worked only 20-30 hours a week and spent every other waking hour climbing in the Wasatch. Shoutout to Greg Gavin, Matt Conn, my brother Ryan and a few other random partners I had throughout that time of excessive climbing.

I quickly fell into that simplistic lifestyle. The accessibility of the mountains is incredible. I could be at work in downtown Salt Lake, get off at 2pm, and get four hours of hard climbing in before the sun set. The weather was a gorgeous constant. Every morning the temps would be in the 50′s. The sun would rise over the valley, casting it’s rays around a few clouds until the temps would crest in the 90′s. By the end of the evening we were back down to the low 70′s before falling back into the 50′s overnight. I’d get up super early before work and drive an hour to American Fork canyon and work projects on super hard limestone routes. Then, drive back to Salt Lake, work 5 hours, and then do a few laps in Big Cottonwood on some moderates until it got dark.

If you’re a climber, a hiker, a camper, or you want to break into the outdoor world, summer in Salt Lake will cause wet dreams every night.

Also, Salt Lake rests in an amazing position in the west. Everything seems to fall under the five hour rule. Jackson, WY and the Tetons, four hours. Moab, five hours. Maple canyon, 2 hours. Joes valley, 2.5 hours. St. George, 5 hours. Zion National Park, 5 hours. Indian Creek, 5.5 hours (close enough). Las Vegas, four hours. An endless amount of adventure all within an easy days drive. All of those are achievable on a three day weekend.

However, if you’re looking for a party, if you’re looking to fist pump your way through a room full of available young folks. Well, Salt Lake is not your spot. I came from a college town where everyone was close in age, everyone drank (a lot) and everyone wanted to dance and party. That is definitely not Salt Lake. Half the city maintains a strict Mormon culture. The other half is a counter-culture that has slowly moved into the city. We do our best to have a night life but it just doesn’t seem to hold together. The liquor laws put a damper on a lot of excitement and the bars and clubs just don’t have a good crowd. I’ve heard rumor that some nights get nuts at some place in town, but I’ve never been there when it was happening.

Then there’s winter. 75% of the city is there mainly for winter. The storms start shrouding the summits and before long the dark green Wasatch becomes a towering winter wonderland. There’s something about mountains covered in snow that makes them seem taller, and more ominous. Everyone is excited for every flurry and they flock up the canyon roads to the numerous resorts plotted across the range. Utah doesn’t lie when it says they have the best snow on earth. Pictures splattered all over Facebook will be enough to get you dropping coin on a ski rig and chasing pow like the best of them.

But there’s a catch to winter. Smog. People will say “inversion” but that’s just a fancy word for “we pollute the shit out of the valley.” As cold temps roll off the mountains the cold air falls hard into the valley. All the pollution that usually rises out away from the city, get’s hammered down on top of us. It’s like nature is just showing us everything we usually let loose into the atmosphere, it’s mother natures way of giving us a taste of our own medicine. The mountains disappear behind a constant brown fog and the city looses it’s awe.

Everyone tries to “rise above” as much as possible. Residents will go for drives in the mountains simply to get above the inversion ceiling for a bit and get some fresh air. The resorts remain clean, the smog merely covers the valley, rendering the mountains a dream just outside of the dread. You can taste our exhaust in the air when you step outside, breathing becomes more like chewing as the air thickens. I stopped running altogether because I felt like I was just speed inducing cancer with every breath. To me, the city became disgusting. It lost all of its sheen of summer and became a gross, brown, polluted hell.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the money to rack up on ski gear and rarely got a chance to get into the mountains. I upped my hours at my job and got a second one. Before long I was working 70-80 hours a week and stopped going to the mountains altogether. They were no longer calling to me, because I could no longer see them.

So, in a nutshell. Salt Lake is a great city if you’re motivated to make it so. The summer weather is unbeatable, and adventure is around every corner. The climbing is world class all over, and the skiing needs no introduction. Downfalls? There’s no nightlife, and in the winter we get Hong Kong style pollution levels that rarely clear up and bring a weird depression upon the city. If you can just rise above as much as possible, maybe you can outweigh that part. But if you’re not a skier…well, you’ve got a lot of thinking to do.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: city, climbing, mountains, nightlife, pollution, review, Rock climbing, salt lake, salt lake city, skiing, snow, utah | 3 Comments

Traveling Part 3: Great Faces, Great Places

Posted on February 25, 2013 by crrombough

I graduated from South Dakota State University last year and told myself I wasn’t coming back. Here I was. Back by definition. My eyes trained up, the road became secondary while I scanned the granite spires towering above me. Every time I walk into those spires I feel like I’ve stepped into a scene from the Lord of the Rings.

