Red Rock - Day #1

It was a wipe the snot on your sleeve, do jumping jacks to keep warm, drop some hand warmers in your chalk bag (oh yeah!), grin & bear it kind-of-day. For the majority of the day, I endured temps in the 30's and 20 mph winds. My guide called it "self torture". Torture that I was paying for, he pointed out. Yeah, if you had asked me if I wanted to go rock climbing in this weather with shade for about 1/2 the day? Ahh... No. Not that desperate, thank you. But, when you plan a climbing vacation, you don't have the luxury of picking your ideal weather & you make the best of it.

Prior to today, the coldest temperature I've climbed in was 55 degrees. I had on a base layer long sleeve & a fleece sweatshirt for this day (which was my first trad lead!) Today, I had on a base layer tank top, base layer long sleeve with thumb holes, fleece sweatshirt, fleece jacket, goose down vest & a scarf to wrap my ears with occasionally. 2 pairs of pants completed the ensemble with wool socks & comfy sneakers enjoyed between climbs.

My guide Andrew was a 24-year old full-time mountaineer man. He is the new lead guide in the Red Rocks area for his employer & has spent many months in Alaska leading expeditions with 4 summits to Mount McKinley under his belt so far. He was great. I learned more from him today than I have all year about constructing anchors. I'm confident that my first self-constructed belay anchor will be bomber when we climb multi pitch trad on Friday.

Today we climbed 6 single-pitch moderate routes on his lead, along with a lunchtime session on gear placement and anchor building. The plan for Friday is to send Cat in the Hat, where I plan to lead at least one pitch (maybe pitch 4?) in the morning and then hit another 5-pitch trad route about 15-20 mins away where we can bail after any of the pitches if we start to lose light or stamina.

It was a great day considering the weather. Looking forward to Friday's big multi-pitch routes after a day of rest.