Dedicated to the Game

For various reasons, the rock season has started late this year. I wasn’t far ahead of the kids on our annual June trip to Vedauwoo. Despite its reputation for heinous off-widths, Vedauwoo is not a bad place to start.

It has plenty of moderates, especially now that the kids’ idea of “moderate” is evolving. They are at the magic point in their climbing careers where they’ve begun to trust the rope and their knots and where they are habituated to exposure. They can focus on the movement alone, and a whole new aspect of the sport is opening up for them.

I’m not the only one starting slow this year. Back in the Needles, the gumby routes are swarming. But that is always the case, as one man’s hero is another man’s gumby right down the line – another beauty of the sport.