I can’t believe I never blogged about the first Seneca Summit! I was so convinced that I had. Yet when I looked for my notes and for lessons learned, nothing came up. I guess I posted my photos on facebook, and then left it at that. So now, with the 2nd Seneca Summit almost upon us, it seems high time for me to jut down my reflections on last year’s event.
The 1st Seneca Summit took place August 13-15, 2010. It was attended by 20+ women from areas with driving distance of Seneca Rocks: WV, PA, VA, MD, and the Washington DC area.
The goal of Seneca Summit is to develop the leadership skills of women trad climbers, and to serve as a networking event for women who lead, or want to begin to lead traditional rock climbs.
Seneca Summit is the brain child of Diane Kearns, rock climber and co-owner of “The Gendarme” and “Seneca Rocks Climbing School.” Seneca Rocks is a traditional climbing area, meaning the lead climber places removable protection such as chocks or cams which the second, the climber who follows the leader on the route, then removes from the rock. You quite rarely see all women climbing teams climbing trad, or female-male teams in which the woman leads. Diane wanted to do something about developing more women as trad leaders, and to get them to climb in all-women teams because the dynamics is different from mixed-sex teams. For the inaugural summit Diane simply picked a date and reserved a group campsite, then asked some other women who climb at Seneca Rocks for their thoughts and to help get the word out to other women climbers. She and I exchanged many emails and tossed around ideas for the program and schedule of events.
Here is what went on that first summit, to the best of my recollection:
FRIDAY:
Met in front of the Gendarme in the evening for a slide show about the history of climbing at Seneca by Diane Kearns.
SATURDAY:
Met in front of the Gendarme for breakfast.
Shoe demo by Elaina Arenz-Smith, owner of “New River Mountain Guides.”
“Climb with a Local.” This was something we copied from an AAC Craggin Classic. Seneca frequent climbers paired up with women who did not know Seneca or who did not feel ready to lead, and enjoyed a day of climbing.
A group led by Elaina practiced falling at the Slower Slabs.
Returned to the Gendarme in the evening for a potluck dinner.
Slide show by Diane Kearns about her trip to Greenland.
My story:
I was excited by the large turnout of women on Saturday morning, and about the professional feel that the shoe demo lend to the event.
The “Climb with a Local” was my suggestion. I was a little disappointed that most participants opted to toprope and practice falling as a group, rather than to go multi-pitch climbing together and trying to lead. As for my team…it started to rain while we were in the second pitch of the “Old Ladies” route, a 4-pitch climb I’ve done so many times that I thought I’d be OK climbing it in the rain. Still, it was “interesting” for me to, for the first time, lead the third pitch when it was wet. Melanie, the least smallest of my team members, started to get uncomfortably cold after we were rained on heavily for about 15 minutes in the second belay. Monica and I were concerned about keeping her warm; and we wrapped her up neck to toe during the rain. All went well! We got to summit and watched the clouds waft by below us; and we rapped down safely and in time for dinner.
At dinner, the toprope/falling crowd reported that they had had an awesome afternoon despite of some excitement. Tina, a climber from Pittsburgh, twisted her ankle during a practice fall. She remained in good spirits and hobbled about for the rest of the event.
The potluck happened to be an all vegetarian dinner! And even I, who am a carnivore, liked the food it was that flavorful. Luckily, I had brought leeks with capers, so my dish fit with the vegetarian theme. There were many men sniffing around that evening, attracted by the wonderful food smells coming from the tent in front of the Gendarme if not by the sounds of women laughing.
After dinner and Diane’s inspiring slide show, a bunch of us went across the street to dance to the music of a live band.
Too bad the stargazing I was prepared to offer that night, and for which I had brought two transportable telescope from Pitt’s department of physics and astronomy with me, was clouded out.
All in all, what a great and eventful day!
SUNDAY:
Met in front of the Gendarme for breakfast.
Lecture/clinic on “The Physics of Placing Pro” by me.
The program then called for multi-pitch climbing. But the weather forecast turned outright nasty. Rather than going climbing, we all went to the cave for some impromptu skills practices and to toprope. Diane and Elaina freely shared from their vast stores of knowledge on topics of climbing movement and self rescue.
The group slowly broke up in the afternoon as participants thought about their driving times back home.
My story:
Having the physics discussion in the relaxed atmosphere of Sunday breakfast seemed to work well. I had given some thought to how to make my physics presentation work without a blackboard or projector. To better explain some of the concepts, I held up paper sheets on which I had printed diagrams and the rope equation. And there was some show and tell with real gear.
I got a chance to learn more about flagging from the strong and elegant Elaina Arenz-Smith. She gave me valuable suggestions for practicing my movements in the gym. But I was bummed that the storm never hit Seneca Rocks and I kept thinking that I’d have loved for us to be multi-pitch climbing, instead.
On the way home, the car of one of the Pittsburgh groups broke down between Seneca Rocks and Elkins. We all pulled over to help move their gear into other cars and figured out new car pools. Luckily the tow truck did not take long to show up.
Reflections, thoughts, and food for thought:
We were noticed. Seneca Rocks had never before seen such a large number of women ascending the rocks and partying in town!
Everything at the 1st Seneca Summit was offered free of charge! The women who came were merely asked to pitch in some money to defer the cost of the group campsite.
Many participants were interested in clinics. Perhaps this was in part due to the bad weather, although it seemed to me that some women had a penchant for taking classes rather than for experimenting and learning on their own.
Owing to the nature of the forest service’s permit for guiding at Seneca Rocks, it was not possible for Seneca Rocks Climbing School to offer clinics on the rock itself. A nearby cliff outside of forest service lands might be the way to go for group clinics.
While not asking for registration and a fee made things easy administratively, and while we did break even on the first Summit, it might nevertheless be appropriate in the future to ask the participants to pay a small fee to cover event expenses.
There was an overwhelming amount of positive feedback that we should have another Seneca Summit in 2011, and possibly turning this into an annual event.
Diane hoped that we would be able to keep the organization simple so we would not get burned out on this first event. This would keep us motivated to organize it again. And maybe we would start a grass roots effort, whereby different women would lead the programming and assume the organizational responsibilities every year.
As they say...and the rest is history. The Second Seneca Summit just went down last weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment