Archive for March, 2010

We had an incred­i­ble week­end of expe­ri­ences! Here’s a sum­mary: on Fri­day after­noon we had a really cool tour of Appalachian State University’s Out­door Pro­grams. I think it made a big impres­sion on a lot of our TAASC kids. Some of them are now seri­ously con­sid­er­ing ASU as a poten­tial col­lege
to attend.

After that we ate sup­per at Black Cats, then on to the Banff Film Fes­ti­val. Banff con­tin­ues to be a real high­light of the year for all the TAASC kids.

We finally arrived at Cedar Rock Camp­ground around mid­night. At 7:30 a.m. Sat­ur­day we drove over to Stone Moun­tain State Park and began the approach hike to the sum­mit at 8:30 a.m. It was a tough one-​​hour hike because only six kids showed up to help with the Rappel-​​a-​​thon and we had to hump in 150 lbs. of ropes (4,000’), rig­ging gear and our per­sonal equip­ment. But every­one did great with no com­plaints. We rigged our brand new 1,000’ ropes in record time. Usu­ally it takes hours, but this crew com­pleted the task by 10:30 a.m.!

We only had two Rappel-​​a-​​thon guests (Bon­nie Wil­son and Sheila) so it didn’t take too long to get them down the moun­tain and hike back up.

At 2 p.m., 17 staff and kids from the Asheville TAASC pro­gram arrived. Our kids taught them how to descend and ascend 400 feet and at the end of the day, three of their 10 year-​​old girls got to do the 1,000’ rap­pel. It was a real high­light of their life and they were very appre­cia­tive and thank­ful for the oppor­tu­nity. The three girls were best friends since age three and had joined TAASC together two years ago.

Our newest mem­ber, Will Dun­can did great on his first TAASC trip, as did two broth­ers from Char­lotte, Austin (age 16) and Davis (12). They are mov­ing to Mor­gan­ton soon and are very excited about join­ing TAASC. They got to do the 1,000’ rap­pel also.

We pulled up and coiled all the ropes at the end of the day, then went to our favorite local restau­rant, Mazzini’s, to cel­e­brate the day. Since the weather fore­cast was for 90% rain on Sun­day, we decided to head on back to Mor­gan­ton and arrived at the gym at 10:30 p.m.

Thanks to all the kids who helped out with the Rappel-​​a-​​thon. They really worked hard and did a great job of teach­ing oth­ers, mon­i­tor­ing safety and hump­ing loads of gear!

Thanks to Bon­nie and Sheila for hav­ing the courage to brave the 1,000’ rap­pel and raise money for TAASC.

Thanks to Mike and Karen Ayotte and Mor­gan­ton Fed­eral Sav­ings and Loan for their gen­er­ous con­tri­bu­tion, which allowed us to pur­chase 4,000 feet of new rope to make the Rappel-​​a-​​thon much eas­ier to man­age (no knot passes).

And thanks to all the other par­ents and kids who raised money for the Rappel-​​a-​​thon, but weren’t able to attend.

Accord­ing to pledge reports and funds received, it appears that we raised about $2,000 for TAASC this year. Not bad in tough, eco­nomic times. Last year we raised about $5,000. Our bud­get con­tin­ues to run in the red, so please help us recruit new members.

This will help a lot towards the pur­chase of canoe and kayak pad­dles that we des­per­ately need. Thanks to Greg Franklin for arrang­ing a gen­er­ous deal.

We had the per­fect spring back­pack week­end trip. On Fri­day night we were star gaz­ing off The Pin­na­cle (across from Short­off Moun­tain at the south­ern end of the gorge); then we hiked to a nice camp­site on Yel­low Fork. On Sat­ur­day we back­packed fur­ther towards Dobson’s Knob. Some of the gang were able to get in a bit of climb­ing at a new area called “Black Fork.” Sun­day we woke up at 7:30 a.m., back­packed back to the bus and made it to Wendy’s around noon. It was a great trip to get every­one think­ing about the annual Appalachian Trail trip.

We had an incred­i­ble snow camp­ing trip this past week­end! We snow shoed into the Roar­ing Creek Val­ley Fri­day night, pitched camp on 12”+ snow and finally crawled into our warm bags at 1 a.m.!

The goal of the trip was to be com­fort­able and warm at ALL times and every­one did an out­stand­ing job of doing so. Every­one learned a lot about the art of cold weather camp­ing. Every­one wore our Mouse Boots, so we didn’t have to ever worry about cold toes or frost­bite even though the nights were
down to 20 degrees F.

On Sat­ur­day some folks played on Jacob’s snow­board and Jo and Will built a Quincy snow shel­ter (like an igloo). We had snow saws and snow shov­els. Alyssa pulled Mike’s Mt. McKin­ley expe­di­tion sled, which kept the weight off her bad shoulder.

In the after­noon we snow shoed up to the sum­mit of Lit­tle Hump Moun­tain which was even more of a win­ter won­der­land with 360-​​degree views.

After sup­per Sat­ur­day night we lay (lie lay lain!!!) (lay laid laid!!!) out on our foam pads and watched the stars for hours.

On Sun­day we broke camp and snow shoed 1.5 miles back to the bus and were back to the gym by 1:30 p.m.

All in all it was a mag­i­cal snow jour­ney. Every­one had a ball and stayed com­fort­able at all times and are eager to fur­ther develop their win­ter moun­taineer­ing skills!