Climbing at Horse Pens 40

Last December I got the opportunity to go climbing at Horse Pens 40 in Alabama with three of my good friends and wanted to share some of the wonderful experiences.

First off, a party of 4 was  a great size for this sort of trip. My buddy on the left (Reese) and his fiancée (Danny) met Sham (far right) and I in Texas and we drove to Horse Pens. The camping was awesome with water and fire pits. It was cold at night but the main cabin stayed open till midnight and we would go there and play cards and talk till it was time to climb into the sleeping bags. I recommend anyone who wants a semi-rustic experience for camping that is only 50 feet from the boulders this is the place for you.

Now Reese is a solid V5/V6 boulder'er and was sending some super hard stuff the entire time we were there including some of the classic lines of Horse Pens. I show a picture of Mortal Kombat which was this super hard slab climb that Reece was working on. We didn't have time to take our own picture since as this photo shows the landing was super sketchy and I give Reese much props for even taking that fall so many times.

I could go on about all the great sending that was done by my friends including our friend Danny who is all of 4 feet 11 inches tall and sent two of Horse Pens V3's. Instead I want to tell some about the climbs I managed to finish and some of the ones I left for next time.


Completed Climbs during our 4 day trip

Spirit (Heel Hooks to slab to crimpers)

Bumboy - V3 (The hardest V3 in the south)
Spirit - V3 (Photo on the right)
Earth Wind Fire - V3
(Featureless Slab with a great fall zone)
Twix Lips - V3
Never Trust a Mustach - V4
(Great heel hook hand match to a BIG throw to a tiny crimp then a long 20 foot hall)
Lady Slipper - V2 (Fun tall big holds)
Tic or Tie - V4 (Tough few lines)

Sandbox (I hated this "easy" V2 with the worst feet ever!)

Climbs left for next time

Boogie Wonderland  V4 (Uncompleted)
Sandbox - V2 (Worst climb in the south)
Hammerhead - V5

(One of the first climbs you see at HP, hanging upsidedown for 10 moves to a tall topout near the stage)
Popeye - V5 (Super hard moves on tiny holds in a overhung area to a rough top out)
Millipede - V5

(Climb near Bumboy...like trying to scale the back of a dinosaur)

Looking down from Hammerhead at Popeye

 December was a great time to go climb in Alabama. The air was crisp, you stuck to the rock like a magnet, it wasn't super crazy busy, and the daylight lasted till 7 or 8 pm.

The people that own/run Horse Pens 40 were really friendly and the price to camp was very resonable (15 dollars per person per night...I think). You are still close to a big city so if you need supplies it isn't a long trek but you are remote enough that you could spend a couple months climbing and camping away from it all.
I plan on going back to Horse Pens sometime in 2011 to Hammerhead, Millipede, and Sandbox for sure...and to explore the rest of the amazing climbs.

Budget Problems facing the U.S.

Budget Problems facing the U.S.

If it seems that the news lately has been grim coming out of the U.S…it is because it is. In a talk yesterday by the director of Fermilab Pier Oddone laid out some very bleak circumstances for the coming year that Fermilab and many scientific ventures face.
See Pier’s talk here (http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/Lectures/AllHands/presentations/110215AllHands.pptx)
The short of it is the budget put forward by the Republican congress would slash domestic spending in view of the fact that the U.S would see 1.5 trillion dollar deficit in Fiscal Year 2011. Now that being said, these proposals actually only effect < 20% of the total budget and definitely don’t fix the total problem.

However, the impact would be very real! Since the U.S government has be acting on a continuing resolution (basically saying keep 2010 spending and appropriations since Congress didn’t pass a new budget), getting a 20% cut now actually amounts to a 40% cut for the rest of the year! This fact has DIRE impact on Fermilab

As Pier said in his talk

Impossible to accommodate such cuts without major disruptions:

1) Stop operation of all accelerators immediately

2) Slow down projects to barely keep-alive levels

3) Prepare layoffs of 20% of the staff or 400 employees

4) Furlough staff for roughly two of the remaining six months

This coming on the heels of the announcement that there would be no extension to the running of the Tevatron in 2011 means that things would slow down in the US High Energy Physics area very quickly with no clear signs of when they will pick up again.

Frankly, for a government that is purporting not wanting to miss “their sputnik moment” the idea of drastically cutting funding to fundamental research seems just plain stupid! Innovation does not happen in a climate where people are worried if the lab they work at is going to be there tomorrow…nor will “job creation” and “a balanced budget” happen by cutting spending to a small fraction of the overall budget that actually generates jobs and opportunities in the United States. The best quote I’ve heard to describe this sort of approach to budgetary problem solving was in an article in the Washington Post (linked here)

“Making the government lean by cutting the most defensible (and productive) federal spending is akin to making an overweight aircraft fly by removing the engine!”

So what do we do? Write your congressman/congresswomen and tell them that gutting science is no way to the future! There are instructions on the webpage of how to get this letter written. I encourage all readers to write to help save such great scientific programs such as Fermilab!

http://www.congressweb.com/

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APSPA/action/TakeAction.Contact

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