Thank you Earth Treks for granting me this amazing opportunity. Just being able to dream big during the application process was a great reward, and winning the trip was amazing. Thank you to everyone who supported this blog and for your comments, I really think you helped me to win. Thank you Ben for our friendship and climbing partnership. Thank you Hilary for being my bride, mother of my children, supporter, and encourager. Thank you Avi for leading a life that makes us want to celebrate and remember it, see you in heaven.
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"A picture is worth a thousand words" as the saying goes. And I like to think an experience is worth a thousand pictures. I don't have a thousand pictures to share with you but I do have a few. Check out the link below if you would like to see some pictures form the trip. Please excuse the lack a photos from the climbing on the Armadillo route. I wish I could say we did it on purpose to keep the rich tradition of adventure in Baxter climbing alive. Truth be told our fingers were too cold to work the camera, and we wouldn't dare unzip a pocket for fear of letting the wind rip even more heat away from us, and this was July! ***Photographs of the Trip***Welcome Mathias Joseph Bateman to Team O negative. Born March 28 Mathias has been a joyous addition to our family. Bryce and Joel are great big brothers to him. Hilary made childbirth look like child's play as usual.
What is Team O negative? The red cross's best friend. Hilary and I are both O negative blood type, so all our children are also. We're growing the team to keep you safe in the event of an emergency. Although as it stands the team may be occupied with taking care of itself. Bryce recently suffered his first black eye after being head butted by Joel. Try cutting in line with him and its "Welcome to Spartan school" . The end of the school year is always a busy time. Recent activities have included the 8th grade vs faculty softball game, field day, and helping a friend lay out his bicycle orienteering course. I have been able to pick up a couple of shifts at ET recently. After the intro class last weekend I was able to rope up with Zac and Julz. (To avoid the spray-a-thon stop reading here.) Recently I have only been able to boulder occasionally, so I was super happy to climb on a rope, which is more my cup of tea, and my cup of tea is more a cup of coffee...anyway. I was able to flash a 5.11c and on site a 5.12b. At the Christmas party Chris Warner told me he was excited for my trip because somebody had to "represent for us old guys". I had never thought of myself in his peer group of "old guys", but if it comes with the "old man strength" to be able to onsite 5.12b after a month off ropes I'll take it! Last night I was taking turns trying a boulder problem with another climber. After I finished my go I started to give the crux holds a brushing for my fellow climber. He stopped me saying, “don’t waste that brushing on me”, meaning that he wasn't going to send that try. Being Valentine's day, it reminded me of my bittersweet weekend in France on a Valentine's day a couple years ago. Bouldering in Fontainebleau, the climbers that I managed to tag along with would always insist with their French accents that they brush the holds before my next attempt. My trip to France was one part of my first “scholarship” of sorts. My brother in law was working for the airlines and listed me as his registered companion. I had free flights for a year! Allowing me to do things like fly to Paris for the weekend. How rad! While it is fun to reminisce about those experiences I always try to remember to enjoy where I am, and to do what's good where I’m at. Example, enjoy Patapsco state park right now because it's right near my house. I think there is a saying like… enjoy what you have now or you will never be happy. True. And of course I always enjoy the company of my lovely wife and family, especially on Valentine's day.
Christmas vacation was great! My family got to spend lots of time together and see extended family and friends who have moved away but came back to visit. It was so nice to share in their joy and company. With that rest comes a building of motivation to do more climbing. I'm heading to Earth Treks Columbia after work today to get in a session. And luckily I will have lots of extra energy from all the Christmas cookies!
No, but I would have. Remember when Derek is so excited to win the male model of the year award that he walks up to the podium with Hansel's photo flashing “winner” behind him? Oh, you haven't watched Zoolander enough times to recite it from memory? Well that's what happened. And it would have happened to me had I not won. But fortunatley I did! During the Earth Treks holiday party when Chris Warner was about to announce the Columbia winner of the Avi Award I was ready to scream! Thank you Earth Treks for this amazing opportunity. Taking the time to reflect and write during the application process has been a blessing. Thank you for the support from my family, friends and coworkers. Oh, and after the winners were announced, we threw down and partied hard on the dance floor!
