Twelve excited FDTributaries participants joined the Midwest Regional program in Devils Lake, Wisconsin from Thursday to Sunday for two full days of rock climbing! There was so much connection, skill building and bonding that happened over this weekend. This could be in part due to the extra full day of programming that is unusual to most trib programs.

We hit the ground running on Friday morning and met our outfitter, Devils Lake Climbing Guides, at 7:30am at the South Shore parking lot. Dawson – the lead guide for the day – came prepared with different potential nicknames on slips of paper and allowed participants to choose names from the hat and assign them to each of the three guides. A super cool way to immediately become integrated with our group.

Dawson, now Pork Chop, led the charge up the stone stairs to the crag while Infomercial and Pigeon were busy setting up the ropes. Participants CRUSHED it all day and cheered each other on in the process. Infomercial set up a rappel for folks to try, and we have to say, we have yet to meet a more patient, attentive and confident climbing guide. Pigeon shared the history of Devils Lake with the participants – and was truly a wealth of knowledge for both the sport of climbing and the local area. At the end of the day, Pork Chop gave full ownership to the participants and allowed them to choose where we climbed the next day. Up for the challenge, we chose to switch up locations and try something a bit harder for Saturday.

We met Infomercial, Nick (now Seahorse), and Bridger (now Woody) at 7:30am at the CCC parking lot in true FD fashion: in costumes with music bumping. Despite being sleepy and sore, the participants totally brought their A game and were ready to SEND IT! We got back to the parking lot just in the nick of time before a massive storm rolled in.

The weekend was a total success. The three brand new folks on the program are already itching to get on a FD1 weeklong program and everyone wants to meet up in July for a reunion trip. We feel very grateful to have been able to bring such an enthusiastic group of young adults to climb in Devil’s and support them to push themselves to their fullest potential! We are excited to run this same program again next year in 2019!