Brian Stuenkel, Southern Hospitalcity, & Deep Water Soloing

Fayetteville, Arkansas: Brian Stuenkel:
We arrived on schedule, narrowly beating the T-Storms to Brian Stuenkel’s front door. Upon arriving, I reflect on the drive and realize that I had been thinking two solid thoughts and many meandering, liquid thoughts the entire trip. The two solid thoughts, easiest to convey are as follows:
1) I have been wearing sandals and sunglasses for 13 days straight. I wonder if I’ll make it to 24 days.
2) I can’t wait to see Brian Stuenkel! It’s been 2 weeks? No. 2 days? No. 2 years? Maybe. 2 long? Definitely. Two years and too long since I’ve seen my boy, Brian. Stuenkel, that is. Brian is the first topic of this post.

Brian Stuenkel and I met at YMCA Camp in Winthrop, Maine, two summers ago. He had been a friend of my younger brother’s the year before there. This pre-knowledge allowed me to drop my guard and immediately be myself around Brian, which paid off. We instantly hit it off. Brian was witty and giggled. He was also big and bearded. I called him Grande Oso Bruno. That’s simple Spanish for huge bear, Brian. I yelled it in an Italian accent as we played tetherball or Frisbee or anything, really. Beyond Y-Camp, Brian and I were infrequent contacts. However, each contact was like a 2-hour philosophizing and catching-up phone call or something far from ephemeral in our armored memory banks. That’s right, both Brian and I have memory banks whose memories are transported from reality to bank with a BRINKS guarded truck. Don’t think about messing with our memory transportation!

As it goes with good friends – are there bad friends?! – I couldn’t wait to see Brian again and cement some new sidewalks… of memories. We walk on our memories, too, you see. You can’t take a stroll down memory lane unless the lane has been made, can you?

That night Alisa, Brian and I make falafel sandwiches (falafels, hummus, pita bread, spinach, smiles), and have a lap-top party at the couches. All this with the dog, Max, who Brian picks up and cradles!Then, Alisa retires from a catch-up- and climbing-oriented string of conversations. Brian and I never retire. We plan to stay in this sort of conversation business until we revolutionize it or can’t move our mouths. That said, we watch a good movie, are glad to see one another, and head to our beds: Me to his, him to an inflatable bed in the entryway.

Good night, Brian!

Full Day One: Southern Hospitalcity:
Let’s make crepes for breakfast. OK. Sounds good! I’m excited. Previously, there was an entire shelf loaded with containers of crepe mix in a Williams Sonoma in San Francisco. Alisa and I decreased their supply by one. That is, thanks to my glorious revelation that it would be a luxury camping breakfast to get two eggs one morning and make Williams Sonoma’s crepe mix into crepes!

Laziness and lack of eggs sold in pairs granted, we have yet to make crepes whilst camping. But it’s great to have crepes rolled in strawberry jam at our non-campground stops! Brian’s roommate, Nate – oh no! now there are two Nates and NATES means buttocks in the dictionary! – is back from a soccer refereeing trip, and shares in the breakfast fun.

Post eating and greeting, Alisa seeks some non-climbing fun in a walk around the new, unknown town of Fayetteville. We wish her a good time and warn her of the possibility of stumbling into southern darkness, leaving our phone numbers, but know that she’ll have a good time exploring this small town after living and spending much of her lifetime in NYC and Seattle and whatnot.

Meanwhile, another plot thickens. Brian and I and alterNate go to Westfork to try our skills at deep-water soloing. Deep-water soloing is a form of climbing where you need no rope, no chalk, no belayer, no spotter. You need nothing but yourself, the rock, and the water below you. As a brief aside, sharing beta for the climbing is harder for deep-water soloing since you have to tread water while showing your friend the movements!
To begin deep-water soloing, raft, kayak, boat, or swim to the rock you wish to climb, and start climbing it! I loved it! It’s harder because your hands, shoes, and clothes are sopping, heavy, and wet wet wet. This results, of course, from taking the cheapest and easiest option of swimming to the rock you wish to climb. On the other hand, deep-water soloing is easier since you never think of falling because you know the water will catch you everytime! It’s very relaxing! Plus, you get cooled off everytime you get tired (and fall)!
As seen above, Brian quickly fired the second ascent of a deep-water solo problem he had worked on one day awhile back. Then all three of us tried out some new and exciting lines nearby! Unfortunately, not all of the new lines (as shown below) were sent (climbed fully) but we certainly tried them enough and had a grande time of it! We climbed hard but also tried to save energy for the really big climbing day that lay just hours ahead of us! With that in mind, we drove back into town to pick up Alisa.
Ring-a-ling-a-ling… RING A LING! Hello? Alisa? Where should we pick you up? Are you still in Arkansas? You hiked to Oklahoma? No way! Oh, you’re in Fayetteville. Phew! OK! See you in 10!
Hungry and happy and not hippopotamuses, we went to Jimmy John’s, a great sandwich shop with free smells, second only to Clear Creek Sandwiches in Flagstaff, AZ. Eat, eating, ate, we drive back to the house, and put out our climbing shoes out to dry. We relax and chat and play with the dog, Max, until we’re ready to leave for the night’s southern adventure; a liberal’s bar: George's Majestic Lounge, featuring a real country music band: Mountain Sprout; no pop, no tractors, no sappy-sad songs; just good old porch, banjo, bass, violin, guitar and vocals. We had a great time, clapping our hands and stompin’ our feet, singing, “We do our best to avoid the law, in the dry counties of Arkansas.”

