Chris and I spent a lot of time last week bemoaning the fact that propane grills are banned at our apartment complex and Chris's lovely, barely-used grill is locked up and unusable in the storage unit a mile away...admittedly, that puts a bit of a damper on Memorial Day festivities.
Lucky for us, Mark and Jess invited us up to Jemez Springs for rock climbing. Yay!
We left a bit before them and ended up pulling over at this random spot along the highway before getting to the climbing area. It was a pretty neat spot to stop--it included a waterfall and a hot spring inside a cave.
Chris said that he felt like he was breaking the rules when he stuck his hand in the hot spring--it reminded him a lot of Yellowstone, and there you basically just get arrested if you touch anything. At all. Ever. So this was cool. No arrests were made all day.
It did also make for a convenient breakfast locale. Cold cereal from the back of a van, anyone?
We hung out a bit after eating to unofficially start our own rock climbing and to play in the dirt--this was just the beginning of lots and lots and lots of dirt playing that day.
Detour complete, we met up with Mark and Jess and a few of their other climbing friends. Chris jumped right in on the action.
Audrey was quite interested in climbing around the lower edges of the rock face, so Mark fashioned her a harness out of extra straps.
Dad was on belay, Jess helped her up, and Mark helped her down. Somewhere in the middle she kind of freaked out, and the only way we got her to keep climbing was by saying that I was taking pictures and I would put them on the internet so Grandpa Jeff would see how awesome she was at climbing. Grandpa Jeff, consider yourself informed.
She was quite proud of herself, though I think the rope freaked her out a little. She climbed that high and higher all by herself without any rope or anyone around. We didn't point that out at the time...
And Megan and Ben played in the dirt. I took pictures, as you can see.
Chris has only climbed a handful of times, and I've only been around maybe once and that was never outside--I've only watched him on climbing walls. It was fun to see something different, and to watch him doing something he really enjoys.
Lunch via cooler.
Once everyone had tried all the routes there and eaten lunch, we "hiked" a trail for about twenty minutes to reach another climbing spot that Mark and Jess had been to before. It was actually a really nice little walk, and I admit, the scenery was quite a welcome change from the pervasive brown of Albuquerque.
This new spot came with a stream.
Stinkin' cold, but the kids had fun.
These climbs apparently were much harder--the first climbs by the road were mostly 5.6 and 5.7, but this particular climb was a 5.10d. If you know anything about climb ratings, that's a fairly difficult climb. (On the rope here is Mark's friend Remy--I just wanted to show the entire route.)
The hardest Chris had ever climbed before was a 5.10b, so this was quite the stretch for him. He didn't make it all the way to the top, but he still did really good.
He did make it all the way to the top of this, which I believe was a 5.9. Awesome.
P.S. Using a climber's body weight to make a swing for yourself as belayer is strongly frowned upon. Especially by the climber.
And in other news, Ben got dirty. Really, really dirty. Like, war paint dirty.
As another hiker said on our way back,
"Now that's the sign of a successful day--coming home covered in dirt."
