Such Great Heights: Week 7 Summary
The Great Escape has begun, ladies and gentlemen! We have put our friends on a flight that they were able to reschedule for earlier, packed our last months’ life into the car, and hightailed it out of No-Longer-Particularly-Fabulous-In-That-Everything-Is-Closed Las Vegas to begin our 40 hour drive back home to Canadaland. Currently sat in glamorous Grand Junction, Colorado, the car’s odometer well over 9000 kilometers (in fact, pushing 10000), here’s the update:
CLIMB: We climbed four days in a row this past week: three on rope (granted, pretty relaxed at 4-5 routes attempted per day for me) and a day of bouldering. After Thursday, continuing to climb began to feel both unsafe and unethical, though at that point the park was still operating almost normally (this has since changed). I know that Red Rocks Canyon is a place I want to come back to - especially considering I found myself a 5.11a project in The Gambler, which I redpointed without falling or resting up to and including the third bolt - and then chickened out hard. 9/10.
READ: Actually continuing to read Too Much, which I’m finding to be, unsurprisingly, a lot. Does what it says on the tin, I suppose. 8/10.
QUEST: No session. No score this week.
FRENCH: Even after Dan and Marie left on Thursday night, Jean and I continue to periodically (though less frequently) switch into French, which is great for practice. He also reads the Coronavirus updates to me in French while I drive, which is quite difficult for me to understand on the fly! Listening to the news (or watching some sort of TV show) could prove useful. 9/10.
Sticking the throw
Tryin’ hard on toprope attempt of Killer Joe, 5.10c
As we prepared for departure, we logged our final hike on the Terrace Canyon trail that we had to back off of previously due to high water. We constructed a slightly more involved cairn on one of the terraces at the end of the trail - meet Stella. Saying goodbye to her made me tear up, for all the rocks we got to touch on this trip, and for all the ones that remain unknown to us.
And so we keep rolling eastward, 8 hours of driving per day, with Carl (short for Carleton, as in Carleton-sur-Mer, courtesy of the ever-crafty Ms. Josée) our steadfast companion. Onward!
Wanna Help?
Since I’ll have to go into a 14-day quarantine once I get back (aiming for Thursday), and since everyone else is meant to be staying home anyhow, I’d love to reconnect on Hangouts, Skype, or FaceTime! If you’re inclined, hit me up, we’ll schedule a virtual quarant-wine :)
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