After listening to many a good song and meeting many a good friend of Brian’s, we recollected our choice of a 5am wake-up for beat-the-sun’s-heat climbing the next day. So, we listened to one more song. Then we listened to one more song. Then we went! What? It was a good song!

We walked on the railroad tracks back to Brian’s Jimmy and hopped in, hopped up on the night’s events and the thought of the next day’s awesome activities.

One more note on Brian's southern hospitalcity takes place at his place of work. Brian brings us to Pack Rat and treats me to a discount on a much-needed new pair of climbing shoes! My old ones had holes worn in the toes and what once were edges now sit rounded sides of rubber. Thanks, Brian! That was a huge help!

Really full day two: Deep Water Soloing (Pt. 2):
Early wake-up. We make eggs'n'cheese for breakfast and pack the Jimmy with climbing gear, food and water supplies. And us. And off we drive. We arrive at the Horseshoe Canyon Ranch (HCR) and I hop out to open the gate, let Brian drive through, and close it behind us.
As a staple to how tired I am, I close the gate after Brian drives through only to find myself on the wrong side of the gate to hop back in the Jimmy. The thought of hopping over the fence flashes across my mind's window. Wait, I say. This is clearly not easier than just opening the gate 2.2 inches and walking through it. Wow, I'm tired! I think Alisa should lead the first climb when we get to The North 40 wall at HCR. She does! First, though, we register with the trading post for the day pass for the ranch at $5/pop. Not bad. We leave the Jimmy at the trading post and hike up for 5 minutes to the wall. There are goat pellets everywhere. It suddenly clicks where The Goat Cave must have gotten its name. We place our climbing gear and accessories carefully on non-goat-trodden rocks and groundspace and set up to climb. Click below or click here for a short video-snap of Alisa on lead climb, casually chalking up!

What did we climb? What didn't we climb? We started with all of us leading a super-fun 5.8, followed by a super-fun 5.9+, a 5.10a one-move wonder called Count Chocula, then a memorable and fun 5.9+ called Strongman.What next? We hop in the Jimmy and drive to swim, setup a failed slackline (like a wobbling, bouncing tightrope) across the Buffalo river. (To my shagrin, it was too loose and could not be walked on safely enough for my liking). It would have been gorgeous and lots of fun, though.So we moved on to the you guessed it - super-fun - deep-water soloing at Kyle's Landing on the Buffalo River, about 30 feet downriver from where we tried to setup the slackline. I got almost to the top (20 or 25 feet) of this solo climb and my arms were so pumped (the flexed state of my arms is the same as the unflexed state resulting in an inability to grab onto anything) that I could not stand up on the excellently large foothold that I had. So. I fell. It was great. There's no reward for failure to finish a route quite like falling 20-25 feet back to the turquoise water you started in! What a rush! Pencil dive!After finishing up at the river and telling some nice folks there that Patagonia is in Chile and Argentina, not Pakistan like they had thought, we headed up for some slacklining, resting, eating, and reading in the parking lot park at Kyle's Landing, where a lady who had just lost her moneyfold took some pictures of us (See above). Thank you and good luck in finding your moneyfold! And we drive off, back to HCR for some get-really-really-tired-before-heading-back bouldering there, that Brian claimed - and rightfully so - was spectacular. I loved it. Why? Because it was spectacular!
Brian finished off a V4 (above) that he had previously flashed (climbed on the first try). I followed his beta (information or tips) for the problem and climbed it after him. We tire out with that climb and another really fun problem (below) a few feet to the left, maybe a V6 says Brian. Whew! What a way to finish the day!
We pack up and start hiking back to the bridge and the Jimmy. But wait! What is this? A poor goat is stuck in a disc-golf goal. It's horns have its head wedged and trapped inside of the gates of the goal. We all decide that we should try and help it out of its predicament but as soon as we approach it, the goat giddies and worsens its situation by flipping the goal onto its own neck. Now it is practically kneeling and can't be very happy. Reason tells us that it's wiser to go tell Jason (who works at HCR and is seen in the climbing movie Dosage III) - or anyone we can find who works at HCR - that there is a goat in said situation. We do. Jason and another ranch-hand save the goat's day, who we watch from the comfort of the Jimmy scurry down the hill and shake its head of the stiffness.
What a great day! For us!

The next morning:
We drive to the farmer's market and Alisa, Brian and I walk around the town square that has stations all around it, looking at prices, flowers, vegetables and farmers. We finally purchase a bag of nectarines and a bag of a box of blackberries. We share the spoils, which are not spoiled! Happy, we return to the house. Brian and I, who comprise a band we call - get this, Ninny! - Whoopie Pie!, write another song since we don't know when the next time will be that we'll have a chance to write, sing, and play the guitar together. This is the third song that Whoopie Pie has come out with. The band Whoopie Pie originated two years ago, in 2006 at Y-Camp in Winthrop Maine. It started around a campfire with its debut song, "And So is She". It capped off the summer with another song, "Tropical Island". Now, Whoopie Pie is tripling its treasure with "Bring Us Together". Brian and I recorded it as video (with audio, of course) on our Olympus 1030sw. There will probably be slight tweaking of this song, but this is the first recorded version of it! We hope you enjoy! Click here or click the movie below to play the song!

While we sing and play guitar, Alisa is thanklessly - Thank YOU! - packing the car! I give Brian a last thank-you and hug, and he waves us goodbye until we're out of sight. What a great guy, what a great trip.
To Brian:
You really should finish up school, climb and work, and save up enough "scratch" as you call it, to visit us. We'd love to have you!

So! We're in Columbus, OH now! Stay tuned for an update on our recent revelries!

Much love from this eversocontent Landescaper, N8!
WAHOOOOOO!