I left Fort Collins early in the morning in an effort to get some climbing in after the four hour drive. I arrived at Rushmore around 1:30 to find out my partner had bailed. I went and scouted some boulder problems I had been interested in and finished the day out by soloing some easy routes I have done so many times in the past. Each sharp crystal brought back memories of the four years I climbed here. Even after a year of climbing in world class destinations all over Utah, this place still amazes me every time.

Just as this trip is about climbing, it’s also about the completely, utterly, absolutely radical people I know at all the places I’m going. Bryce Drefke….doesn’t make that list. He’s not even strong, he is a softy and can’t grow facial hair. He’s a male nurse! What a boob.

I told him I was going to beat him up if he didn’t let me stay at his place and if he didn’t make me dinner.

making bryce cook for me

Bryce had all of Thursday off, and he was just as stoked as me to get on some cool summits. The new Rushmore guidebook was opening my eyes even more to the endless stellar lines that are scattered throughout the forest of granite needles. One summit I was always interested in was the summit of Old Baldy. Old Baldy is the most visible large mass of stone in the Rushmore area. I chose this two pitch 5.8+ called the Grecian Formula. The first pitch is 5.8+, the crux coming in at about 90 feet up. It’s a flaring butt crack with bomber hand jams deep at the back of the crack. It’s wide enough to off width the flaring portion with chicken wings and heel-toe cams while just deep enough to get bomber hand-fist jams for progression. It was the most awkward crack I’ve ever grunted through and was worth the struggle.

Bryce is relatively new to climbing. He’s one of those guys that got hooked on the challenge and has grown to like every other aspect of climbing. Once he crushed the crux crack of Grecian Formula and joined me on our 120 foot perch, I told him he was gonna lead the second pitch. I was throwing him into a style of trad climbing that most weren’t used to. A lot of extendable draws, rope drag play and route finding are key in the Black Hills. The second pitch was 5.7, easy for Bryce but it was heady with about 5 pieces in the last 70 feet. He crushed it! We pushed from the anchors to the summit ropeless and signed the summit register. Perched on top of Old Baldy’s summit, you can see the massive open expanse of the Great Plains to the East and the rolling, dark green hills of the Black Hills to the West. All around us, small granite needles peak above the treeline. A lifetime of climbing was sprawled out in front of us.

That night Bryce had to get some homework done because he can’t even finish college like a grown up. So, I put on my big boy pants and met an old college friend (Shoutout to Brynn!) down at the bar. One trend I am enjoying the most on this trip is friends. The last few years I have kept a strong focus on climbing. Getting stronger, training more, climbing more, learning more. All of this was leading up to my imminent graduation where I had grand plans to live in SLC where climbing would be my life. Which it was. Everything came together and I climbed more than I ever imagined and loved every minute of it. But I started to realize that not only did I love climbing, I really loved the people I was with when climbing, and the people I was with after climbing. I realized one thing I love more than climbing, is people. In my own opinion, I have the best friends in the world. Being able to travel around and see all of them has quickly taken over as my number one motivation of the trip. Like Bryce, he’s actually a really good friend of mine despite all the shit talking.

Ryan (my broha) came in early Friday morning, we grabbed some breakfast and rushed out to Rushmore. It was chilly in the upper 30′s. I wanted Ryan to lead a route that wasn’t run of the muck, something that isn’t straight up. I enjoy getting Ryan out of his comfort zone with climbing. I picked an easy route called Solitaire (5.7) which was south facing and had a cool plank walking section. The route ascends a cream colored water groove before tying in with a thin fin connecting two summits. Once you hit the fin, you have to walk a 10 foot unprotected catwalk to the face of the other summit. From there you can clip a bolt where you step onto the new face and that’s the crux. Right after that is the chains. Ryan got nervous but crushed his fears and summited with style. He brought me up as the second and he got a good taste of the beautiful views of the granite sea around us.

After that, we switched places so I could lead a really awesome 5.10b on the Child’s Molar formation. It’s called Nitrous Rockcide, and it would have definitely been a classic but it had gotten really cold. After our first route the temperatures dropped and the sun disappeared behind a gray sky. About three quarters up I had lost all feeling in my fingertips and began to flail as I scrambled for holds. My tips were so numb I could’t even tell what I was grabbing. I looked like a blind man searching for brail as my hands tested everything until I couldn’t do it anymore. There I was, hanging on a 10b. I was pretty ashamed but I just couldn’t beat the cold. We summited regardless, Ryan struggling with the same finger issues. Even though we only got two pitches in, and the weather was shitty, I had a great time. Ryan is one of my favorite climbing partners and I’m bummed we won’t get to climb together much anymore.

Only a small portion of the climbing behind Rushmore

Just as cold as I was stoked!

