A Little Overdue (Part 2)

My luck has been pretty terrible lately when it comes to kayaking. Two weeks ago I had had definite plans to head back to the Ocoee one last time for the year, but ended up spraining my ankle while bouldering at Inner Peaks in Charlotte. When I tried to get down inside my boat to see if the trip was going to still go, I realized almost immediately that I was going to have to postpone traveling to that river again.

A few months ago I would have told you that I didn’t particularly enjoy bouldering and that I would much rather rope climb if I had the option. Over the summer I wasn’t really given the option and was pretty much forced to stick to bouldering. It’s amazing how much I think its opened my enjoyment of climbing up for me. There is a social component to bouldering that is really enjoyable to participate it. I also have definitely noticed improvement on my part.

A video posted by Derek Dellinger (@dndelli) on Jul 28, 2016 at 5:26pm PDT

Though I have noticed that it is sometimes hard for me to balance my time climbing. I sometimes decide to warm-up with an easy boulder or two and find myself there for an hour or more. On top of that, I realized after coming back to UNCG, the new climbing wall is its own beast. It may not be the steepest wall around, but it is definitely tall. It has been a good chance for me to work on my endurance. Looking forward to having Adam come visit one weekend to check it out!

Unfortunately I am still trying to recover from my ankle injury and there are days when it hurts way worse than others. Hopefully a few days of rest will do it some good.

A Little Overdue (Part 1)

It has been over two months since my last post. So for those of you who are counting, I have missed quite a few posts. The saddest thing is that I have had things to post about, but just never got around to it. This year working at camp was pretty crazy and without Evan there it was hard to remind myself to go write a post. In order to avoid overloading this post with a wall of text I am probably going to break it up into at least two smaller posts.

This summer was another summer spent on the Upper Green. I ended up taking three people on their first whitewater kayaking trips. All of them did pretty well and the two that got to go down a second time impressed me with how much they improved between trips. It is always really fun to get to see people having fun and hopefully falling in love with the sport. After finishing up on the Upper we walked into the bottom of the Narrows so they could get a look at bigger rapids.

Jamie dropping into Bayless' Boof!

I also got the chance to have fun on the Green with Evan one weekend before he moved across the country. Deserting me! Actually I am really excited for him and the opportunities that await him over there. It was a reminder of how different guiding a trip is from just going on one. I think both style of trips are fun, but one can defintely become more stressful. The summer definitely helped me figure out how to prevent that stress best and will definitely come in handy in the future.

Patrick styling the slide at Bayless' Boof!

Jessica punching through the Play Wave at the takeout!

Evan allowed me to walk him into the bottom of the Narrows to look at Toilet Bowl (Class IV) and Hammer Factor (Class V). Evan had set a goal at the start of the year to run his first Class IV on a natural river. Despite giving me a little bit of a scared when he disappeared for a little bit while I was running Hammer Factor I think it was a successful day for both of us. He ended up running Toilet Bowl twice.

Was a summer full of great paddling! Looking forward to heading back to the Ocoee since the a few weekends ago when I was scheduled to go I ended up getting very sick.