When visiting Rogers Park, we typically parked near the barricade at the old access road, right next to a residential driveway.  However, for the purpose of hosting climbing classes, use of the parking lot at the public boat-ramp seemed more appropriate.  Using the parking lot would allow groups to access the cliff without being in view of any area residents.  However, maintaining the low-visibility approach would necessitate an additional quarter-mile of trail. 

 

Throughout the latter part of 94 and much of 95, a tremendous amount of time and energy were spent clearing the area along the bottom of the cliff.  Preventing the trail from repeatedly meandering down onto the rocky hillside required clearing boo koo briar patches intermingled with poison ivy, poison oak, and brush.  In some spots, the vegetation formed completely impassible barriers, sometimes about a hundred feet thick, along the base of the crag .  Clearing such spots often took a few days of full-time labor simply to progress twenty or thirty yards.  Loose talus was either moved from directly beneath the crag and placed along the edges of the flat areas or carried to other spots to form berms needed to flatten sections of trail traversing the sloping terrain. 

 

Enthusiastic motivation whelmed into tantric manifestations of unprecedented perseverance.  For several months, full days were often spent tirelessly engrossed in the seemingly endless task with hardly any significant rest breaks - except for a couple of hours during mid-week for interludes of bouldering.   All the work at Rogers Park was being done during weekday mornings and afternoons, while weekends were usually spent lead-climbing at Enchanted Rock, Austin’s Barton Creek, or the crags at Reimer’s Ranch on the Perdernales River, about an hour south of Austin. 

 

Clearing the entire base of the crag at Rogers Park would obviously take a single person much longer than a few months to complete.  A few convenient spots had been discovered that provided moderate walkways between the top and bottom of the cliff.  Therefore, once the primary areas of interest were sufficiently developed, the access road through the old campground could be used in conjunction with completed sections of trail to reasonably access both Flake Wall and the Slide Wall area.  The campground is well away from the residential area that ends at the barricade blocking the access road.  

 

With the essential training-areas reasonably developed, brochures describing the climbing-classes were distributed around the local area and put on display at supportive businesses such as fitness gyms, video-rental stores, and community centers.  A one-month ad was also placed in the Temple, Texas newspaper,  but no significant response followed.   However, several years of teaching martial-arts through the Temple Junior College (TJC) Continuing Education Program had established a precedent that enabled the program director to be persuaded into agreeing to offer the rock-climbing classes through the program.  This was a big victory.

 

Prior to the climbing classes being included in the continuing-education program, a written proposal was necessary.  In lieu of presenting a proposal entirely in writing, the idea of including a supporting video seemed like the best way to convey the true essence of what the classes would entail.  After reluctantly agreeing to offer the climbing classes through the program, the director started becoming excited about the prospect, especially after hearing about the decision to produce a promotional video. 

 

The overall endeavor of starting the rock-climbing classes was becoming increasingly more exhilarating.  Unfortunately, the task of acquiring the necessary video footage turned out to be more difficult than expected.   Obtaining appropriate footage of beginners being trained was difficult to accomplish without actually having any beginners to train.  A small amount of footage was obtained using Dave’s wife and a martial-arts student who visited Rogers Park and climbed on a top-rope.  Mostly, we were getting footage of climbers showing off at the Austin crags.   The process of producing the video was becoming an ordeal that probably needed to be scrapped, but the compelling notion and creative drive prevailed. 

 

Early in 96, the written proposal for the TJC Continuing Education Program had been on the back burner for awhile, and then my spouse decided to throw in the towel on our marriage, after eighteen years.  She had always been an essential business assistant who was talented and a great help with the martial-arts classes.  She was a most trusted belay-person very well trained but tended to be unduly acrophobic while hiking on exposed terrain at Enchanted Rock.  She enjoyed managing the gear and was usually comfortable climbing on top-ropes - if all slack was kept out of the rope.  She liked working-out and being strong, but her climbing training had been set back a couple of times by finger-tendon injuries incurred while fooling around on the overhanging pockets at Rogers Park.  During the autumn of 95 she’d been working on some routes in the upper 5.10 difficulty range.  Surprisingly, she’d also developed the notion to start lead-climbing easy routes that were well bolted and not too dicey.  She was the only available person trustworthy and qualified to assist in teaching the classes.  She surely possessed the necessary sense of responsibility to safely and professionally develop and maintain the rock-climbing classes.  Her assistance was absolutely essential.   After her initial decision to end our relationship, the climbing agenda was dropped, and a job was taken at a local transmission-shop with hopes of salvaging the marriage.  However, her gifted stubbornness apparently exceeded the necessary patience.  After several weeks without hearing from her, an exponential relapse of the rock-climbing addiction transpired with a catapulting effect.

 

The initial months after breaking up with the ex-wife were a despondent episode, and Rogers Park became a sanctuary offering the only true solace.  About two or three evenings a week were spent at Rogers Park, after work.   Burnt out forearms usually came quickly while climbing on the overhangs and dicey routes.  Bouldering sessions of about two hours in duration spaced at three-day intervals comprised the climbing ritual.  All other available time was spent removing brush, developing the trail, and clearing rocks from landing areas.  The idea of teaching the climbing classes had naturally been abandoned, but a profoundly enhanced appreciation for bouldering took root and perpetuated the motivation to continue developing the area.  Therefore, the compelling dynamics were no longer tainted by ambitious goals and occupational necessity.  The desire to continue with the laborious undertaking was transformed and became founded solely on reverent creativity with the desire to make a monumental contribution to the esoteric and virtuous art of bouldering. 

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Most of the initial “high-ball” routes attempted at Rogers Park were vertical or slightly overhanging but not too extreme, probably V3 max. The heights of the routes were generally in the twenty-foot range, and no rappelling or ladders were used to pre-inspect for holds.  The routes were climbed on-sight from the ground up, with no spotters or crash pads.  The most captivating and intriguing aspect of the Rogers Park experience was the discipline involved in establishing the routes, on virgin rock, in total solitude - well…not quite total.  A thirteen year-old Doberman Pincer named Sissy liked tagging along.  She loved being at the lake but was slightly feeble and sometimes needed a bit of help over awkward spots on the trail. 

 

Loose and rotten rock was abundant on the cliff, and the routes were approached very methodically using minimal dynamic techniques.  Reverse sequencing was essential, because effective down-climbing was the key to survival.  Once above the comfortable jumping-off height, the climbing system involved learning a move (or half-move) and then reversing it, making the move again, and then trying to figured out another move, and so on.  Body positions had to be maintained and sustained with one hand free to check for bad rock and explore for new holds.  Holds also had to be cleaned.  The pockets were usually packed full of dirt with foliage rooted in.  The higher a project progressed, the more redundant the down-climbing became.  Sometimes intermittent ledges were present for resting, but sufficient strength always had to be reserved for the down-climbing.   A hold breaking off or a blown finger-tendon may have been disastrous, and exuberance could have been devastating.   The cell phone era hadn’t arrived yet, and nobody knew about the solitary bouldering escapades going on, way out of hearing range of anyone who could have heard a cry for help, except possibly someone in a boat.  Sometimes morbid thoughts crept in - thoughts of lying on the ground with a broken leg (or worse) while being eaten by fire ants. 

 

The unyielding composure and highly focused concentration involved in establishing the prospective routes was deeply meditative and invoked a tranquil sense of communion with the rock and with nature as a whole.   The up-close-and-personal sense of connectedness to the crag was not only instinctive and literal but also deeply intuitive, and immensely gratifying.