Winter is Coming

I've been super-excited about rock climbing in the past few weeks, and my worn-out old body is responding. I've surprised myself with some hard onsights (for me), despite having done no real training. The force of gravity seems to drop as my spirits rise in the cool, clear weather of September.

And so it's with mixed feelings that I contemplate this seasonal fact: Within three weeks of today, the first ice climbs will be completed in Colorado. Sometime in the next few weeks we'll get a heavy snowstorm in the mountains, and autumn routes like the Smear of Fear on Longs Peak will quickly freeze up. Maybe the rumored big ice on Mt. Evans will come into shape. (It wasn't quite there when I walked in last September 30 and took this photo.) When routes like this do appear, they will only last a couple of weeks, and you have to seize the day if you want to climb them. And all I want to do is go rock climbing.