As I was hiking Old Rag last week I started daydreaming about the Camp 4 bathroom stalls. They are covered with graffiti. One piece of graffiti was a “record book”. A trail to the top of Yosemite point leaves from the Camp 4 parking lot. A person carved into the thick plastic resin stall, “Top of yosemite point 1:14, beat that”. Others carved their times beneath it. Since carving on bathroom stalls isn't my style, I’ll write it here; Old rag marathon 13hrs 10 minutes, beat that, I’m sure you can. You can do old rag as a 9 mile loop. I don't know when I got the idea, but I finally did it last week, 3 laps on Old Rag’s 9 mile loop to make a 27 mile hike. Another “hall pass” (thanks family) landed me in the back of our van sleeping in the parking lot to get an early start for the hike. Sidenote for parents of children with climbing dreams, keep them out of a van for as long as possible if you want them to have a “normal” life, we just got a van, but I bet if we had it earlier we may be in it full time like others “livin the dream”. Anyway, while completing my second lap a guy around my age hiking with I assume his parents and family asked me if I was hiking this by myself. I answered yes and he told me “congratulations”. I said thanks, and of course didn't mention that I was in fact hiking it for the second of three times that day. I save that kind of arrogant spray for blog posts. I thought it was weird that he would congratulate me on that. On lap three I was going through the “rock scramble” portion of the hike well after dark, by headlamp, with the cold night wind blowing over the exposed granite ridge, having not seen another person in hours. I joked to myself, Congratulations, NOW you are doing this by yourself! I got back to the car 13hrs 10 min after starting. As soon as I fired up the engine and turned out of the gravel parking lot my headlights landed on a big brown bear in the road. The bear started running down the road and I followed it at a distance. I guess I wasn't as alone as I thought.
Thanks everyone for your support and comments. The Earth Treks Holiday party is this weekend and the winner of the Avi Scholarship will be announced. Stay tuned. Is Tommy Caldwell the Jerry Garcia of rock climbing? They are both rock stars and they are both missing a finger. I’ll let you be the judge.
On Saturday I got my “hall pass” as Hilary’s Uncle Steve puts it. After the morning with the family I had a majority of the day devoted to solo adventuring. I drove down to Carderock while listening to the latest Enormocast. My Aunt Bonnie recently gave me her really cool 70’s? high end road bike (shimano 600 components). I had taken it for a test ride the day before, and today would be a even better assessement. From Carderock I rode the C&O to the great falls overlook. Then I locked up the bike and did the billy goat trail. Next I rode back to Carderock and did some “bouldering” just before sunset. I drove to Earth Treks Crystal city where ET was hosting the rock project. It was my first visit to the Crystal City gym. I blindly followed my GPS until I pulled into an underground parking garage. Small Earth Treks signs through a winding, narrow, concrete hallway led me to a nondescript metal door with the same ET sign on it. When I opened that door my mind was blown! From climbing at Carderock all alone while watching the sunset I now entered into a pulsing rave of a climbing gym. Techno music was thumping, illuminated climbing walls appeared through the glass overlook near the entrance, the staff welcomed me, pro climbers walked past me, and I stumbled around trying to take it all in. It was more surreal to me that at age 18 walking into a Las Vegas casino for the first time after pedaling my way there through Death Valley on a bicycle, sincerely. This gym is nuts! I got to boulder some more as Jerry… I mean Tommy, and the other rock stars finished signing posters for all their adoring fans. The reason I had the idea for the DC area adventures was to end up at Crystal City where Tommy Caldwell and other pro climbers would be giving presentations. A major point of the night was conservation and preservation of our climbing areas. It made me happy to be a part of it, and reassured me that the service component of our proposed trip was crucial. What outdoor spaces do you cherish? Every user makes an impact. How can yours be a positive one? I read through my application one last time and just clicked submit to finalize my trip proposal. I'm super excited thinking about all the possibilities and adventures that await this summer. I was also really happy to find out that Baxter State Park has a volunteer program that we will be able to work with during our time there. Keep your fingers crossed, I want to win this!
I was able to reach Ben on the phone yesterday. I thought doing technical climbing on Mt. Katahdin in Baxter state park, Maine, would be the coolest objective. Before I could even try to convince Ben of this he started telling me about how that was what he wanted to do too! Baxter is a big park and the climbing will be remote. From what I remember reading in Yankee Rock and Ice by Laura & Guy Waterman there is no guidebook to Katahdin, only a book of notes left from other climbers at the rangers station. Sounds like an adventure! I remember the book describing a base camp near a lake at the base of a mountain cirque. Climbers camp by the lake and climb alpine routes from there. We will see how good my memory is.
Next up - What will be the best way of incorporating Avi's legacy into our trip? Time for some research. What does the community or environment up there need. Leave comment if you have some beta. |
Travis BatemanEarth Treks Employee Since 1997 Archives
October 2017
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