The desire to leave Las Vegas has been at the forefront of our to-do list for sometime now. The variety of climbing and year-round climbing weather make it hard to deny the quality of life there, but Vegas has a way of sucking the life and energy out of you. My girlfriend Jodi grew up with a very non-Vegas style childhood in a small town setting up in Minnesota and she found her way to Vegas through a job offer that was worth moving for. I grew up in San Diego, then moved to Salt Lake City to be a rock climber, and then met Jodi and soon found myself living with her in Vegas for the past two years. We both knew that Vegas isn’t a place we want to live forever, but it was certainly convenient for the time being. Australia has been on my list of things to do for several years now. Time, money, and other obligations have prevented me from visiting up until this year. We bought our tickets to travel for 2-3 weeks, and then later decided we’d rather not come back to Vegas afterwards. So my girlfriend quit her job and we decided to go for 3 months. The idea is to find work in Australia and hopefully stay for longer, and if not, come back to the U.S. after a wonderful climbing trip and find a job and a place to live somewhere in the U.S.

I had to leave to come out to West Virginia for the whole month of May, so before I left, I packed up our entire household possessions and filled a UHAUL truck and moved everything to my parents house in San Diego. Jodi moved in with her friend for her last couple weeks of work, and I drove out to West Virginia from San Diego with my friend Scotty just in time for my slideshow at the annual Cinco de Mayo party at Seneca Rocks in northern West Virginia. I woke up Wednesday at about 6am, packed the UHAUL all day, left Vegas at midnight, arrived in San Diego at 6am, unpacked, met Scotty at the UHAUL store at 9am, and arrived 48 hours later in West Virginia. From Wednesday at 6am until Saturday night at midnight after my slideshow, I did 90 hours with about 3 hours of sleep. It was by far the gnarliest day of my life. Life gets crazy sometimes, but it felt good to move out of Vegas, and get out to the East Coast for four weeks. I had to say goodbye to my place of residence for the past two years....

The Seneca Rocks party went well, lot of grilling, kegs, margaritas, and a salsa competition. I did my slideshow and I think nobody fell asleep, so that’s good I suppose.

Kurt on grill duty

Lot’s of beer to drink...

Justin (from Friksn clothing) creating margaritas

Salsa competition...

Good times with Kurt Smith...

After a short day in Seneca watching the rain fall, we left for the New River Gorge in Fayetteville, WV. I set up my tent in Kurt and Elaina’s backyard next to a rhododendron flower tree, and made my new home for the next 3 weeks.

Two days later the flowers bloomed and it looked like this...

Rainy and humid weather has been a slight bummer for climbing, but it could be worse, and we’ve been able to get out and have some fun.

I found a cool project I was psyched on at a newer cliff called Area 51. The line had been bolted a few years back and abandoned, so I took the liberty of re-bolting 3 of the 12 bolts to follow a better line and got the First Ascent after a few days. I called it “The Moist Bass Line” and gave it a 14a (8b+) rating.

The New River Rendezvous was the main reason why I came all the way out to West Virginia. The 3-day climbing festival went off with a bang. I taught clinics and did a slideshow/movie premier of my Vietnam deep water soloing segment in the latest DVD out called, “The Players” from BS Productions.

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