Lady P'Taj

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Deacon, David and Brent made some big progress on the P'Taj challenge which is (as far as I'm concerned) a master's level event of approximately 300 yards of forest to cover using primarily saplings and underbrush. The P'Taj is a deer blind (in the center of the clearing on the east side of the map), the house (on the west side (close the dialogue box to view)) being the finish. There are three major gaps and apparently they made it to the first the other day, and intend to cross using a leaning cedar. I'm basically totally jealous. Brent, Dan and I tried this a couple of months ago and I just about lost my brains out of the back of my head. I'm going to go today to a little park on Oxford St. and want to take a picture. Updates to follow on both my and other's lava exploits. Chears!

Vandermolen Etc.

Vandermolen sent me this picture of injuries sustained while Lavaing with one of the Jack boys. As he puts it:

"We got pretty busted up. At one point I was hanging upside down from a chain and i fell on to my back. Normally it would hurt, but i have been training for wrestling, so i'm getting better at back bumps. But i did die in the lava. Also, my friend Tara calls the game "alligator pit", because she imagines there to be be human eating alligators on the ground. I feel lava to be more dangerous. We both agreed."

I am going down to Conway Park this afternoon (picture to follow). It's a mammoth jungle gym and I am working on a complete route. Also! I found probably the sweetest lava course in the history of the world (exaggeration?!) I will post a picture of that one as well. Toodaloo!

Lavah Hurrah

I thought I'd start things off with arguably the sweetest part of Lava: the injuries. Somehow, swinging on the Conway Playground monkeybars, I managed to pull up an entire pad of skin, starting in the palm and stretching all the way under a callous. I stuck it back down and then all this orange puss oozed out, which I thought merited a picture. Anyway, onto the blog proper. This is a place for people who play Lava or Hot Lava, in which the ground and any specified elements of a structure are deemed lava, and require traversal, without contact with said lava. That's right, the same game you played when you were eight. Here you can meet other Lavaers with the same stunted maturity, share stories, techniques, photographs, drawings, short fiction, music, money orders, dating advice, poetry, government secrets, hair-loss remedies, knock knock jokes, and, of course, schedule Lava sessions with locals. I am in Somerville, MA right now and have no friends whatsoever with which to practice my trade. If you're interested, let me know and we'll Lava! It's the whole of my fitness plan at present, so it wouldn't hurt to have some motivation and morale boosts by fellow enthusiasts. And how!