I only climb a couple 5.14s every 20-25 years or so, so when I do, I like to make them count. These are very, very special routes to me, not just because of the challenge they represented for me, but because they are each, in their own way, incredible aesthetic experiences.
Still Life (FA, 1999), Summersville Lake NRG
Mango Tango (2nd ascent, 2001 after Scott Franklin’s 1989 FA), Meadow River, New River Gorge
Green Magic in the Hills (FA, 2022), Seneca Rocks, West by God Virginia
Griefeater (FA, 2023), Morgantown, WV
Link to the old grainy Mango Tango vid from @the.wolpertinger in my bio.
NRG/Seneca 5-day swing thru West by God Virginia…great times with many, many friends and all-around fantastic rock climbers and musicians. Tons of new terrain and LOTS more trad than I normally do including a nail-biting repeat of Cal Swoager’s notorious The Bell (5.12R) (more on that one…an all-timer…in a later post). Some of the highlights from the tick list…
Sport day: Mikey Williams’s Wild Rumpus (5.13b) and a flash (unless I forgot that I did it before?) of Lamda (5.12b) Upper Meadow
Zag (5.8), Layback (5.9), Handsome and Well Hung (5.11a)…lovely gear leads at Bridge Butt
At Seneca: Spinnaker (5.11 sport), Bring on the Nubiles (5.9 gear) and followed on Ye Gods and Little Fishes, Gunsight to South Peak, and Westpole
Plus lovely gear and sport lines at other Seneca adjacent crags, all capped off by ringing The 🔔!
40 foot whippers, southern sandstone testpieces, and going head to head with Chris Sharma & Tommy Caldwell in the early comp days. This week’s episode with Joel Brady was true lesson in Southern climbing history and @vampireprofessor sure knew how to deliver!
@listentogroundup on your favorite podcast platform to hear the Banjo Man dive deep on his decades of nails hard climbing experience at classic areas like the New River Gorge and Seneca Rocks
Cover Photo: @calebjhills
#newrivergorge #senecarocks #climbinginspiration #sportclimbing #steepsouth #climbon #climblife #rockclimbing
Weekly Poll: West Virginia’s best crags
ASCEND Members, Courtney and Joel, attempted to climb every rope route at ASCEND Point Breeze on a busy weekend afternoon. They laughed, they cried (they didn't really), they climbed, they got flappers, but more than anything they learned a valuable lesson... crazy challenges are meant to be done with friends! Have fun and stay safe out there, climbers!
Watch the full-length video now at ascendclimbing.com/blog.
Wait what??? At the crag??? I HOPE this is a joke? Wait, it IS a joke??? Ok, wow got me again this year. Good one guys and not at all lazy lolzlolzlolzlolzzz.
I gave a real humdinger of a talk for SWPA Climbers Coalition @swpacc before #reelrocktour and I’m told that no one listened to a word of it, thanks to this little kid, who happens to be my son, mimicking my every movement and mannerism the entire time (and which I only noticed 3/4 of the way through). HOPE EVERYONE ENJOYED VAUgHN’s COMEDY ROUTINE InSTEAD OF THE VERY VERY ImPoRTaNT STUFF I HAD TO SAy!!! 🤦♂️ @reelrock
Throwback to those times when I would swing by and hang out with the slackliners on campus in between classes. Hey there, fellow kids…I’m not a regular professor, I’m a cool professor 👨🏫
A project 28 years in the making….by the end of my first outdoor season at the New (1997), I was climbing mid 5.12, and I decided to hop on something REALLY hard, with the specific goal of getting my a$$ properly kicked, so that I could put stuff more in my range in perspective: “5.12 isn’t hard…you want to see real difficulty?” Like that. Plus it was to have some first hand experience of something aspirational. The Doug Reed mega classic Titan’s Dice fit the bill. The .13a grade really does not do this thing justice. It’s an overhanging flaring offwidth through hand jams and underclings that feels like wrestling with an alligator, followed by bizarre, technical, and thuggy roof climbing. Full value. In 1997 I got as far as…the third bolt, which DESTROYED me (as I had hoped it would). And the next season really was a breakout year for me, as planned…I had become very serious about climbing very hard things. In this way, the TD beatdown was a critical moment in my climbing development. But last week, serendipitously watching Jibe Tribout’s notorious flash of TD in South’s Steepest (“C’est bizarre!”), it suddenly dawned on me that I never went back for some reason. And I realized that the reason was…in my mind it was the hardest route in the world. And so I resolved to close the loop. Tried for the retroflash and NOPE! It’s just as hard at 44 as I remember it being at 16 😱 But today I finished it with the fight of my life. Titans Dice, the hardest route in the world ✅
As I prepare for another round on my project, Mandril, thought I would share some of the mental tactics I’ve begun using, really only starting in the last couple of years. Specifically, as I close in on a send, I try to give explicit voice to all of the things I’m telling myself, consciously or unconsciously, that are contributing to my uncertainty about whether I will do it, the nagging doubts preventing me from *deciding* to do it. There are always so many more than I realized, btw. Then, it’s about deciding which of those are true and which aren’t, doing the psychological work to counter the doubts, and identifying prep and training and on route psychology strategies to address each…all so that I can *decide* to do it. Sometimes this works…and sometimes it doesn’t. (See: Green Magic ✅ and Coal Train ❌) On a related note, I just listened to @jasonkehl_cryptochild on @runoutpodcast lamenting Instagram climbing monoculture and the proliferation of pre-spray as “nauseating”…what can I say except that I feel so…seen. 🥹🤣💪
The weather has broken…let the fireside banjo videos commence. A bit of The Dubliners’ Leaving of Liverpool for the holiday weekend, Vaughn gets a crash course in the hellish potential of life at sea, and we nearly light our yard on fire.🔥 🪕 🌊