That evening Ryan and I joined our family for a wedding rehearsal for our younger cousin, Ashten. It was great to be around family and to see everyone I had missed after college. The next morning we moved slow, only making it to a small crag just outside of Rapid City called Falling Rock. Ryan did a single 5.10c before we had to head back into town to get ready for the wedding. Ryan and I were the ushers for Ashten’s wedding. We arrived just in time to be in a few wedding photos, visit with family as they arrived and then to take our positions by the entrance.

the view from falling rock

That night consisted of your cliche wedding dances, happy people, and a lot of drinks. The next morning we woke up to a blizzard blowing snow horizontally through the city. South Dakota decided to show its ugly ass by shutting down the interstates all the way across the state. Ryan and I were stranded for yet another day in Rapid City. We entertained ourselves as best as we could stuck in the hotel. The wind whipped all the way through the night and even into the morning but the DOT managed to get most of the roadways partially clear.

It was a bummer saying bye to Ryan. Of course, as we always have, we high fived, said later and without a single hint of emotion hopped in our vehicles and parted ways. Ryan plunged into shitty road conditions making his way back West, while I drove East on better roads. The farther I got from Ryan, the worse the road conditions got until I arrived in Brookings, SD late that night. My second longest home ever, Brookings, as boring as it is, will always have a special significance to me. It’s the birthplace of my love of climbing, and the place where I found my desire to chase climbing. Oh, and I got my education there and made a lot of friends too.

Back on the tangent of people. I love good people! Everywhere I’ve gone on this trip, I’ve had great friends put me up and take care of me. It’s crazy to think that after a year of absence people are so willing to let me stay at their place, cook me dinner, and entertain me. So let me just say that I appreciate everyone I’ve seen on this trip, and all of you who I haven’t seen. I wish I could see every single one of my friends, but unfortunately you all live way too far apart!

I was only planning on being in Brookings for about 48 hours. I had the privilege of giving back to the gym that gave me so much in college. I taught a route setting clinic to the current employees, which I had a blast doing. I did a little bit of climbing while I was there before heading to Nashville. I enjoyed seeing everyone again, and can’t wait to see them all again in Arkansas here in just a weeks time.

Brookings in a few words: Climbing, Friends, Beer, Blonde Bartenders

Gordy with my pup sadey

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: adventure, beer, blizzard, brookings, brothers, climbing, cold, college, dogs, driving, friends, Mt Rushmore, Rock climbing, Rushmore, rushmore climbing, snow, South Dakota, south dakota climbing, south dakota state university, travel, wedding | Leave a comment

Traveling Part 4, Nashville the Music City

Posted on February 16, 2013 by crrombough

The bright lights of the bar signs illuminate the ground in front of me while I bob and weave through cowboy hats and high heels. The chilly night air is filled with sounds of hopes and dreams; southern drawls, guitar riffs, and kick drum thumps beg for the attention of the passerby’s. Everyone has one motive and they lay it all on the stage every night, make it big.

In high school I had an infatuation with soccer. I played on two teams, played when I wasn’t playing and all of my friends either played, or were friends with people who played. One of those friends was Stewart Halcomb. Stew had one of those infectious personalities that everyone seemed to be drawn to. It also helped that he was a lot louder than your average individual. He was super smart, with all A’s, perfect attendance, and he had the GPA of a future college graduate. In high school all he wanted was to be a doctor. We’d play soccer 6 days a week and the rest of the time he’d study or do homework. It’s safe to say that “Stew Baby” was my best friend.

Stewart was always a lot more popular than myself. He had grown up in Enterprise, and was somehow involved in all the clubs. One of his favorites was the FFA (Future Farmers of America) quartet, and the FFA string band. Both of which he sang in and was always really well known in.

We graduated and parted ways. My little Mazda drove me to South Dakota where I found my climbing career. And Stewart, well I watched Stewart perform for a jam packed bar for six hours last night in downtown Nashville. He didn’t go to med school, or law school, or any other of the professions that he could’ve easily done, instead he’s been living in two bedroom apartments with eight people and playing music all over the southeast.

I showed up in Nashville around lunchtime Wednesday. I walked into Stewart’s 5 bedroom house to find him balls deep in social networking. He spends his days promoting himself all over the internet and trying to book shows at different venues all over the Nashville area. He looked ragged, tired and down. He wasn’t the same perma-stoked Stewart Halcomb from high school. I watched Stewart float through the rest of the day. He seemed to be just taking everything in stride as if the hectics of his day were a normality. He didn’t smile much, he just moved about taking care of what needed to be done.

