Wednesday afternoon, after a half day of school, we tried to get up to Sawmill Crossing for a session with Davin, but the Forest Service closed the loop road. It won't open again until late spring. Disappointed, we turned around and went to work on the Back Pocket Boulder's "Back Pocket Traverse into Double Clutch." Davin found us there. We made plans to explore the granite up the Middle Fork trail on Thanksgiving Day, and then have a climbing session up there on Friday.
On Thanksgiving, Davin and I were driving up to the trail when we pulled over to check out a good looking sandstone boulder. We found good stone and ended up looking at sandstone blocks for the next four hours. We never made it to the Middle Fork trail, and we decided to spend today climbing at one of the areas we found.
The area got so warm today, we're calling it the Ice Age. The perfect place to go when things get cold.
The Warm Up boulder has amazing features.
Ashley warming up.
Davin warming up.
Davin got the first ascent of the area classic. A sit start arete problem called "Il Mammut." Italian for the Mammoth.
Davin conquered the beast by getting two fingers in it's eye.
Ashley and I topped out later by crimping a wrinkle on the beast's forehead. I used a kneebar on my ascent, but Ashley's stretchy synthetic pants wouldn't stick in the kneebar. She demanded to borrow my pants, and did for a few attempts. Now you all know who wears the pants in our family.
We finished the day on a few more fun problems. A right exit to "Il Mammut" I'm calling "Ice Age 2." A traverse Ashley named "Prehistoric Squirrel Traverse", and a contrived problem called "High Steppe" pictured below.
We're thankful for the fun Thanksgiving.
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