A magical 2008 season at Rumney

Well Folks, It's that time of the year again. The season is winding down. Hopefully I'll be able to push through the winter getting some time in on the sunny crags of Rumney. This year was an incredible year for me at Rumney. It started in March when I moved to the back country of the White Mountain National Forest (it wasn't as hardcore as it sounds), where I camped for 3 months and got to climb 4 or 5 days a week. The original plan was to move to Utah in the fall for photography school. Well, for all those that know me and my pattern of making plans, then breaking them are not surprised by this at all. I was. At the time that I registered I had only been shooting for 6 months or so. I felt that I had finally found a career that would keep me on a track of learning new things from others, learning lessons taught by the wilderness ( I'm no hippy ), and at the same time keep me continually stimulated by the experiences that it gives me. Well.... More than ever I feel that these things are more true than I could ever imagine. By studying the work of others, shooting a lot myself, speaking to good friends in the field and by putting in hours and hours of work ( probably more hours than I work at my full-time job ) I have found that my love of photography and climbing and it's culture has grown beyond a point that I had known existed. School is still in the plan. To finish my summer story... After falling madly in love with Rumney I couldn't bear to walk away from it, when I was just starting to tap into the best stuff that it had to offer. I started searching desperately, totally obsessively, for any type of photography position, any photography programs offered by local schools or just a totally rad job in order to be able to stick around. No luck. I put off moving to school to the last moment, trying to soak up every experience I could get at Rumney, already starting to reminisce about my previous experiences of the year. Well, for one of the first times in my life my procrastination paid off big time. Out of the blue I was offered a position to run a small climbing gym in North Woodstock New Hampshire, the heart of the white mountains. Anyways, to make a long story short I started working at the gym, working with local high school students (who I love very much) and still was able to climb daily. I'm really loving it. I'm still climbing lots. At least 4 days a week. So, now that everyone that I am horrible at keeping in touch with (pretty much anyone who lives outside of an hour radius of me) knows the story, I would love to share some Rumney with everyone. Here are some of my favorites from the year. I will be keeping up with the blog, so keep checking back for updates on what's happening and for up to date photos.