Pretty basic day. Standard start. Not too early, not too late. Did a few laps with Keelan. Not too few, not too many. The snow was alright. Not amazing, but not too bad. But, by the time I got home after today's tour I was thrashed, coughing, and running a fever. It appears that, like the rest of the state, I have not yet managed to shake the cold that never ends.
Another big storm rolled into the Wasatch today. Combined with the already deep and fluffy covering, the skiing should be amazing. But... I went ice climbing. Tim called and asked if I would join him in Maple, and I haven't been down there yet this year, so I wasn't too hard to persuade. Besides, the UAC has issued an avalanche warning, so it's not the best day to go get rad in the backcountry. Conditions were pretty good today, though warmer than we would have liked. The only really notable event was Tim leading Get Whacked (WI5) in conditions the resembled a vertical slushy. I cleaned most of the screws with a few turns and a good hard pull. Oh, and I trundled a massive rock off the top of Running Man. It was perched rather precariously at the edge of the route, ready to kill some poor bastard who climbed under it when a stiff wind blew. I pushed with about the same amount of force that you'd use to give someone a slap on the back and it pin-balled down the route and cratered at the edge of the road. I smiled.
Today I decided to celebrate being almost healthy by heading out for a dawn patrol with Allison. We headed to Argenta, where despite it being a couple days after the last storm, there were only four tracks and the snow was as deep as a person could want. I still feel a bit weak, but I was only about 10-minutes off my regular mark, and I still seem to be able to ski powder, which is good.
Not much changed between last night and today. Jen and I are still thrashed, and our snail pace and constant hacking on the crack-of-noon tour proves it. The snow was pretty damn good though. In the grand scheme of things, it sure didn't help us get better.
So, obviously skiing and ice climbing are not helping us get well. Sure, curling takes place on ice and it's cold and all, but at least it's indoors. We figured that would have to be a step in the right direction, so we joined about a dozen other friends and headed to PC to throw stones across the ice. It appears that all of us suck at curling except the Canadian chick. Imagine that.
Jen and I are both very sick. Neither of us have felt like our normal selves for about two weeks, and we've both taken days off work. Jen and I are also both very bad at sitting around. So, despite feeling pretty crappy, we drive into LCC and climbed the Icicle in the middle of the night under a full moon. While the light from the moon didn't penetrate the walls around the Icicle, it lit up the rest of the canyon like it was noon. And the air was so still that you could hear the squeak from the rusty water pump at the dam from the top of the last pitch (which was really eerie actually). Then we went home and realized we were more sick then when we started.
This is as close to a cover as I've manged to get yet. The index page in this month's Gripped shows Alex Meyer getting squeezed to death in the wide start of Silent Partner at the City of Rocks. Thanks for wearing bright colors dude.
Since I couldn't talk anyone into my original plan for today, I decided to go to Provo and top-rope solo 1000 vertical feet of ice. Despite summer temps in the valley, the ice in the canyon was still decent. My plan was to set the altimeter and climb and rappel until it got to 1000 feet. However, I forgot that the altimeter does not track in real time, but every few minutes. My first lap (which included stopping at the top and bottom for setting up) showed 75 vertical feet. I didn't check again until several laps later when things were in constant motion, and then I got 40 feet. So, who knows. I probably climbed something like 1400 feet, but since I didn't count my laps there's no way to know for sure. Either way it was a lot of fun and gave me confidence that all those calf raises have been paying off.
Today the Black Diamonds played the Lady Grizzlies. Since the Diamonds are about a generation older than the Grizzlies (but still damn fit), it made for an interesting match up. It seems, in this case anyway, that there's no substitute for experience. Diamonds crushed the Grizzlies 4-1 and I got a little bit better at shooing hockey.
