Sunshine and Bouldering Beats Flowers and Chocolates

I wanted to give Ashley a good bouldering session for Valentines Day.  But the weekend forecast didn't look good enough.  Monday and Tuesday looked better, but still too cold. Temperatures looked much nicer to the south though.  Flaming Gorge looked guaranteed to be nice on Monday and at least half of Tuesday.  So we took a couple days off from school and put together a short climbing trip for an extended Valentines weekend.  

The nights and mornings were pretty cold.

 But the days were sunny and warmed up just as the forecast said they would.

 On Monday we had gorgeous weather, and it felt like we could finally emerge from winter shells.

Cicada shells on stone.

 We spent Monday afternoon working on a project we named "Mini Swoosh."  It follows a feature reminiscent of the "Swoosh" problem at Redfeather.

 The next morning Ashley got the first ascent, and four tries later I barely got the second.  It felt like a V7, and climbs really well.  In addition to sunshine and bouldering Ashley got a first ascent for Valentines Day.

Could anything be more romantic than that?

Bouldering Saved the Day!

The forecast wasn't good, so I appreciate the fact that we were able to climb outside today at all.  But "Corner Drug" (our second warm up) was the only sport climb we got on that felt good.  Everything else was cold, "Dogs of War" felt harder than I wanted it to, and I was hiking down from the cliff feeling somewhat disappointed with the climbing day.

But rather than driving straight home, I got the pads out of the truck and jumped on "Youth Cry."  I'd never sent it from the proper start.

Ashley and Alan spotted, and once I warmed up to the start, I climbed right up the problem.

A disappointing climbing session was averted, and my birthday ended up being a happy one.  I'm so glad there's bouldering!