While the sun was shining over the Southern Black Hills near Custer South Dakota, a dedicated group of our friends and fellow cavers set out to reach a landmark distance in Jewel Cave National Park.  Cheryl and I have had the pleasure of exploring and mapping virgin passages of Jewel.  As Charles Michael Ray of South Dakota National Public Radio reports, it is a special opportunity to go somewhere that has never been seen by human eyes before.  You can view his entire radio report with photos here on you Tube.

I found this great Blog post with cool pictures from the 1950's of a family vacation to the Black Hills including a visit to Devils Tower and Mount Rushmore from Wisconsin.  I love the old pictures and thought it was well done.  The youTube video that is shown here with the Devils Tower time lapse is rad.  The Mount Rushmore pictures before the visitor center was created are great.  Thank you Peggy W for the trip down memory lane.

Check it out.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  Click here.

Watch out Devils Tower...the new DMM Dragon cams are in town.  Climbing may never be the same.... well, perhaps that's a little dramatic.

Our DMM / Wild Country rep Lisa Gnade teased us with some pic's and promo material about these cams last year, and finally they are coming to market.  Their beauty speaks for itself.  I just bought a set of Metolius cams and a slew of Black Diamond cams, but must admit, I'm finding it hard not to order up a set of the Dragon Cams...I mean, function is beauty, but these things look incredible, and I even like the name.   To be honest, I've not laid hands on them nor have I seen the tech stats on the production model, but if I know DMM, they will be super strong and super light without any trade offs in function.  Anybody wanna buy a very lightly used set of Metolius Cams?

Check out the news release.  DMM Dragon cam LINK

If you ever wanted to know what it might be like to climb Devils Tower, check out this helmet cam footage from some of our favorite guest ever.  The crazy Canadians.  Lets just say they know how to have more fun then the rest of us.

Link To YouTube helmet cam film of climbing Devils Tower.

The camera quality could be a little better, but you get the idea.  These guys made the 24 hour non stop drive to climb Devils Tower while wearing a helmet cam, then after a few cold ones, fired up the RV and drove home...another 24 hours!   Uggggg.

The ultimate adventure weekend.  They were psyched!

Snowing in the Black Hills today.  Not so good for the rock climbing...much better for cross country skiing.  See ya!

So you think that routes such as the 23 pitch classic called Time Wave Zero that is made up of seemingly endless bolted limestone climbing sounds like a fun diversion to an otherwise gloomy winter?  Well you are right.  Load up the car, find a bus, book the plane...head down to Potrero Chico in Mexico for some fun climbing.  Although it was not nearly as warm as we had hoped. It was actually great weather for climbing the long routes without carrying huge amounts of water.  Over the course of the 11 days we were there, we took 2 rest days, ate nearly 50 eggs and countless avocados, enjoyed a few Caguama (big beers), meet some cool people, and climbed thousands and thousands of vertical feet of limestone. 

It's sport climbing in an alpine setting.  While it might be feel safer then some climbing areas, if you go, be sure to take your helmet, and know what you are doing, and how to accomplish some self rescue.  Being 500 feet off the deck is no place to 'figure it out.'  The 1-2 pitch routes are great, but for us it was all about the long stuff.  After getting to know the rock a little bit in the Virgin Canyon, we warmed up on Satori, a 700 foot 10c route.  From then on we were hooked...Black Cat Bones, Yankee Clipper, Space Boyz, Time Wave Zero, Auga De Coca, Moto Wall....and many more...everything we did was fun.  It was hard to make yourself slow down and rest a bit.  Coming off a 5 month stint of no rock climbing, we had to rest though and take care of our bodies....esp. our tender hands.  That limestone can get wicked sharp.

I posted pictures and captions on our Picasa site. 

Take a look.

      



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Its great to be home for a bit, but it was even better enjoying the fine snow and cool skiing around Bozeman and Yellowstone.  We all had a blast, and wished for a few more days to enjoy the area.  Yellowstone in the winter is really great, and Bozeman is defiantly a very comfortable town!


You can't believe its not butter...what a rad place.

Its been said before:  There is a direct correlation between people and rules...more people yield less freedoms.  If you have been to Yosemite, you know the managers of the area have a great challenge on their hands when they try to preserve the area and manage the hoards of people that flock to the Park.

Please educate yourself a bit, and if you feel the urge, offer up your 2 cents during the comment period.   Access Fund Link

Well its live.  The site is up in all its glory.  All dressed up and nowhere to go.  I'm sure there are typos, and some people will find the colors to be odd, but it looks nice on the monitor I use.  It should be a little easier to find things and learn about our courses, and that was the goal...plus the blog, slide shows, and videos will be coming soon.  Please let me know what you think.  Send me an email, post here or on the Sylvan Rocks Facebook Fan Page.  Still lots of photos to add and links to things like the FB page link, but its time for a little climbing break.

Its been a long time since I had to learn that much in such a short time.  All these computer skills that I  never expected to know.  I have to thank Scary Larry Schaffer for all his help and instruction.  Everyone knows the old proverb about feeding a man for a day vs teaching a man to fish so he can feed his family every day....well, Larry taught me how to fish.

Besides climbing and caving, Larry does some rad things with computers...just check out the Black Hills Institute Website out, watch the video, I'm sure Larry had a lot to do with producing it???  It is an awesome place, and Larry really helps put it and the town of Hill City on the Map.
 
Thanks again Larry.    

Its early in the morning or very late at night depending on how you think about it.  Ticking off the punch list to getting this site live.  Its looking better every day.  Still not perfect, but I'm getting more confident with moving things around and switching colors so it flows a little better on the screen.  If it looks totally bad on your screen, please let me know.  The colors all match on my screen, but I can see how it might look like junk, as it gets sent around the world at warp speed.  Everyone has things calibrated a little different.

Leaving on Saturday for Montana, then Mexico after that.  I'm so ready for some fun in the sun!!  I'll be sure to send pictures and keep up on the Facebook Fan page as I can.

So we harvest 3 deer this year, and Matt got one too. More importantly he helped me drag one in from over the hill and through the woods out on the prairie, but thats another really fun story!! So with all this red meat, we decided to take advantage of the sausage attachment on our grinder.

Now, having a "sausage making party" does bring up a few sophomoric jokes, but the end result is good good eats. I still have a lot to learn about this hunting game, but thats the fun of it for sure. Besides, when there is 6" of snow every few days, the high temp is 6, and there is only 10 hours of daylight, the climbing isn't all that fun. So "When in Rome..." I think Matt is becoming a true South Dakotin...he is talking a lot about buying a bow for next season.

Until then, we'll be enjoying a freezer full of goodness.