new river rendezvous

What is the New River Rendezvous??

The Rendezvous is the annual fundraising gig for the New River Alliance of Climbers (NRAC).
It's a fun and friendly three-day celebration of climbers, climbing and
the New River Gorge. Gather with friends, relax, compete, play, laugh
and climb here in the laid back atmosphere of Southern West
Virginia--America's best kept secret!

Here's a link to the NRR site

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Yowsah! What a Rendezvous number five was, huh? We’re almost done digging out from the wrap-up to-do pile here in Fayetteville but we’re clear headed enough to have some guesstimates on various numbers. Here’s the skinny:

Number of Rendezvous attendees: Approximately 1200
Inches of rain that fell during the Rendezvous: 0
Inches of inches of rain that fell the day before the Rendezvous: .32” (hard to believe ain’t it?)
Number of Fayetteville businesses that experienced record weekends: at least 4
Gross funds raised: $14,500
Approximate net: $10,000

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The "New" is a sacred place founded by unheralded hard men and women who believed in backwoods adventure and good times with friends. Long appreciated, ego-less, and renowned for it's understated locals, the New has a vibe. The "New" crew who put on the Rendezvous-Maura, Gene, Kenny, Elaina, Heather, Chris, Shawn and all the countless "locals" who stepped up to contribute to this event epitomize that ethos. Self promotion has never been the way of the "New". So in the aftermath of big party hype, let us not forget or lose our prospective.

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So this blog is about a week late due to computer screwy-ness... I'm hoping that it stays on long enough to post this and hopefully all the awesome photos that I got from the Rendezvous.

I don't know about everyone else but I had a BLAST.

Headed over to Burnwood Thursday night to visit with some friends that were already camped out and the place was already packed. I'm used to there being a handful of tents set up and a few cars but it looked like everyone was so excited about the weekend that they showed up early to get the party started.

Friday was cold and rainy ... not great weather for climbing, but it cleared up a bit in the late afternoon so that everyone could walk around and browse the vendor tents, practice some slacklining, and start waiting in line for the best part of the first day of the Rendezvous ... Dessert-a-palooza!

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After a long arduous roadtrip from Boulder to Fayetteville and back I am exhausted. Having never been to "The New" I was in for quite an experience. A couple things I learned about climbing in the deep south...
-Its not uncommon to climb with domesticated squirrels
-Hunting through a maze of woods can give you flashbacks from the Blair Witch Project
-Locals are extremely friendly to everyone, just don't get between them and desertapalooza
-Be prepared for a little bit of cigarette smoke here and there
-HUMIDITY and POLLEN!
-Spiders the size of your head, put us western climbers running for the hills

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We came, we saw, he conquered. Unsurprising to few, Stephen Meinhold took home the gold in the expert bouldering and expert sport climbing competitions. The man is ridiculous with a pretty stellar climbing background, he left the competition in his wake this weekend with an incredible 23,100 points in the expert sport climbing comp ( the closest competitor had a meager 8,292 points--that is a 14,808 point deficit). Stephen put up 5 5.13 routes and 5 5.12 routes to come up with that reduncyafunct score. In the expert bouldering comp, Stephen sent 3 v10's to clinch the title with a score of 2,291 points which crushed all of the other climbers by at least 733 points. When asked about his performance the guy casually shrugged off the accomplishment and chalked it up to having a good day. Stephen Meinhold really showed us little people what climbing hard is all about. Let's not forget the guy has a heart as well, after receiving his winnings from both of the competitions, Stephen grabbed a hundred dollar bill from his earnings and dared someone to match the amount in a donation to the Access Fund. This man is special, this man is inspiring, thanks Stephen for killing us this weekend.

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