1999 - How I got started Climbing

I was first introduced to climbing by my buddy Paul. He took me to Carderock, MD and we did some simple free soloing back in the 1980's. We never used gear (not even shoes). Because of this, we never excelled or improved much.

After a near death experience while free soloing I stopped. I did not climb again until January of 1999. Once again it was Paul (this time in Arizona) who took me out climbing. He had a friend that had extra harnesses and plenty of gear. We rented shoes and climbed all day. I fell completely head over heels and started buying gear the moment I returned home to Maryland. Before I knew it, I had spent around $2000 on rope, webbing, harness, shoes, backpack, gear sling, nuts, cams, tri-cams, hexes and slings.

Now that I owned all of this gear I needed to learn the basics. So, I bought John Long's famous book "How to Rock Climb." And here is the rest of the story:

We started our climbing on April 30, 1999. We visited the Appalachian Trail at South Mountain. There is a cluster of rocks there named Annapolis Rocks and Black Rocks. We started our climbing expedition by going and checking out the different rocks and finding camping areas around them. We spent most of our weekend in pain and agony. (We are in no shape to be doing this!)

I guess it is time to introduce ourselves. I am Vaughn Ripley, a 32 year old male computer consulting company owner. And Joe Duva, a 22 year old male Oracle database administrator is one of my close friends. We decided together that climbing would be a blast! So, here we are. What we wanted to do with this web page was chronicle or journalize our expeditions. We have several climbing and hiking goals. They include, starting this next weekend with climbing class and finishing somewhere down the line on Devil's Tower. The one on "Close Encounters of a Third Kind." Also, more near term: successfully climbing Faint's Roof. A 5.10a thirty foot roof at Annapolis Rocks. And hiking the entire Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. Since it is over 2,100 miles, this usually takes around 6 months and only around 300+ people have completed the trek!

Well, we setup our rock climbing training class for this coming Saturday, May 8, 1999 at 10AM. We are psyched! Anyway, we will be going over the basics. I am already familiar with the knots, belaying and stuff. But, both Joe and I feel that the smartest thing to do is take a course from professionals who are veterans.

The class was terrific. It helped me to remember knots, technique and my abilities. We are signed up to take another course on May 22, 1999. This course is level two and will cover basic webbing techniques and anchoring. We are excited as this class will free us to go at it! Anyway, if you are looking for a good class in the DC metro area, check out www.outerquest.com, they rule!

Wow!!! A whole bunch has happened since the last time I wrote. Joe and I were supposed to go together to the Level II but he could not make it. So, on May 22 I ventured out by myself. The class was awesome! It covered all of the essential equipment, all necessary anchoring knots, how to properly anchor, yada, yada, yada. Also, we did some climbing, a 5.4 to 5.5 route. All of this happened at Great Falls, VA. It is soooo beautiful there. We finished up with a little rappelling. That was pretty cool. The class was pretty incredible and informative. Also, I started compiling a workout for climbing, it is here.

Joe and I did get to go out climbing on Saturday, May 29, 1999. We went back to the area I had the Level II class at. We brought Joe's twin brother Larry along. He doesn't have any equipment yet, so Joe had to keep giving up his harness. We had a blast climbing from 7:30AM to a little past noon. Afterwards, we stopped by Sportrock climbing gym in Rockville, MD. We spent around 3 hours climbing indoor walls and doing some gym bouldering. All in all, Saturday was a huge success. We all completely blew our forearms up to twice their normal size (a slight exaggeration)

Kristine (my wife), Joe, Larry and I headed up to South Mountain on Friday, June 4, 1999. We hiked about two and a half miles on the Appalachian Trail and camped at the Annapolis Rocks location. Larry bought a harness and shoes! Also, Joe finally bought some shoes. Anyway, we woke at 6:30AM and tied two anchors over near Black Crack [5.9]. We were climbing around a 5.4 - 5.5. We climbed there for several hours then moved to another location. The new location was located about 40 feet right of Faint's Roof [5.10a] as you face the wall. This crag rated about a 5.5. We climbed a couple of more hours on this wall. I started altering my grip to be first and second team two finger only. That is to say, instead of using the open (whole hand) grip, I opted to only use second team (first and middle finger only) and climbed the whole route this way. Then I climbed it again using only the first team (middle and ring finger). It was a pretty good burn and made the climb more difficult (maybe a 5.6). While we were climbing a Park Ranger came over and started filling my wife's head with stories of deaths and maiming incidents that resulted from falling (terrific!) I think she took it pretty well, considering. I hope she will continue to come with us. We like South Mountain and the Annapolis Rocks area. I think we will spend this whole summer getting used to all of the crags and cracks here.

I have not typed any information in here for a month. Well, Joe, Larry and I have been climbing every weekend and an occasional Wednesday or Thursday. We have climbed up to 5.6 now and have attempted a 5.9 [Green Bucket] at Carderock, MD. I am currently creating a database system that keeps track of all of the climbs we have done. It also keeps a digitized picture of the route. Hopefully, I will have a freeware version available soon.

-VFR 07/19/1999

Joe, Larry, Liam and I went back to Carderock yesterday (Tuesday, July 20, 1999). And, we braved a 5.7 crack that turns into a short 5.9 face. BTW - Liam Davitt is another friend that we have pulled into the realm of climbing. Unbelievably, everyone (except Liam who managed to pull the 5.7 part) pulled the 5.9. We ran into a group of women (woohoo) claiming to be members of a climbing group named "She Climbs" or something. They were all pretty cool and we had fun. I am starting to prepare for the end of the season climb we will have at Caudey's Castle, WV. That should be a blast! My grip and pinch equipment came yesterday also. So soon, I will be putting some information up about them.