a land of extremes

this place called colorado is magical. thursday and friday, i was hiking through patches of feet-thick snow to get to the boulders that were shrouded in cold, white beauty only weeks before. when i say patches, i don't mean a couple square feet; i mean upon finding soft spots, i quickly sunk to my hip. the temps were great, the breezes were cooling, and around sunset, i needed a fleece when i wasn't cranking on granite.

today, i hit the other extreme. i'm sure that i was still reasonably high above sea level; my guess is that most of the land near boulder is above a mile. today's climbing was more desert-like on sandstone and conglomerate. the bright red rocks scattered across the arid landscape were a lot cooler than i expected, and had far better friction than any other sandstone bouldering i've done in the southeast. it was easily in the 90s in the shade, and when we left, the thermometer in bryan's pathfinder said 102. not as unpleasant as vegas 110, but that same kind of dry heat. tolerable, though standing around in climbing shoes or on black crash pads quickly had us dancing as though standing on a skillet. the climbing was awesome. i can't wait to share the pictures from the epic battles with the climbs.