Where’s That Fox?

Congratulations to Karen Peress for correctly identifying The South Face of the Petit Grepon and winning a new Black Diamond X4!!

IMG_3281

Coiling a Climbing Rope with Fox Mountain Guide Travis Weil

Ron Funderburke takes over as the AMGA Single Pitch Ins. Discipline Coordinator

Fox Mountain Guides Head guide Ron Funderburke took over the American Mountain Guides Single Pitch Instructor Discipline Coordinator position on Monday. This position puts Ron in charge of the direction of the program as well as the training for all the AMGA SPI providers across the country. Ron’s extensive experience instructing in single pitch terrain as well as his back ground in teaching helped him secure this position. Fox Mountain Guides is excited for Ron and as always values his leadership to keep us on the cutting edge of guiding and instuction in the United States and the world. Here is Ron’s statement to the AMGA membership:
m28a9629
With utmost excitement, I am pleased to accept the post as Discipline Coordinator for the AMGA SPI Program. The program has enjoyed some unprecedented successes since it’s inception in 2008, and that is a credit to the excellent students, instructors, providers, and trainers. My fervent hope is that everyone out there is still as invested as I am. The front lines of American climbing instruction have always been the single pitch crags, and single pitch instruction is the face of our guides association. That was true in 2003, when I took the AMGA Top Rope Site Manager Course from Adam Fox and Jim Taylor. It was true in 2008, when SPI was born, and it is true today as SPI providers around the country offer education and credentials to new instructors every week of the year. Deploying providers and trainers, standardizing curriculum and certification standards, updating textbooks and manuals, collaborating with our Technical Committee, and a thousand other tasks and inquiries and contributions in between, have been the labor of the SPI Discipline Coordinator. I learned a lot from watching Adam Fox bend his back to the common task. I hope I can use his example, and the inspiration that emanates from all those associated with the SPI program, to work tirelessly, collaborate, and affirm a strong standard. With a new manual brewing, new providers training, old providers refreshing, and hundreds of new single pitch instructors per year, I’m gonna’ hit the ground running, and I couldn’t be any more psyched.
— Ron Funderburke, SPI Discipline Coordinator and AMGA Certified Rock Guide

Locking Munter Hitch

Tyrollean Makes the Red River Gorge SPI Assessment a Go!

The AMGA Single Pitch Instructor assessment that was just taught in the Red River Gorge was a full-conditions course. Karsten had to set a tyrollean over the river because there was so much rain on the first day that there were flash floods!

thumb_photo copy 2

Find out More about our AMGA SPI instructor programs.

Where’s That Fox?

Congratulations to Michael Morely for correctly identifying this route as “White Trash” (12a) at Smith Rock and winning a BlueWater 9.1 Icon rope.

photofirty

New Hampshire Ice Trip Tops My List

The annual Fox Mountain Guides New Hampshire Ice Trip is well underway and in fact coming to a close! As one of my favorite trips, it saddens me to see it come to a end every year! The ice climbing in New Hampshire is world class with short approaches and everything from easy, beginner level ice to hardman mixed climbing.

Our month up here starts off with our Ice Climbing 101 Course and the Mountain Washington Valley Ice Fest. I am always psyched to hang out and watch slideshows from some of the best climbers in NH and the world as well as help put on the clinics for this event. Our 101 guests join us in the fun as we cook every night in the chalet and play games and the occasional joke (or magic trick this year) on each other.

We head out to local crags every day and make sure no one goes home without a forearm pump! For those wanting to stay a little longer or pick up where they left off from the previous year, the Ice 201 Course brings an even bigger “pump.” It culimnates with multi-pitch climbing for the all-around ice climbing experience!

Many clients come and book their favorite guide for a few days of climbing where they pick the objectives and come away with some great experiences.

I love this trip! So many good memories with great folks, and this year has added many more!!!

