My Vanderbilt crew came out during spring break. This is what the cool kids at divinity school look like.
Well, I didn’t get the job on Rainier. It’s disappointing, but that’s the chance you take when you try. There are plenty of compelling reasons to go back to the river, and I’m already looking forward to being closer to home for a few months. I’m sure there will be a time or two when I’ll wonder what it looks like on the Rainier summit at that moment, but there are worse places to daydream than a sun-drenched riverbank. If any of you have whitewater wishes, contact the NOC and come see me this summer – good times guaranteed.
Matt raps off Genesis I. He thought this picture was better than all the rest; I think it looks about the same.
Before I go anywhere, though, I have to pack up and say my goodbyes to Bozeman. There’s a decent chance that I’ll find myself back in Montana come August, but that’d be three hours away in Missoula; weekend trips to Hyalite notwithstanding, my time here has likely come to an end. I’ll miss it. Life’s great out here. When I left Atlanta last October, I was looking forward to endless ice pitches, relaxing book pages, daily mountain views, and a different kind of country; I found it all.
I climbed more than sixty days this winter – some of those, like the Sphinx epic and the Cody trips, rank among my most memorable days in the mountains; most were the standard crag sessions that make the others possible. I finished several books that have been on my shelf for years and augmented my collection with several more that will keep me busy this summer and beyond. I’m ashamed to say that it often required the exclamations of my visiting friends to remind me of the simple beauty of the ambient mountains that had, in the months that I spent here, faded into the background.
Jason shows off his (small) rainbow trout.
The most lasting effect of my time here may be a simple reinforcement of the fact that I’m at my happiest when I put myself into situations where access to great climbing, great running, and the great outdoors comes easy and often. Big trips will always be motivators and rewards, but I don’t want to be in a place where the greater part of my climbing days requires any more planning than “right on, see you then.” I’m proud to say I’ll be living that lesson for the foreseeable future as climbing access was the common denominator among my school applications. When I leave the river at the end of this next summer, my destination expectations will be pretty much the same as they were when I pointed toward Bozeman eight months ago. Granted, the books in front of me will be less relaxing, but the rest – the mountains, the new horizons, the climbing – will change only in style and location.
We’ll be leaving Bozeman a week from yesterday and driving the hours upon miles back toward homes and rivers and Braves games and Chick-fil-A. But this is no time for lazy reminiscence; we’ve got more friends in town this week, and the roads are just starting to clear up at Glacier. Adventure awaits; home will have to.
Rob ascends the Moose Knuckle variation on G1.
