altitudejunkie

Going to the Red for the first time. Did my first sport climb and trad lead. First lead was a sickeningly easy trad route, a 5.1. It was only 20 feet. I could easily free solo it. Miguels pizza. Waking up at 8:30am to the sound of jingling gear. The bull frogs. Ale8. Spending 350 on gear. coming home with a new cam (BD #3). Taking my first lead fall on American Crack at Fortress. Being surrounded by "yeah, I'm going to do a 5.11 to warm up on..." kind of talk. Just being surrounded by climbers. It felt like home!!!

 I guess its not really a climbing memory, but the first time I saw the mountains and saw Vedauwoo, WY. It's what sparked my desire to climb. My dad and I were driving through wyoming and I saw these funny rocky outcroppings and told my dad that I wanted to go play on them. I had no idea that it was vedauwoo, and I had no idea that I was going to end up climbing there someday.

 And the first time I saw central and southern utah. I fell in love with sandstone. My dad kept telling me that the rock was so weak that it'd crumble under my feet. I told him he was wrong, and that I wanted to go climb on it. sure enough... he was wrong. :) Two weeks later I started climbing and I'll never turn back. By the way, totally off topic, Moab is one of the coolest towns EVER.

climbing in iowa, haha.