Fishing for Boulders on the Reservation

On Saturday, I dropped 85 dollars for an annual Tribal Fishing License, and spent my first day hiking along streams on the reservation fishing for good boulders. There are a lot of streams I could hike. All access to the mountains on the Wind River Indian Reservation requires a fishing license, whether you fish or not, and some trailheads require a guide. The license lets me explore. Special tribal permission is required for any bolting, but I don't think there are any regulations concerning bouldering. I'd like it to stay that way, so if I find good bouldering, it will probably stay low key. Ask me if you'd like a tour. Jesse got my exploration started by telling me about a sandstone boulder he had seen.

He also said there were sheep, and I spotted them right away.

The boulder Jesse told me about turned out to be really tall, and chossy at the base were it gets submerged each year. It could have a couple scary highballs, once it's cleaned.
Two boulders up the slope were more to my liking. Worthy of a session, if someone wants to clean them with me.
This boulder looked fun too.

The area's scenery and wildlife impressed me, but the bouldering potential wasn't as high as I'd hoped. The sun began to set. Before hiking out, I shot a couple landscape photos up canyon.

The hike out went quickly. I drove home, and downloaded my photos. That's when I noticed something in the photo above. The forested left ridge appeared to have some boulders on it. I zoomed in, and used Iphoto to brighten the shadows, sharpen the focus, and enhance the colors. Boulders emerged.
Suddenly, I was excited to give the area a second look.

In addition to my afternoon's exploration, we've had a couple great climbing days during the last week. The perfect winter conditions continue at Sinks. So perfect, it hasn't really felt like winter.

On January 2nd, Ashley climbed in shorts.
She was happy about it.
Unfortunately, my sending spree, that started on the Bootie wall, hasn't continued. After a wonderful sending spree I usually punish myself by trying to "Take it to the next level!" or even two levels maybe? And by "levels" I mean letter grades. Today's punishment was "Killer" where I worked really hard to link a few bolts together. It felt better than the last time I was on it, but it isn't going to be my project yet.

Eric had much more success on "Nirvana."
The skiers have been complaining, but I'm loving winter this year.