Weather woes and good company

We haven’t had the best weather over the last couple of weeks. It’s been pretty cold here, at least 10 degrees colder than normal for this time of year, and believe it or not there’s been quite a bit of rain! There have been several big rain storms and even a fair amount of snow in the higher elevations. Kind of crazy!

We’ve been very thankful to have a place to stay here instead of camping lately…we’re dry and warm at night and have a shower whenever we want which is pretty luxurious.

Despite the weather’s attempts to thwart us we’ve been having a lot of fun; the climbing is fantastic and we’ve been hanging out with some great people. We’ve climbed several times with our friends Pete and Erin; they treated us to a great dinner at their place one night and a soak in the hot tub. Also visited with Mike’s friend Bruce who lives out here but is originally from Maine. They’ve climbed together quite a lot over the years and they seemed to have a great time catching up and reminiscing about past adventures. We spent a day hanging out with our friend Dana from Rhode Island, he was out here for work and we had a great time showing him some of the wonders of Red Rocks. Almost every day out here we meet new people, it’s one of the great things about the climbing community! People tend to be very friendly at the crags, always have stories to share, and it’s great to find out where everyone comes from. Inevitably people will offer to let you stay with them if you’re ever visiting near them……it’s amazing to me how this activity pulls people together! We’ve met lots of folks from all over Canada, several parties from different places in England, people from Oregon, California, Idaho…..everyone flocks to Red Rocks in the winter! We’ve also met a number of local people through our friend Mike (who is letting us live with him).

Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks:

Jan part 2

Wildlife sightings for the week:

Coyote, group of quail (covey? gaggle?), red-naped sapsucker (looked like a woodpecker), a jack rabbit, a side-blotched lizard, and several interesting birds that I haven’t had time to identify yet. Dana said he saw a gray fox, so I’ll count that in my list.

That’s all folks! Love, health, and happiness to all!