Carderock

So last year Andrew and I took Owen and Luke to Carderock on Veteran's day for their first climbing outing.  They had a great time, Owen got a harness for Christmas, spent lots of time on the climbing wall at camp, and got climbing shoes for his birthday, but somehow we made it all the way to Veteran's day again before taking the boys back out on the real rocks.

With the weather 70 degrees and sunny, we couldn't have asked for a better day for our annual climbing trip.  We set up a harder climb than last year, and Owen proclaimed we should climb youngest to oldest, I guess so he could show us all how it's done.  He scrambled up the rocks like a little monkey, then came down and told us that, "Climbing is like a team sport, your arms, legs, eyes, and brain all have to work together or you'll never make it to the top."

Luke was next up, but Owen couldn't keep himself off the rocks and started bouldering around barefoot.  When Luke was stuck at a tough spot on the climb, I went up to try to help him find some holds only to look over and see Owen 8 feet up on the rocks beside us also doling out pointers.

Andrew and I had our turns, and found that some of the spots on the climb really were a bit tricky.  Then Owen scrambled up again, with a little more difficulty at the first big problem on the climb.  When he got down he dropped some more of his zen climbing wisdom, "Another way to think of the climb is it's like a war.  Your arms and legs are the armies, and your eyes and brain are the spies searching for weaknesses in the wall for your armies to attack."

If we learned one thing from this spectacular November climbing day, it's that we need to do it more often in 2015...

(click here for all the pictures)