Please remember to wear a helmet along the base of the cliff.  There are many loose rocks above the climbing area and this is the second fall in the last two years.

Heads up

Patrick Weaver

This conference will promote wellness and healthy living through education and activities.  There will be variety of activities including mountain biking, rock climbing and fly fishing.  You can learn more by visiting the website.

Learn more here!

AMI Anchoring Clinic

The AMI Anchoring Clinic will be on April 10th.  This course is design for anyone who wants to learn how or improve his or her skills at building rock anchors for top roping, leading or multipitch climbing.  You have fun learning how select and place climbing gear, build anchors using a variety of methods and extending anchors for setting up top ropes from climbing gear or natural anchors.  This is a detailed course, and will have something for beginners to advanced climber wanting to expand their skills in anchor rigging.

Cost:$85 per person for two or more, $190 private.

Date: April 10th

Self Rescue 1

Your partner is stuck, now what?   Ever had the sinking feeling that you might not be able to help your partner is something goes wrong?  This course teaches the basics of self rescue and prepare one for dealing with emergencies related to single pitch environments.  How to you prevent accidents?  What if your need to go get the leader?  How do I deal with a stuck climber?  This is a fun class the prepares one for being a safer partner.

Tuition:  $95

Date: April 11th

Anchor Rigging for Institutional Climbing

This presentation will discuss various principles, equipment and rigging options for institutional climbing.  It will begin with a discussion on principles that affect force distribution and anchoring standards for institutional climbing.  Next the presentation will address why careful consideration of the selection of climbing equipment for rigging will increase security and safety for participant and instructors.  Participants will then get an opportunity to work through various rigging set ups for institutional anchors.

Bio Patrick Weaver

Patrick Weaver is an AMGA Rock Instructor and an AMGA SPI Director.  He holds a BS degree from IUSB in Secondary Science Education and a MA from Prescott College in Risk Management for Adventure Education.   Patrick Weaver currently teaches rock and ice climbing, AMGA SPI courses and exams, and is the Executive Director of Appalachian Mountain Institute, an instructional guide service located in North Carolina.

Volunteers for clean up

This past Saturday 30 individuals met at the Indy Coffee House to braved the wonderful weather to donate their time to the service of cleaning up the Davidson River.  Earlier this year, we attempted to clean up the river from the entrance of Pisgah National Forest on 276 to the confluence of Looking Glass Creek.  We were not able to reach all locations.  However, this October 3rd a small army of volunteers were able to clean up all 18 pull offs along the river, remove 5 illegal campsites, and even pull a large rusty drum from the stream.

Clean up crew

Three cleanup crews started at the most frequented and largest areas, Sycamore Flats, Coon Tree area and the bridge area at the Davidson River Campground.  These areas typically have a lot of trash, but recent floods pushed a lot of the trash downstream.  In spite of this, volunteers were able to remove many bags of trash.  The groups then headed along the river stopping at each pull off to collect cans, bottles, bait canisters, and frequently flip flops.  With the help of all the volunteers it appears that every pull off had someone there picking up.  This was a tremendous job cleaning 5 miles of river.  The most unusual find was a basket ball and football that was in great shape and still inflated.  I am not sure these two items were intended to be left behind.

John and crew coming out of the woods

The crews were groups of people from different backgrounds and all ages.  The great thing about this day was the variety of people present.  This demonstrated a community effort that spans many walks of life.  One person commented, “It was great to see so many young people.”  The ages ranged from middle school through young at heart.  A big thanks goes to the First United Methodist Church of Brevard.  There were many individuals from the church out to help as part of the Great Day of Service.  Pastor Mike Jordan and Kim Dodson pitched in as well as many others.  Additionally, Outward Bound and Montreat College jointly brought 15 individuals to participate in the day.  Julie Springstern of Outward Bound headed this group up.  Students came from all over the states, San Francisco to New Jersey.  One individual was from Italy.  Others came from the Brevard community and pitched in.

Outward Bound and Montreat College

There are many things worthy of our time, some more important than others.  It is not to judge the amount someone contributes, but value the contribution.  As each little act helps create a better place, whether it is helping an elderly person or nature, we build a stronger community for everyone.  I thank each and every person for reaching out and taking valuable time to build a stronger community.  The Davidson River is like the life line of the community; it helps define why we are here and brings us joy.  People came together, left the river a littler cleaner and hopefully met someone new.  Take the time to help someone next week, pick up a piece of trash or hold a door open; it makes a stronger community.

Peace

• Bring a pair of gloves
• meet at 8:30
• Location  Indy Coffee House
• Free cup of coffee for each person helping out.
  

  Davidson River Cleaning Crew

AMI clean up crew

Today was the Pisgah Forest Clean up day.  Due to the extreme amount of trash along the Davidson River, we focused our cleanup efforts on this part of the forest.  This is also one of the most heavily use sections of the forest between the entrance and Looking Glass Creek.

Jenny Wallace, Ed Maggart, Rodney Lanier, David Sweet, Ada Weaver, Benjamin Weaver, Patrick Weaver and Brooks Wallace all pitched in to tackle this task.  David came in from Colorado to help out.  After finishing our coffee from Indy Coffee we headed to Sycamore Flats Picnic area.  Our goal was to focus on the riparian environment.  This led to digging around the weeds and bushes near the water’s edge.  We did tackle the picnic tables around the water and found anything from bottles to diapers.  The kids got into it and began looking for all kinds of trash, we made sure they had gloves; well Ben did for a while anyway.   After filling several bags and tossing them into the dumpster.  We headed to the next location, Davidson River Camp Ground.

Trash at a picnic area

At the DRCG, we focused on the area upstream and downstream of the bridge.  The area abounds with bait cans, bottles and fishing line.  I even found 10 Bush Bean cans that were still full (rusty and old, so don’t think I took someone’s picnic).  This quickly filled another bag of trash.

Illegal fire ring and trash

We left and head upstream for more fun.  At the swimming hole we found a shirt, bottles and more bait cans, but most of this was at the pull off.  The real mission was just upstream.  At the confluence of Avery’s creek and the Davidson river, a camp (not really suppose to camp there) had piles of glass and trash, even a pair of shorts.  This was a big object for me.  I had traveled to each pull off along the 5 miles of road (18 in all) and hiked in to see the impact.  The picnic areas have obvious trash that someday would get pick up by a visitor or overworked Forest service employee, but the for me the greater concern was the areas that people would not pick up the trash.  These are the areas where people hike in, just far enough to be out of sight and leave trash for the next explorer to stumble upon.  These areas rarely get picked up and this was the first one on the list.

Ed had to leave at this point, but his efforts were greatly appreciated.  The rest of us move up to a picnic area that had a campsite back in the woods.  At last! Rodney found us and pitched in.  Rodney had been driving around looking for us at the fish hatchery.  He did a great job pitching in and helping here.  This site had been there for a long time and obviously accumulated multiple layers of campfires and trash.  We packed out the trash and removed the fire ring from this location.  This area filled one trash bag!

At the bridge over Looking Glass Creek we found the smelliest trash.  Rodney and I were the unfortunate ones who found a cooler full of rotten trash.  There was an inner tube and other camping supplies across the river in the woods.  It takes some individuals that care about this place to make an effort in keeping it beautiful.  I want to say thank you to all the individuals that came out to make this happen.  If you are interested in helping, please keep your eye peeled for the fall river clean up in September.

Thank you and have a great day!

Clean streams in NC

Patrick Weaver

]]> http://appalachianmountaininstitute.com/july-14-davidson-river-clean-up-day/feed/ 2