Hallet Peak: Putting the BlueWater 9.1 Icon to the Test

Fellow AMGA Rock Guide Lindsay Fixmer and I recently tested out the BlueWater 9.1 Icon on spectacular Hallet Peak in the Rocky Mountain National Park. As you can see, this rope sets a new standard for performance in the alpine:

Thinking About the Climbs We Guide

I love these climbs more than most. I know them like my children’s faces.  I love them on the hottest day.  I love them in accumulating snow.  I love them in the pouring rain.  And, I love when people meet the climbs I love.

Tonight, I can barely remember the first time I kissed my wife.  I remember the story of our first kiss, because I have told it many times.  But I don’t remember what I my own lips felt like back then, much less hers.  In the same manner, I do not remember when I first deciphered the Nose of Looking Glass Rock, or bashed my way to the top of Gumbie’s Rampage, or first dangling off the Tilted World.  Those climbs are so far into my past that the first time is no longer a feeling that I can remember.  They have become fluid, unpretentious, thoughtless motion.  Affectionate, but familiar, like kissing my wife.

That’s why I love when people meet the climbs that I love.  I can look into their faces, flash through the vortex of time, and experience, and hundreds of laps up these climbs, and revive my own past in that vicarious moment.

Sometimes, people do not love the climbs that I love.  My wife, for example, has never enjoyed a single climb that I treasure.  And could I love her any less?  Probably not. I love that she loves different climbs, and that each climb enjoys the exclusive affections of some of us, but not all of us.  It makes us all so much richer, so much more privileged and mirthful in each other’s company.

“Did you like that climb?” I have asked.

“Well, no offense, but I hated it.”  Some have responded.

My reaction is always the same.  I laugh with joy, despite myself.  So wonderfully rich and diverse are our experiences of the world, that my most revered climbs can be scorned in one breath and lauded in the next.

“I liked the first one we did much better.”  Some have said to me.

“The chossy warm-up I did because everything else was taken?????” I have responded.

“Yeah, it was fun, and the rock was so much different than everything else out here.”

And I can’t help but cackle with delight.  I love these climbs, all of them, I confess.  I’ve been taught to love them by the unpredictable preferences of my great friends, and guests, and partners.  It is always such an impressive thing for me, even after all these years.

A Quick Jaunt Up The Glass

Nineteen years ago I came to North Carolina for the first season at Camp Blue Star as a climbing ‘specialist’ to work for the summer. Nineteen years later I am still proud to be affiliated with Camp Blue Star and serve in a staff hiring and training role for their climbing program. This year, sounding like the start to a cheesy joke the climbing team is an American, a New Zealander and two English guys. Trey is AMGA Single Pitch Instructor Certified and Callum is the UK equivalent (MLTE Single Pitch Award) but Blue Star is still putting him through the AMGA Single Pitch Instructor Course and Assessment. All four will also be taking the two day AMGA Climbing Wall Instructor Course this weekend and eight day Wilderness First Responder certification (as well as five days of climbing training with me later this month). For me this is what sets Blue Star apart from other summer camps, the comprehensive unparalleled staff training for their Outdoor Adventure Program Staff.

Even though we don’t technically start climbing staff training for another week I rounded them up the other night at the dining hall to take them on a quick trip up the ‘Nose’ on Looking Glass Rock just for a bit of fun. The Nose is the Southeast classic climb home of the fabled ‘eyebrows’. The 400ft, four pitch 5.8 climb is a must do for any climber visiting the area. We headed out to Looking Glass, hiking to the base of The Nose and casting off on the first pitch at 7.30pm. I combined the first two pitches and belayed them up with parallel rope technique, reorganized and fired up to the ‘Parking Lot’ and the 3rd pitch ledge. For Callum, Henry and Grace this was their first taste of North Carolina Granite and view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

From the Parking Lot I lead the last pitch to the summit and brought them up to check out the stunning views and sunset from the top of Looking Glass. Three rapps down and we were coiling the ropes at 8.50pm, one hour twenty minutes with a team of five up the Nose and down again, not bad for the beginning of the season! I must say it’s nice to hike down the Nose trail by flashlight in these nice cool temps rather than running from a storm or sweating in 100 degree heat.

Here’s to another great summer season!