What's A Henway???

July 26th, 2012: Well, it’s been over a week now since we’ve entered this mysterious terrain. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of eating breakfast (today was oatmeal with brown sugar, cinnamon and craisins) while overlooking rocks and streams and lakes and flowers and animals. I don’t think I want to leave…

Our lesson today was on webbing and cordelette knots. Overhand, overhand around something, bowlan, autoblock, clove hitch, E.D.K., figure 8’s.  I LOVE knots! They are so much fun to learn and do. I think it’s because I like the structure in it. It has to be done this way, or else it’s wrong. I find I like some structure in my life. Out here in the wilderness, there is structure but it’s loose since you can never quite tell what the weather will do or other factors that you cannot control out here. But knots…. Knots I can control. I can control if they are right, and I can control which one I choose to use. I like that little bit of control, and it’s all I need out here.

We also learned about anchor building and how to tell if it is a good anchor or not. WOWZA! Overwhelming to say the least. I think I feel this away only because I know that safety is in jeopardy if the anchor is built incorrectly. It still looks like it’ll be fun to actually get to build anchors and climb on them; I just hope that someone will say something if something is wrong!  I got to practice building an anchor on the ground with Lillie and Paige. We worked well together and listened to each other. Adam even gave us a time limit and restrictions on what we could use and we succeeded in building an anchor in under 10 minutes! It was a great feeling.

When we got over to the crag and trekked up to the top of our climbs, I was a little nervous. Tyler and I were about to make an anchor that we would rappel down. We looked at our location, and dwelled quite a long while on where the heck to anchor anything! We used our information to try to develop the best anchor possible, but definitely went back and forth a few times.  Tyler is quiet, but was definitely interested in working with me to figure it out which I was excited about. I tried to make him feel comfortable and accepted during the process, as I sometimes sense that he feels left out. He just has a shy personality, but is a really nice kid. So the teacher came out in me a bit and I would check my thoughts with him while building my side of the anchor and he in turn did the same. It opened up a line of communication which was my goal. After nervously checking in with my instructors about if it was okay, my nerves still got the best of me. My instructors are great, but man, can they be vague sometimes. When asked if it was good, they would just refer to our lesson and ask me if I thought it was a “great” anchor. WHAT THE HECK! Tell me yes or no!!!!!  I think for me, I was just really nervous to have someone’s life in my hands and when I basically asked for affirmation that it was safe and didn’t get the straight forward answer I had expected, I was a bit surprised. Well, I guess in the end, you can never be too positive if it’ll work, but as long as I followed the instruction, I’d have to assume it was okay to use. (ut-oh….am I starting to be vague like my instructors??????)

We learned how to rappel and proceeded to rappel twice, once with an autoblock and once with a firemans backup. Rappelling is a lot of fun! BUT, it was made clear by my instructor Adam that this is where the most deaths and accidents occur. Oh crud… this made me nervous. I appreciate knowing this information, so that I know now not to ever get too comfortable setting it up and then miss something. I will always triple check my system on a rappel. But the downfall is that I think I am thinking toooooo much about setting it up that I get confused and mess it up. Hopefully this will subside and I can get my act together. I’m not afraid to complete the actually rappel, I’m just afraid that I set it up wrong.

After a long day of anchors, we cooked dinner. Chase and I forced our young group member Kasey to cook. He wasn’t happy, as he had avoided major cooking in his previous cook group. But not in mine! We were a team and it was his turn. I stayed with him and showed him what to do and helped him out and he made an excellent pasta with tomato sauce. Then…. He didn’t want to clean. Well, if it’s your turn it’s your turn…. So he did after some pushing and strong hints from Chase and I. I hope this stops, because I don’t feel like carrying someone’s weight in duties and really don’t appreciate the negativity it causes among groups when someone tries to avoid doing duties. I don’t how this is going to work out though.  After learning about diabetes and Jack teaching us about Pika’s, we retired to our tents. This is where Kasey finally admitted to us that he could care less about his grade. The grade doesn’t matter, so he isn’t going to care that much about the little things. Chase and I gave each other a look. We were in for a struggle with this tentmate. I was glad to know that Chase was on my side and willing to go through this with me and fight with me as a team. We needed to make Kasey realize that he is a part of a group and him saying and acting those things out are not going to bode well with anyone here and will in turn make his trip and parts of ours miserable. Good luck to us.


July 27th, 2012:  Breakfast today was just cereal… Kasey’s cooking morning so we weren’t surprised at the selection. But we are taking our time with him and not going too hard too soon on him. Our lesson was on how to make PIZZA!!!  Andrew taught us how to make the dough and how to keep our dough babies safe and growing during the day.  Then Adam taught us about the stages of group development. We are in the Norming/Performing stage I believe. We are all getting along, but… I think with Kasey in our group, we may have some storming around the corner for Chase and I and Kasey. We’ll see how it goes.

