Thursday, July 4, 2013

Climbing at Paradise on the Brazos

I'm looking forward to getting outdoors this weekend at Paradise on the Brazos. It's about 2.5 hours west of Dallas near Possum Kingdom lake and it's some of the only natural climbing we have in the north Texas area. The walls are about 40 feet high, so it's almost twice as high as most climbing gyms. It's always nice to climb outdoors because natural rock is such a different experience from the plywood walls and plastic holds at the gyms. At the gyms you have these pre-set routes that are designed for climbing, but outdoors the rock has no such design and you have to have to adapt yourself to it instead. This will be my first lead climbing experience outdoors, so that will involve a bit of a learning curve. Having to clip your rope in as you go up is a whole different experience from top-roping where the rope is anchored at the top.

We'll be camping out in a tent the night before, then we'll wake up early and climb while it's still cool. This is a video someone filmed on a climbing trip to POB where I'll be going. Pardon the Guns and Roses (use the mute button if necessary).

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