Click to read our individual diaries:
Meghan    Danielle    Rory
 

Danielle Jablonski
 New York, NY

Birthday: September 13
Hometown: Townsville, Australia
Bio: Click here
Contact: Danielle@alt9.net

 
Diary entries:
 
Week 1  Week 2  Week 3  Week 4  Week 5  Week 6  Week 7  Week 8  Week 9  Week 10  Week 11  Week 12
 
Week 3     May 30 - June 5
 
DATE: May 31
ENTRY: At Foster Falls, TN. Slept in the car last night because we thought it might rain and didn't want to deal with packing up wet tents (if it rained we'd be leaving right away, no climbing). Well, it was a beautiful night... and we slept really badly! Heading into Tracy City first first thing to buy bread for breakfast and lunch. Maybe some OJ too. Had another day of climbing at Little Rock City yesterday. It's definitely the coolest rock I've seen so far. Really cool shapes and features and parts that reminded me of shipwrecked hulls - the way the metal corrodes and gets flaky - it makes for some pretty cool holds.

Were all dealing with some communication issues but we are working on them. We've decided to try not to work on them when we get to a climbing area though so that we can actually get some climbing in.

One thing that's been really cool so far is that everyone we've met (except for a group 3 three teenage boys, go figure) has been really really nice. Everybody has been really sweet and asking us where we are from and telling us the best places to go. We've met some super nice people at climbing areas who have shown us around and climbed with us. That's been a really great part of the trip.

Our fingers are all pretty raw from bouldering. I hope we can give our hands a little rest today - at least when we sport climb we get a longer rest between climbs and also not trying to hold the same sharp holds over and over.
 
DATE: June 1
ENTRY: I'm having a really great time on this trip. Sometimes it is just so beautiful, it reminds me of how lucky I am to be doing this. We climbed for a second day at Foster Falls today. A crazy storm came in last night and scared us out of setting up tents, but then it passed over without dropping any rain! We spent our second uncomfortable night sleeping in the car (this time we set up the crashpads to sleep on - it didn't help that much).

The weather has really been on our side lately. It seems to threaten us with storms every night but then it turns clear and beautiful again.

We drove out of Foster Falls and into Chattanooga for some glasses repairs - my glasses frames got a little bent at Fosters and I needed to get them fixed so that they wouldn't fall off when I climb (my latest attempt at wearing contacts was a disaster, don't try taking them out with insect repellent on your fingers... so I'm back to wearing glasses).

We're now at a hotel in Georgia, cooking up some good old mac and cheese (Annie's white cheddar), and charging all our batteries (camera, video cameras, cell phones, computers, mp3 player, headlamps) and checking our emails (I'm glad to know someone out there puts sunscreen on their toes!). Up early tomorrow to go check out Rocktown!


 Foster Falls, TN
 
DATE: June 3
ENTRY: I've been sleeping so badly so far. I keep waking up drenched in sweat but it's too cold to sleep outside the sleeping bag. The crows at HP40 start up just before sunrise (which is so early here!), there are so many animals making noises all night, and somehow mosquitos, bugs and spiders seem to keep getting into the tent. How?! All this is helping me wake up very early each morning (6am!) and actually means that I am quite happy to get up and out of bed (if you know me you might know how shocking that idea is!)
 
DATE: June 4
ENTRY: Overcoming fears is not something I'd really thought about happening during this trip - I guess I try not to think about fear usually - but I think that is actually one of the biggest things that I may get out of this summer. Rock climbing is still a pretty scary thing for me. I've been having discussions with Meg and Rory about it. It's something that I guess is very hard to understand if you don't feel it yourself. It's a mind game thing that I've been dealing with for a long time. I know in my head that it's terribly unlikely that I'll get hurt falling from a boulder problem (especially given that I have people spotting me who I trust), or that I could get hurt at all when sport climbing when I couldn't even fall very far, but knowing that doesn't seem to help me. I keep pushing myself to keep trying and keep doing it, hoping that I'll get less scared as I go. I still hope that that theory works and I feel as thought it is a bit. I've been learning how to top-out (get over the top of a boulder) at one of the hardest places to learn (Horsepens 40 - where there is nothing to actually hold onto when you are trying to get up there) and the more I do it the more comfortable it is getting. It is still freaking me out, especially on really high problems but it is feeling a little better. I keep talking with Meg about taking a big (controlled) fall while sport climbing so that I can feel what that is like and see that it is not bad but I haven't had the courage to try it yet and I'm not sure when I'll have a chance next but I really hope that I can try (and that it will really help!)  
 
DATE: June 5
ENTRY: Tarps - Whoever thought that putting up tarps could be so much fun? It's the end of day 2 at HP40 and the sky is getting dark, the wind is picking up and a storm is coming in. We'd already decided to stay and sit out any rain because we really want to spend a couple more days here. Given our previous experiences with rain we figured we'd set up a tarp so that we could hang out and play cards after dinner (which was really good tonight - salad, pasta and garlic bread!!). So, an hour later we have our tarps up, and gee do they look smashing! We must have used four different types of knots, six pieces of rope, two picnic tables, two trees, three big rocks and one car... what a setup! And the best part is that it hardly even rained! We got a good laugh out of it though and we played our cards and ate too many cookies. It was a fun night. Now that it is another beautiful day we're going to head into Birmingham to get online. Meg and I also want to check out some historical places in the city if we can. We could use the break - our fingertips are bright pink and very sore. The only downer is that we need to pull down our beautiful tarp setup to drive into town...


Cards under the tarps
 
 

 

(The writings in these blogs are our personal
views, not those of any of our sponsors, so
please don't send them any nasty emails!)

 

  

 

Favorite trip music:
Mix

Favorite climbs:
 

Favorite Snack:
Dried apricots

Sandwich:
PB (no J)