At six o’clock sharp, we rolled up in front of the Tequila Cowboy right on the infamous Broadway of Nashville. The back door of his Honda minivan opened and we rushed all his equipment inside. A large man with a beard was perched on a stool in the spotlight on stage. He picked his guitar and sang with twang while Stew and his bandmates set up behind him. Stewart was still floating through the motions, seeming as if he was a guy at a cubicle for the 900th day. The soundcheck finished, the lights went down, and Stewart changed. With a huge smile on his face he greeted the crowded bar and began to dance around the stage singing songs he knows by heart. His band jammed flawlessly behind him.

I realized as I watched Stewart fully enjoy all six hours on stage, that he wasn’t much different than me. Never mind the black and white cowboy boots, never mind the twang in his voice, the ya’lls, or the yeehaws. Stewart chased his dreams, and he was living them right there on stage in front of me.

The old Stewart was there all along, he exists on stage. In high school I always assumed Stewart would chase an education and fall into the monotony of work life. Stewart winded around the bar with a five gallon bucket plastered with a bold “TIPS.” He counted out the money, divvied it out and went home with a small wad of cash in hand. Every night, every show, every stage, every song is different. His life revolves around music and, in turn, music revolves around him. I’m more happy for Stewart’s success in happiness than I ever would’ve been for his success as a doctor. He didn’t sell out on his dream, and even when times are hard and the tip bucket goes home empty, the music still plays. The crowd still cheers. And Stewart still smiles.

This is for Stew, the happiest dude I’ve ever known and one of my best friends. Don’t let it become a job. Keep your head up and keep plugging. Most of all, no matter how hard you work, how far you go, or how big you become, always remember the people around you, for you can’t conquer the world alone.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: band, best friends, country, country music, guitars, halcomb, music, music city, nashville, stewart halcomb, tennessee, tequila cowboy, The Springs, travel | Leave a comment

Traveling Part 2: Fort Collins

Posted on February 6, 2013 by crrombough

Today went by super fast. I’m really gonna have to try and slow the next few months down or they will whizz by. Now that I think about it, the last few days have been a blur. I landed in Salt Lake City at midnight Sunday night (I guess technically Monday morning). I woke up early on Monday morning and ran errands all day in an attempt to tie up my loose ends. I finished packing, said some hard goodbyes and then hit the road around 5:00pm.

With the truck loaded down I only went about 60mph the whole way to Fort Collins. Eight hours later I rolled into FoCo, tired as shit but stoked to climb the next day. This morning I was back up at 8:00am and hitting the trailhead at 11:00pm after a big breakfast.

My original plan was to hike to Greyrock in Poudre Canyon, do a three pitch 10a trad route called Keep The River Clear, hike out and drive up canyon to the nearly zero approach Crystal Wall. Theres a two pitch sport line right up the vertical face that goes at 12c. Pitch one is 10b, pitch two is 12c. However, not only did we start late but the hike was significantly longer than I was expecting. Greyrock was good though. The hike was pretty chill for the most part. It was only an hour approach but very secluded rock. The peak is literally all stone. It just protrudes out of a valley with a meadow in it. The entire area was affected by a giant forest fire and everything was super apocalyptic. There was virtually no understory and everything was black. Every step in the trees forced thin whispy black clouds of dust into the air. After a little bit of route finding we sat down to eat at the base of the climb.

You could tell which one of us had a girlfriend. Ben opened a tupperware box full of teriyaki chicken, whipped out his fork, and began to munch while staring out at the view below us. Meanwhile, I spent 10 minutes prying my canned chicken open with a knife, before continuing to eat the chicken with said knife. After all was said and done, Ben was finishing his protein bar between dabs of his folded napkin while I let my dog lick all of the chicken juice off my hands.

The crux of the route was the first 40 feet. After some thin slab moves with little protection the route comes to a roof. The roof has two finger cracks that are leaning which allowed for me to lock in the upper crack while doing some awkward stemming moves into the lower crack. Some scrunched up moves coupled with some grunts and and awkward breathing patterns put me above the roof and cruising through easy ground. I put in about six pieces altogether in the last two pitches which was about 200 feet. It never got above 5.7 and was really fun, easy ground. We walked off the summit to find an excited puppy and trucked back down to the canyon floor.

By the time we were hiking down from Greyrock it was 4:00pm and the sun was setting. We opted out of the Crystal Wall and hit the liquor store instead.

Tomorrow I’m hitting the road by 6:00 am and heading to Spearfish to see some family. I’ll be climbing in the Rushmore/Needles/Cathedral spires of the Black Hills through Saturday and then slowly making my way southeast.

Below is a link to a short clip of the Fort Collins leg, it’s pretty shitty because I don’t care that much and I made the whole thing with my iPhone. Enjoy, feel free to leave some feedback

http://youtu.be/M24IISx7LXI

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: adventure, climbing, colorado, dogs, fort collins, front range, hiking, outdoors, Trad climbing, traveling | Leave a comment

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