As noted in yesterday’s dispatch from the Horsemanship Arena, the notion of “transference” is a key element in many of Wyoming Catholic College’s activities, whether in the classroom, the oratory, or the outdoors. This intentionality often produces unusual (but wonderful) combinations of things, such as this year’s “Rock Climbing and Creative Writing Week” with Dr. Tiffany Schubert, Associate Professor of Humanities and Trivium at Wyoming Catholic.
The thirteen participants on this trip to Canyon City, Colorado (and the Shelf Road climbing area) plan to spend their mornings and afternoons climbing. But the evenings and the mid-day hour(ish) will be spent reading a great book; attending workshops on dialogue, organization, tone, and the sonnet form; and on writing. Cactus Rose, Bank Robber, Piggy Bank, and Lesser of 2 Evils side-by-side with Pride and Prejudice? Sounds like the perfect WCC week to us!
Each week-long trip involves significant preparation, much of it before the group enters the back country. Following Vigil Mass on Saturday, the group discussed their expectations and goals for the trip. Reflecting on the way that many of their favorite literary characters endured physical as well as mental and spiritual struggles, the group determined to push themselves and encourage one other in their climbing—an activity new to many members of the group. (In fine WCC fashion, they vowed to “be present to what the Lord is doing around us, listen to one another, and make a particular effort to share our poetic experiences with each other: singing, stargazing, and reciting poetry.”)
Now in Canyon City, “we are climbing the cliffs on either side of Shelf Road, finding new challenges, accomplishments, and vistas as we do,” writes Nyra Ortiz (‘25), the College’s Writing Lab Coordinator. “Many members of the trip are facing fears and pushing the boundaries of their strength—mental as well as physical—as they climb.”
Stallings Marosy, a senior and the trip’s head lead, impressed herself by finishing a long route despite a pre-existing knee injury. “I thought it would be cheating to use the other walls since it’s rock climbing and it’s supposed to be only arms and legs on the one wall in front of you,” she said. “It was important to realize that there is no one specific way it needs to be done, and I was able to find other paths and different angles to use my body to take the weight off my injured knee.” Afterward, she realized that “climbing uses our whole body at once, as a unified whole. It reflects the way that we go about things as a whole person, and we really should take everything as a whole.”
Other group activities planned for the remainder of the week include workshops on description, tone, and dialogue, and discussing and imitating iconic scenes from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The group often start with 10-15 minutes of freewriting designed to help overcome “the fear of the blank page,” followed by a brief discussing, then more writing, before reconvening to share their work as people are comfortable. Reports are that everyone in the group has already covered at least 5 or 6 pages of their notebooks with ink!
Nyra reported that “we are camping in a wide canyon surrounded by layered red cliffs, light green shrubby trees, and golden dry grass—desert springtime. This is where we are holding our writing instruction and workshop sessions, led by Dr. Schubert. Basking in the sun and the beauty surrounding us, several people in the group have been moved to write about the majestic scenery and the corresponding thoughts and feelings evoked.” Maria Grenier, one of the freshmen in the group, wrote the following sonnet after the workshop on sonnets—a workshop primed by the reading of Shakespeare, Donne, Wordsworth, Keats, and Frost earlier in the day:
Mountain Ridge Sonnet
by Maria Grenier
The brightest blue of spotless sky
Illuminates each mountain ridge
Which each is to the eye a bridge
To more green-brown cliff face nearby.
These are our walls which don’t contain,
But herald by immensity,
My longing for intensity
And yet from madness I refrain.
The vividness of this blue sky
Against the silent mountain sea
Spark fears that all may go awry
Should I attempt to wild be.
So comfort holds me here, and I
Know not if ever I’ll be free.
To paraphrase Nyra’s recent piece on the College’s new Writing Lab, “writing remains a critical part of education understood as formation. It requires virtue, restraint, courage, endurance, respect, and, above all, love.” Sounds a lot like the skills and disposition that makes one a good rock climber, doesn’t it? Maybe this isn’t such an unusual combination after all!
If an educational institution that teaches its young men and women the joy of writing AND of rock climbing sounds as perfect to you as it does to us, please join this year’s Spring Break Match Campaign. And remember: Everything we receive this week will be MATCHED by generous members of our Board of Directors, doubling the impact of your gift up to $50,000!
