Well once again it’s been too long since I’ve updated my blog and once again I’m faking dates. Whoops. At the end of my last post I’d just been for a day trip to Warsaw and as it turned out that was the start of a trend of day trips climbing rather than weekends away. Also a little oddly this post isn’t going to be as much about climbing as normal as I’ve also been up to other stuff.
That said the main thing of note for the weekend after the one where I finished my last post was that, you’ve guessed it, I went climbing. No where particularly exciting as I only did an afternoon trip to Cliff Drive but it did turn into my best and most enjoyable session at Cliff Drive yet. Rob and I turned up mid afternoon and had done quite a bit of climbing by the time Seth and later Russell turned up. After doing the easy warm up I first top roped and then led a 10a. Well it gets 10a in the now rather dated guidebook but the description also no longer makes sense as doing it as described is most definitely a considerable number of grades harder than 10a. Anyway last time I got on it I managed to grab the chain but not clip it leading to a significant fall so I was rather pleased to get it first on top-rope and then on lead – I should add that this was by doing it the wat everyone now seems to do it rather than the guidebook way. This time it didn’t even feel that difficult. Don’t know if I’ve got better or whether I was just having a better day. Rob and I hung around for a while after Seth and Russell had turned up before heading off for beer and wings. Photos from the day are here.
The next weekend involved no outside climbing whatsoever. Instead Saturday morning found me heading to Elk City Lake to complete the last hike on a “Best Hikes in Kansas” list which can be found here. I arrived early afternoon and after some time taking pictures and playing with my new macro lens I headed off on the hike. The start was rather cool as it passed by the top and then underneath some, for Kansas, pretty impressive bluffs. No pictures I’m afraid as there were so many trees and the like around that getting a good photo would have been rather difficult. The rest of the hike was nowhere near so exciting and a bit of a slog as it got rather humid. So much so that on the way back I detoured onto the road rather than do the bluff bit of the walk again. After a bit of time driving around the rest of the lake and exploring the camp site options I set up camp and had an enjoyable evening drinking and reading. It was very relaxing which was exactly what I needed. The promised rain thankfully held off until after I went to bed but it certainly rained overnight and was still raining in the morning so I headed back to Lawrence. On the way back I got lunch in Iola, which happened to be where one of my friends was spending her weekdays working. Can’t say it was as bad as Kyrie had made it out to be although I can’t imagine it was a very fun place to spend the week either. Photos from the hike are here.
The following Saturday, after a rather lazy start to the day, I went to the Overland Park Arboretum to play with my camera and new lens some more. I was really rather impressed by the place and had an enjoyable copy of hours taking pictures and hiking. Wish I’d found the place earlier. I really rather like my new macro lens and although I was, and am, still learning how to best use it I think I got some reasonable photos that can be found here. Once I finished at the Arboretum I went into Kansas City to watch Despicable Me 2. For a kid’s film it was really rather enjoyable and made a nice end to the day.
The next day found Seth, Stephen and I heading to Trappers Camp for a day’s climbing. Unfortunately we only thought to check the water level when we were nearly there and it turned out that the bottom of the routes were indeed under water. A quick bit of discussion later and we were off to “The Quarry” a nearby climbing destination that we knew existed but that we’d never been too. The high lake level also effected the normal approach as the end of the road and beginning of the trail were also underwater but after some bush whacking we managed to work our way around the flooded section and arrived at the top of the crag. After looking at the scramble down for a while we decided it was doable and we were soon at the bottom of the crag and marvelling at the massive cave that was there. This had obviously been made by quarrying but was still impressively large and even had some aid routes across the roof. After some time exploring the cave we got on with doing a couple of routes, which after a bit of cleaning, turned out to be pretty decent. After those two decent routes Seth and I climbed out with packs on and this was one of the few times I’ve had to curse someone else for being too tall as I couldn’t reach the hold that Seth was telling me to use. Being tired and hot and wanting to go home I ended up pulling on a draw just to get back to the top of the crag. Unlike the first two routes I won’t be suggesting that anyone gets on this one. All in all we made the best of the day and it turned out very enjoyable and “The Quarry” was definitely worth visiting just to see the cave. Photos are here.
The main thing of note for the next weekend was that I went to the Overland Park Arboretum again – see I told you I liked it. Took plenty more photos, which are here. Other than that I don’t think I have a whole lot else to report from that weekend.
Also in this time scale I finished with physical therapy. I thought I’d reached the point of diminishing returns and that most of what I was doing when I went I could do much cheaper at home. After a discussion with my physical therapist we decided to stop my visits and see how it went and I’m pleased to say that so far it’s going well. Things also started happening with jobs in this period but I’ll leave all that sort of stuff to my next post.