Vedauwoo, WY - Memorial Weekend Day 2
On Saturday morning, I woke up with a layer of sleet over my tent. It was probably a typical night at Vedauwoo, but it was a little scary for me. Alone, in the tent, with very gusty wind, and the sound of sleet on the tent walls. A few times, I woke up feeling the tent being pulled upward. I swear, I saw the wicked witch of the west peddle by my pad!
Dylan (aka savior) came around with hot coffee, and I feebly stuck my metal tin out of the door, for him to fill. I could not believe the hospitality, and how nice of Ann to make extra, later! Coffee had a medicinal effect, and suddenly I remembered why I was there…TO CLIMB!
As I got out of the tent, reality smacked me upside the head-in the form of a gust of very frigid air. The skies looked clear, but it was B-R-I-S-K! Over breakfast, we all discussed options.
Mark amazed everybody but his wife, by frying bacon out in the cold. We were equally impressed when he showed up at the door of the camper with a beer at 10am! Hey, I say if you’re cooking out in that kind of weather, you should drink whatever you darn well want! Then, Kate made me a scrambled egg (yum, protein!) the second hospitable act of the day!
We eventually decided not to climb, in favor of a day hike. So, we set out like the seven dwarfs (I was Grumpy!) in search of new crags and a good workout. One noteworthy event was walking right by Spectreman 5.11c testpiece…see below. It looks yummy!
The hike was around 6 miles in total, somebody had GPS, so exact numbers & a map exist in another blog. We encountered the same weather all day, until mid afternoon, when we were treated to some smallish hail like precipitation. It only lasted 10 minutes, thankfully!
When we got back to camp, we decided to strike camp. We passed by this most excellant site on our hike, and it was sheltered from the wind, totally groovy. On the way to our new site, Dylan & I spotted a crack and the following occurred:
Thus, around 5pm in the evening, I was finally roping up. WOOHOO!!! It was just a 1 pitch crack, but it was fun and had a beautiful view. Dylan led it, and I cleaned. The crux was an elbow jam, and actually, I did 2 elbow jams…so we thought it should be named Elbow Crack. It was fun.
Went back to camp, had dinner, hung out around the campfire, and put the fire out. I stayed up till 12 reading “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom”. The first chapter is LONG!