When stubborness and stupidity prevail

When I drove through Evergreen, the bank clock read 28 degrees. I put that thought out of my mind as I made my through town and parked at my home away from home.

I had plans to go bouldering with Rak after work on Sunday. So I tidied up everything at my job, handed off the reigns to a coworker and gleefully skipped out of the station.

Called Rak and he was confused. He was at work finishing up a design project and forgot about the bouldering session. Well, I'm still going.

It was cold but it really didn't affect me as much as I thought it would. Oh sure the fingers would go numb after crimping up a problem. But blow on them, stick them in some gloves for a couple of minutes and they were back to normal.

The worst part was the wind. After an hour I got tired of having to chase down my windstopper jacket and crashpad as the gusts would send them skidding across the forest floor.



Well Rak told me to bring the camera so I did. And just taking pictures of a rock is just plain boring. So I was my own model. I do have to add this wasn't posed. I actually started off on the left side of the frame and traversed over and up from a sit-down start.

And yes, those are wool dress pants I am wearing. Let me explain.

In this modern world, companies have spent time and money researching the perfect cold-weather performance fleece pants. And yes you can spend $80 for such a Patagonia pair or something of the ilk.

Or you can go to the thrift store and spend $3 and have a pair of wool pants which do the exact same thing. Hmm.... that's a tough one.

Plus the bonus is, I can just change my shoes and shirt and then go to a fancy dress party!!

I surprised myself and spent a good hour climbing. It got tricky at sections as snow built up in cracks and on holds, so sometimes you had to improvise on lichen-painted slab 20 feet up.

Walking back I decided to do some exploring. The wind nearly knocked me over a couple of times as the crashpad acted like a parasail on my back.



We nearly ran into each other. I came around the corner of a fold and he came up. We both looked up at the same time about 15 feet from each other. I backed up fishing the camera in my pocket to snap a photo.

He came forward.

So I went forward.

He backed up.

I backed up and he came forward. Are we waltzing here?!

Finally got the camera took the picture and shooed him off.