Time to trade warm and damp for cool and dry, slippery schmarm for friction, sandstone for limestone, and yield a little fitness to power. It seems like each time we go to the Red, we spend a few weeks picking our feet up too high and holding on too tightly, wrecking our skin and hammering our forearms. With each visit the learning curve sharpens, but just when we feel like we’re starting to get the hang of it and the forearm fitness kicks in, the weather sends us running. This time heat, humidity and lack of power have told us it’s time to boulder again. While our trip to Kalymnos before coming “home” to Kentucky was like a climbing dream come true, we both agree that we returned weaker than when we left. A good bout of bouldering will cure what ails us.

Priest Draw (Arizona) is a place that’s long been in our periphery, and there’s no time like the present! Spring is the season here. Lovely pines and budding aspens stand watch over pocketed limestone roofs. Daytime temperatures are in the 60’s, while the nights can still dip below 30˚f. After two days here, it’s painfully obvious that we’re exactly where we need to be. There’s always an adjustment period when we switch modes. It’ll take a couple weeks to acclimatize to the thinner air and for our skin to adapt to the different feel of the rock. We’ll be at it at least a few days before we remember that we actually have to boulder rather than rock climb. And the grades may never make sense…but then, boulder grades never do.

–Maggie

A couple things: 1. Although we’re not professional photographers, the pictures we take and use are, well, ours. Friends and readers are welcome to repost them on Facebook or other personal social media accounts, but please ask if your intention is to use them for any sort of business or product promotion outside of our established relationships. We post photos taken by others with their permission, which you should also obtain if you wish to use them. 2. The ads below show up because we’re too frugal to pay enough to make them go away. They’re not usually for anything we endorse or support.