We got some quiet time to reflect and journal so I took a seat on a great rock and spent a few minutes just looking at the towers in the distance. They are so mesmerizing and beautiful. Here is my word for word reflection:

“Still feel like crying when I’m alone. Not sure why? I don’t miss home, or people really…maybe it’s the fact that I took so long to experience this beauty and simplicity. We smell, we fart, we talk of poop and then what to eat. We talk of simple things, we do simple things like climb rocks and tie knots. We use our brain in a different way. I am less stressed and just think about what I am doing now or the rock I will climb later. There is no forward thinking really… whatever happens, happens.”

My goals for this course are to experience lead climbing, a multipitch climb, and work on my climbing technique and just keep challenging myself.

I hear Jared trundling rocks in the distance as I sit on a rock in silence. He is getting rid of loose rocks or attempting to create climbs that we can be safe on. Adam is with him and they are about 100-200 yards from me, suspended from ropes with ice axes, doing work so that we can play, learn, challenge, and push ourselves.  I can’t say I can describe this feeling I have in words. The feeling I have towards my instructors, nor the feeling I have about myself, nor the feeling I have about this experience. I hope it comes. A part of me wishes it were me on that rock, suspended from ropes, trundling rocks for students to climb. I am beginning to envy the lives my instructors lead. I want to be with them, learn from them, climb with them, hang with them, and be able to continue to have them impact my life in the positive ways they already have. I hope they know that I have an immense level of respect and admiration for who they are and what they do. Wonder if this will change?

When quiet time is over, we learn the grading system of climbs from Andrew and then head to the crag for some climbing. It was exciting! Climbed some 5.8’s, some 5.10’s…and then watched a lead climb demonstration that Andrew and Jared did. After this we got to try lead belaying. I’m hoping I get the chance to lead climb, but I’m not quite sure I’ll get to that level. We’ll see. Jared said that if we aren’t going to lead climb, the least we can do is be a great lead belayer. So we’ll start there.  I got on belay and before Jared goes up to take a whipper on me so that I can see what it would feel like, he asks me how much I weigh. I told him about 110, and he said “okay good, I’m only 140” (an apparent LIE that I would find out later….)  Should I be worried????? I wasn’t anchored… oh well. I’m always game for trying new things!  Andrew back-up belayed me and warned me about going into the wall when Jared fell since he was heavier than me. So I was prepared for that. He yelled “falling” and I took my left hand to join my right hand on the break and barely moved. WHAT THE HECK!? I had prepared myself big time for this wimpy moment?  Jared then comes down and says great job and I just look at him angrily. I then say “that was wimpy. Get back up there and do a REAL one… I need to know how it REALLY feels.”  Thinking that he’d just shake me off and move on, I smiled to make sure he knew I was playing (well…half playing… I did want him to go up again).  Then, he turned around and headed right back up the rock to do it again. OH BOY! He yelled “falling” and this time it was MUCH different. My left hand went to the brake and I flew in towards the rock. To brace my shoulder from smashing the rock, I let go of the brake with my right hand and it went to the rock before my shoulder did. IT WAS AWESOME! However…. I technically failed. Jared was completely safe, and I was NOT going to let him fall since my left hand was glued tight to the brake, BUT I did remove my “brake hand” from the rope. Now I could have been upset, but instead I thought to myself, “well, now that I know what it would feel like, and I know what not to do, I will NEVER mess that up again. I know for a fact that I needed to feel that in order to know for the next time what it would be like to take someone’s whipper and I will do great next time.”  There’s that positive thinking!  To end the day at the crag, I got belay checked and was now okayed to belay on my own without a back-up belayer. Moving up in the world I tell ya!  Jared also began his slight jabs at me, which would continue for the rest of our time in the Winds. And I would not mind at all. =-)   While in the midst of a climb, he shouts up to me “Hey Karyn…watch out for that henway!” right as I was about to make a grab. I stop suddenly… and think to myself, what the heck! We didn’t learn that lingo yet! I shouted back down quickly “what’s a henway????” and he replies with… “ohh… I don’t know…maybe a few pounds.” I then shook my head, jokingly called him a childish name and proceeded with my climb. What a great day it was today!

For dinner we made calzones and Chase had a pizza. HEAVEN IN MY MOUTH! It tasted SO good!  Then Jack went onto the hot seat. Tomorrow we are scheduled to hike to Big Sandy where we will be able to see the Cirques. It’ll be 5.5 miles up 1000 feet and then down 1000 feet. Let’s do this!