The 2nd annual Piney Creek Rock Gathering was another success! Our climbing demographics were different than last year’s, but that is to be expected every year. This year’s Gathering was a two-day event.
Friday night’s guest speakers encouraged and inspired people to follow their dreams! Nick Flores spoke on a local ultra-distance adventure that is called the Black Tooth Challenge. This challenge involves cycling, trail running, and mountaineering! Everyone was inspired by the challenge and a few adventurous soles are already planning their own Black Tooth Challenge. Frank Sanders was a crowd pleaser! Everyone enjoyed watching and hearing about the production of his film, “Frank and the Tower”. He played countless songs on the piano, told stories, and encouraged people to follow their dreams.
We had beautiful weather Saturday morning. We had 25 people attend morning yoga at the Story Centennial Park. Some people opted out of morning yoga so they could get in a full day of climbing! We had climbers come from all over the surrounding area; Jackson, Lander, Casper, Buffalo, Bozeman, Billings, Hulett, North Dakota, Colorado, California, and Oregon! Bighorn Mountain Guides stayed extremely busy renting out gear to a variety of ages and abilities. The majority of the folks renting gear were Sheridan locals.
The after party at Luminous Brewhouse was extremely fun! There was top dollar outdoor/climbing gear to win, food trucks, live music, and games! All ages were welcome and it was great to see so many people gathered around having fun. Sheridan’s local climbing gym, Bighorn Summit, designed 3 different climbing games for anyone to try. It was a crowd pleaser! People started to fizzle out after the games were done and all the raffle prizes were given away. However, a good handful of people stayed on the dance floor to jam out and dance to live music until 10:00 P.M.
It is hard to get a true number on how many folks attended the Gathering this year. I would say we had roughly 75 people Friday night, 100 plus climbers in Piney Creek Canyon on Saturday, and 150-200 people at the after party on Saturday night. The out of town folks were very stoked on Sheridan and plan on coming back to next year’s Piney Creek Rock Gathering.
