New River Gorge Climbing

Eleven explorers spent the holiday weekend at New River Gorge, taking advantage of absolutely perfect weather. The group spent three sunny days climbing mostly trad and toprope. 

The group spent Saturday at Beauty Mountain, where we climbed a 5.8 offwidth, some 5.9 cracks, and a couple 5.10 finger cracks (including Matt's project--a 4-year old "sandbagged" him before he left the ground!). While a few headed out early, Day 2 took the remaining climbers to Endless Wall. Most of the day was spent in the Fantasy area, where Fantasy crack (5.8) and Black and Tan (5.10a) were group favorites). The group explored other nearby routes, taking the chance to practice crack climbing and contemplate the difference between jelly and jam. 

On Monday, the two remaining cars got up at the crack of dawn to jam in a little more climbing before returning to CMU, with one car heading to Ambassador Buttress, and the other to Junkyard. Four Sheets to the Wind (5.9+) nearly ate a cam, but all managed to escape with gear intact. 

Slip Clinic 2016

Four intrepid Explorers spent the weekend of June 4-5 at Slippery Rock Creek for the Three Rivers Paddling Club's annual Slip Clinic. All 160 people at the clinic were split into groups by skill level. The three beginner kayakers among us joined three different groups as students, while Joris Kinable, a much more experienced paddler, helped out in a fourth group as an instructor.

The clinic was a perfect opportunity to work on paddling skills and to push ourselves to try trickier moves than we were used to. With two instructors and a safety boater in every group, there was plenty of help for anyone who needed, and lots of drills and tips. Several of us went for a few swims, but trying new things was exactly what we were at the clinic for, and a swim or two in cool water was a small price to pay for learning so much.

On Saturday night, we joined many other TRPC members for a delicious hot dinner. After enjoying each other's company for a few hours, we all retired to our tents to rest up for the second day.

The Slip Clinic was the best paddling instruction we could have asked for, and a great time to boot. Now for a summer of even more exciting paddling!

-Jesse Dunietz

Grove City, PA

A group of seven Explorers club members drove up to Grove City, PA on Saturday May 11th to go skydiving.  Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to safely jump out of an airplane from 13,500 feet according to the professionals.  So, all seven plus an extra two rallied for a trip back up to Grove City the very next day.  We split into two groups:

Group 1:
Six of the original crew plus one tagger-along woke up bright and early, and drove out of the UC turnaround at 7 am sharp.  With four of us in the first airplane load and three of us in the second, we were each strapped to a tandem master and nudged out of the edge of the plane for a 55 second free fall followed by a 7 minute parachute ride down safely to the ground, with only one case of slight nausea due to the common (for first-timers) forgot-to-breathe-while-flying-120-miles-an-hour-through-the-air syndrome.

Group 2:
Mike Jehn and a first-time tandem student headed up to Skydive PA on Sunday and arrived around noon.  This was Mike’s first jump since October 2010, so he was paired with a certified instructor to complete a required check dive before being signed off as a current skydiver.  His check dive went extremely well from beginning to end.  The tandem student had the time of his life and generously waited at the dropzone for a few hours while Mike got an additional solo jump in.  Mike was thrilled that his best friend also stopped by the dropzone to watch him make a jump.  The aircraft used for all jumps (including those on Saturday) was a Beechcraft King Air twin turboprop plane; the weather was warm and breezy; and cloud ceiling was high (around 9,000 feet) and light/scattered—in other words, a gorgeous day for jumping.

-M. Jehn

New River Gorge, WV

Almost every Explorer’s Club officer (including two rookies) came 4/26 to the New River Gorge for a great weekend of whitewater rafting, camping, and rock climbing. On Saturday morning we split the nine of us officers into two rafts. One was guided by ex-Pittsburgher Don who had to yell at Jack, Fan, and Thatcher for synchronously paddling backwards upon hearing the command “Forward hard!” in a class IV rapid. The other raft was guided by the highly offensive Scott-E-O who unbiasedly made insensitive jokes about people of a wide range of nationalities (including that of our very own Felix Devullet), sexual orientations, and disabilities. The officers in this boat spent most of their time, when not braving dangerous rapids, finding a happy balance between uncomfortable forced laughter and uncomfortable silence.

As evening approached we arrived at the campground where Nate joined us. Around the campfire, we exchanged stories, ate s’mores, and rested up for a day of climbing on Sunday.

On the cliffs right above the water that we had rafted through the day before, we tackled routes of a wide range of difficulty levels. We climbed all day, and even setup a slackline! A nut was lodged and stuck into a rock, and only Grandmaster Felix could remove it after many painstaking attempts. The weather was splitter as was the company.

Boat 1:

Felix Devullet
Ben Towne
Jack Michalak
Fan Yang
Thatcher Montgomery

Boat 2:

Matt Golub
Matt Barnes
Noah Fatsi
Gabe Vegh-Gaynor

Late-Comers:
Nate Brooks

-N. Fatsi

Red River Gorge, KY

Matt led his first 5.11b on Amarillo Sunset. The crux foot-on-bolt move proved to be no challenge for the quasi-hipster*. In other climbing news, CMUX members Matt & Felix with ECP sidekicks Kevin, Jenny, Adam, Michelle, & baby Santiago enjoyed three perfect Kentucky days at the RRG. They fearlessly tackled the Blues Brothers Wall and narrowly avoided raging wildfires in Muir Valley, followed by a peaceful day in Purple Valley and Dip Wall. On Sunday, they visited Bilbo Baggins in the Shire at PMRP, where Felix actually led the incredible Amarillo Sunset and Adam seconded. Props, studs.

*for factual accuracy, Adam actually pulled him up

Selected DJ Setlist:
Phantogram - Voices
M∅ - No Mythologies to Follow
Lucius - Wildewoman
Black Prairie
Beirut
Trampled by Turtles
This American Life
Radiolab

Walls and Notable Routes:
Blues Brothers
Purple Valley
Dip Wall
The Shire - Amarillo Sunset (5.11b)

-M. Barnes

(c) 2021 CMU Explorers Club - Last Updated 10/09/2021