Frank Carus
I really love climbing. And skiing. I loved the idea of climbing before I even saw people climbing a real cliff. On a rappelling trip to Yonah Mountain, Georgia as a Boy Scout at age 11 a scoutmaster showed us rusty pitons sticking out of a thin crack and drawled, "That's where people climb up." I was fascinated. Later, on a family trip to Yosemite, I insisted on scrambling up to the base of El Cap to get a closer look, not realizing the danger I was in from falling rocks, gear and human waste (but that's another story). A while later, some friends took me on an overnight trip to a local crag in Pennsylvania during my junior year in high school. The first climb they led me on (ropeless) was a steep, 20' friction problem up a boulder. I was so terrified, it may as well have been the North Face of the Eiger but I never felt so alive. Somehow I survived that weekend and soon found myself on the sharp end of the lead rope with 5 nuts and some slings with Chuck Taylor's on my feet. Sheer force of will allowed me passage up my first lead...the protection that I placed would scarcely have held the weight of a falling squirrel much less my lanky, unhelmeted self. With that first lead, my stormy love affair began and would continue right through the capricious flings of my 20 something years with whitewater kayaking (broken face and nose, 50 stitches), bike touring (rode from CA to NC fully intending to throw my bike into the Atlantic on arrival), and mountain biking (too many injuries to count). I always return to the peace and relative safety of climbing and skiing.

Climbing for me is like a drug. A really good prescription drug without memory loss or hangovers or sketchy dealers on street corners. Climbing, skiing and other adventures in the mountains and on the crags are the ultimate escape from the humdrum of our sanitized modern world. Through these activities, we place ourselves close to harms way and return invigorated and in a way, immunized, physically, mentally and emotionally; more ready for the trials and tedium of the "real" world than before the struggling began.

My job as a guide and teacher is to give you the tools to take control of your adventures in the steeper planes of existence and to make your struggle a calculated, fulfilling one. The excitement comes to us all at different levels of difficulty and this is what makes climbing and guiding, for me, such an essential pursuit.

AMGA Certified Rock Instructor

AMGA Alpine Guides Course

AMGA Ski Guides Course

Wilderness First Responder

AIARE Avalanche Level 2


Though climbing doesn't come without costs, it's a lot cheaper than a lengthy stay at a rehab clinic

Experience
25 years climbing throughout the US · 17 years guiding including successful ascents of Aconcagua, Pequeno Alpamayo and classic routes in the Alps · Guide in the Tetons with Exum Mountain Guides · A-team member, Mountain Rescue Service · Former Instructor, North Carolina Outward Bound School. · Former Owner and Guide Piedmont Climbing Services, 1993-1998 · Board of Directors, Carolina Climbers Coalition, 1996-98 · US Army Reserve Cannon Crewmember, 8" howitzer, 1991-1994 · B.A. in Geography w/ Environmental Studies Concentration · Father of two amazing daughters by my lovely wife who works at Birthwise Midwifery School