Cookies & Currahee
Nathan on the Belay couch. Belay loveseat? Beloveseat.
Mt. Currahee is probably the closest sport climbing to Athens. I don't know, maybe Yonah is closer, but we didn't go there this weekend. We went to Currahee.
Evan, Lucy, Beckett, Nathan, and I drove up there on Friday for a half day, and since it's only about 90 minutes from Athens, we didn't have to leave until 6 a.m.! #whoo
Since Evan has a sports car, Nathan has a bike, and Lucy is 13, the task of driving fell to me. Actually, I think one of the guys would have driven my car, but I am trying to improve at driving and stop hating it because it's a necessary skill if you want to be an adventurer. I just traded in (err, kind of) my white '89 Lincoln Town Car for a 2004 Ford Taurus a few weeks ago, and this was my second time driving folks to a climbing spot (the first was our Little River Canyon expedition a few Sundays ago). And maybe my fifth time driving outside of Athens, like, ever. #scary
The drive to the crag went preeetty well, except I learned quite suddenly that you always have to stop for school buses, even if they are across the yellow lines and three lanes away from you, which is good to know because I don't think I've had to stop for a school bus ever (did I mention I don't drive much?), and apparently it's a really big ticket if you don't. But I also think it's pretty not-okay for these bus drivers to let kids out on a four lane road with no crosswalk and expect them to cross it and... well, anyway. Once we reached the mountain, it took me about three years to get us up its potholey gravel road, but I think I did a pretty okay job considering.
Quickdraw segue.
It was a frustrating day for me at Brick Wall. I was sore from a few days of gym climbing, so everything felt harder than it "should" have. And although I thought I'd gotten past my fear of heights with my post-send-slack-pulling at the aforementioned Canyon trip and my 10-lead-flashing last weekend, I had a serious freakout leading this 5.10a called Pigs on the Wing. As in, a grab the last quickdraw, sob to the top, don't stop shaking for thirty minutes freakout. It was bad and embarrassing and I was really mad at myself, but the thought of falling filled me with more terror than ever. I think the fact that I was feeling weaker than usual combined with latent fear demons in my head to make the worst of a potentially okay situation. But I got over it, and it was still a great day. I toproped a 5.10b/c called Power Flyer, and I agreed with Lucy and Evan that is was way easier than the 10a, but since the fear aspect was (mostly) removed, I don't really know.
We also toproped a couple of 5.9 trad climbs, No Name Crack and Offwidth. Offwidth was my first experience with crack climbing, which is strange and hard and super fun. I definitely want to climb more cracks, although the idea of hand jamming still confounds me. Really jamming anything except a pant-covered knee confounds me. Like, ow. But I am definitely a fan of the knee jam.
Hey, look, gear on gear!
Evan practiced placing trad gear on this 5.11c called Dreams while on toprope, and of course he'll send it on actual trad (on trad? while tradding? as a trad daddy? what is the phrasing???) next time. Lucy was baller enough to toprope it too. You can read about her experience here!
Since we were even in number, I was usually belaying or climbing and didn't get a lot of photos. But here are some vultures:
Not a good omen in my 5.10 distress.
We left around 4, and I drove us back to Athens without event. Beckett rested her head on my arm from the backseat, which was heavy and made steering a little awkward, but it was so friggin' adorable and I just got used to it. It was nice pulling up to the apartment at 5:30 instead of midnight, and it was definitely a productive day.
I'm a little disappointed that my fear of heights is still hanging out in my brain. But climbing is a process in every aspect, I suppose. I can't go out this weekend because of work (sigh), but if I can get anyone to climb on Labor Day I'll make sure my mind and body are ready.
Okay, so that was the Currahee portion of this blog post. This is the cookie portion!
Crag cookies, crag cookies
Friday was Nathan's first time coming out with us. He'd allllmost come a few times before, and I was really excited to climb with him, and I was determined he would make it this time. So Thursday night at the gym, trying to convince him that it was worth the hot temps and all, I was like, "I'LL MAKE COOKIES, MAYBE." I included the "maybe" because it's important to have an out, but once I'd said it, I had to do it. I don't know if Nathan even remembers that conversation, but...
After a 10:00 trip to Academy Sports to pick up some overpriced gymnastics chalk (I procrastinated), I commenced the baking process. And this time, I wrote down measurements!
This was my first time using carob powder in a recipe. I'm not sure how I feel about it. People like to use it instead of cocoa powder because it is also brown and starts with a "C," but it does not taste like chocolate. I really lack the culinary vocabulary to describe the taste of carob. But it's not bad, necessarily, depending on who you are. Just strange, and you feel kind of virtuous and trendy eating it. And it doesn't contain caffeine, so that's nice, or lame, or whatever, depending on what you seek from your cookies.
Anyway, here's the *~*recipe*~* :
Ingredients:
1 c whole wheat flour
1/4 c coconut sugar
1/4 c carob powder
t tsp baking powder
1 tbsp chia seeds
handful of coconut flakes
2 tbsp flax seed meal + 4 tbsp warm water
1/2 c coconut oil
1/4 c agave nectar
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix the flax seed meal and warm water and set aside.
3. Combine the dry stuff, except for the coconut flakes.
Carobcano!
4. Add in the wet stuff and then the coconut flakes.
5. Make lil balls, and put 'em onto an ungreased cookie sheet. You should have about 16.
I didn't flatten them down, and after 8 minutes, they were still little nuggets:
So I flattened 'em out with a fork and baked 'em for two more minutes. So you should probably skip that part and just flatten them to start with and then bake them for 10 minutes.
And then they'll look kind of like this! Soft and chewy and full of nutrition.
Now. The important question: How do they taste? Well, not sweet. Like, they're brown, but they are not chocolate. And coconut sugar isn't actually all that sweet, as sugars go. And whole wheat flour, while less evil than white flour, tends to make things bitter-er. I honestly wasn't sure about them, but the guys liked them. In Nathan's words: "they taste like energy cookies." Which apparently are a real thing because I just googled them and found like a kajillion recipes so maybe I will just call them that. Like, coco-carob energy cookies. The coco is for coconut, NOT COCOA. Because THESE BEAUTIFUL COOKIES DO NOT TASTE LIKE CHOCOLATE.
Well, you've been warned. I'mma go to the gym now and climb on some plastic.
Any other climbers out there struggle with The Fear? How do you manage it? And what in the world do you think of carob powder? Speak in the comments, or on the Contact page!