Creek-giving

Some people like to spend their Thanksgiving holidays sitting in their warm houses, watching football, and eating turkey with their families.

Some people like to spend their Thanksgiving holidays sitting in the red dirt, watching the campfire, and eating turkey with their climbing friends.

Here are some images that anyone that has had the priviledge of belonging to the latter group might appreciate:

The crisp night air is brilliant with stars and moonlight, and the plentiful beer and boxed wine makes it seem positively warm out. The solidly frozen water bottles beg to differ.

The life-giving sun greets the flawless blue sky every morning, and in no time it's warm enough to worm out of the sleeping bag and get the blood flowing. As everyone stumbles out of their respective tents, plans are made, first for breakfast (sausage or bacon? pancakes or potatoes? all of the above?), then for climbing.

Shoulder the big pack, begin the trudge up to the wall. Let's find a good warm-up... nah, screw it, let's get on that! Last night's cold all but forgotten, layers come off, and it's time for climbing!


The day winds down, many good routes were attempted, much radness accomplished. "We'll definitely need to come back to this crag!" Thoughts shift to dinner, every throws out ideas and volunteers ingrediants. Shoulder those packs again, stumble back to the cars. Don't forget to close the gate behind you.


Arriving back at camp, the sun has gone behind the cliffs, and the chill quickly permeates. Grab a few extra layers, get that fire going, and let's start dinner! Everyone pitches in, even though chopping leads to frozen hands; deliciousness is ready in no time.


You should know that, when sitting around a campfire, it is absolutely futile to try and get up to avoid the woodsmoke. Once it is blowing in your direction, it will follow you no matter where you move. Seems that everyone else is sitting still, totally unmolested, while your eyes sting and lungs burn. Might as well sit still; if you ignore it, it'll get bored and leave you alone.

The fire winds down, folks stop throwing more wood on, an unspoken consensus is reached. One by one, friends drift back to their tents, and soon you'll be zippering up that puffy cocoon of down and passing out for the night. It's gonna be a busy day tomorrow...