The rock climbing trip yesterday was, in a word, cold. The group (one trip leader, the aforementioned Joel, two instructors, two male students and four female students) set off only about an hour late for a mountain in Georgia that's supposedly the best outdoor sports location in the whole Southeast. I've never been impressed by the South's "mountains", since I'm used to the Sierra Nevadas, which are actually mountains and not just tall hills.
Anyway, after a highly jolting, bouncy ride up the mountain we get out of the van and it's snowing. Luckily it was only a few flakes and stopped as soon as we set out on the mile-long hike to the climbing site. Our main task at the climbing site was for the students to set up successful anchors - systems of nylon webbing and carabiners off natural features that will support a rope people can use as a safety rope when they climb the wall. That meant we had to get to the top of the rock, which involved scrambling up inside and then up the rock toward the back, where it wasn't just a cliff face.
Catherine and my anchor went together pretty well, once we understood how to make the basic slings around rocks.
After all the anchors were set up and approved by the trip leader we went down and tried climbing on them. Catherine and I tried climbing ours and each only got halfway up because our hands froze so much as to restrict movement, and there was about five feet of smooth wall without footholds.
By this time, one student (who doesn't actually go to Tech but is a 30-something Atlanta businesswoman who does outdoor activities with the Tech group) was really cold and voicing it. I was shivering a lot but when I wasn't trying to do anything with my hands it was all right. So Joel led us over to another area, asked us what we would anchor off of, and after that, let the two girls who were cold go back to the van while the rest of the guys tried bouldering on some stuff (that's climbing only a short height without a rope). Catherine and I planned on walking around while they did that, so when Joel said he was going to stroll a certain direction and invited us we went along (he couldn't climb due to a broken rib he got while snowboarding over spring break).
He showed us all kinds of cool climbs in the area, even miming one climb. It's one thing to watch a person climb a rock wall. It's a completely different thing to see someone mime it. It was hilarious. There were neat crevices in the rock and one very neat rock that was like a triangle with it's widest direction the highest in the air with its point in the ground. Later on Catherine and I walked off in one direction for a while and just when we were thinking we should find Joel again (since we had no idea where we were) we turned around a rock and saw him, then he leapt to the side and zipped up really quick while yelling "Just taking a bathroom break!", which cracked us up to no end (from behind the rock we immediately went behind to give him privacy).
By the time we got back to where the guys were bouldering the instructors at least were ready to go, so we all got back in the van, bounced down the mountain, and went to a Mexican place for dinner. They say they have a Mexican place they go to at every rock climbing place they know.
All in all, it was a fun trip, now that I'm thawed out. Catherine and I have determined to get more synthetic clothing for the future trips we'll take.
