For the second year, we were honored to collaborate with Black Diamond on Rock Shop, an event Jon Jugenheimer has put together the last couple Aprils. It works like this:

• Jon invites every Black Diamond retailer in his territory (Great Lakes) to send one staff member who is relatively new to rock climbing or would like to learn more.

• Jon reserves a group campsite, packs up his big camp kitchen, and buys a ton of food.

• We all rendezvous on Friday night for burgers and campfire shananigans.

• After egg burritos Saturday morning, we head to the crag for climbing, tech skills clinics and general climbing talk and camaraderie.

• After a good day out, we head to The Barn.

Can you imagine a better training day for store staff? The energy is all good, all the time on this event and we were psyched to be out.

We set up a legion of TRs at Hawk’s Nest and Psuedo Hawk’s Nest to accommodate the crew. Beautiful weather at this great south-facing crag made for wonderful climbing comfort. Jon schedules this event pretty early in the season, so climbing activity is pretty thin and we largely have the place to ourselves.

It’s pretty incredible to hang out with 25 outdoor retail professionals from all over the Midwest. While not all the folks were experienced climbers, they were all super enthusiastic and really happy to be learning and climbing with us. And since many folks DID have some experience, there was a really great momentum created from having 8 staff combine with many backgrounds and to produce all sorts of stories, opinions and questions about climbing and technical work.

Huge thanks to Jon Jugenheimer for organizing this cool day of learning and fun. And another big thank you to Madison photographer Sharon Vanorny, who joined us for the morning to capture the climbing action. I am already looking forward to next year.