Let it Snow

We arrived at the Grand Canyon in the evening, set up camp and woke up the next morning to 18-degree temps and a big ugly crow pecking at our 5-gallon water jug.  The bird poked a hole in the jug and water trickled out and immediately froze.  Back to the tent!  Eventually it warmed up and we hiked along the rim of the canyon, which is truly quite a site. 

After we had our fill of walking around, we headed towards Flagstaff to see what we could see.  The drive there was absolutely beautiful!  It did not look like we were in Arizona at all, but rather Wyoming or some other place full of wide open plains, gorgeous mountains, and unending forests.  At one point we pulled the car over, let the dogs out of the back, and went frolicking through the forest. 

This is a video of the dogs playing in the snow, it was supposed to be at the end... but oh well

We arrived in Flagstaff, which we thought would be a huge city (maybe we only made it to the outskirts?).  It was small and cute and we found a local climbing gym and got beta on the climbing in Arizona.  We were not aware that there were so many options!  We hadn’t planned on staying in Arizona long because we wanted to make it to Bishop soon, so we were a little overwhelmed trying to choose one place for a quick visit.  After being in one place for so long, with all of the questioning of where and what next taken away, we seemed to have lost some of our road tripping mojo.  We sat in a coffee shop forever, Googling distances and driving times, and debating what to do.  Eventually we just decided to drive to Bishop.  We hopped on Historic Route 66 and headed west. 

View of the mountains from the Buttermilks

We made it to Bishop and slept in the back of the car up by the Buttermilks.  We woke up to gusty winds and headed to the boulders for a quick bit of climbing.  Our pads were literally blowing away beneath us as we climbed, and the weather forecasted snow for the next few days, so we decided to head up to Tahoe where we would have a roof over our head, and wait out the storm. 

Me on Ironman Traverse on a previous trip to Bishop

So here we are in Tahoe, watching the snow fall outside and paging through the Bishop guidebook.  Psyche is incredibly high, if only the weather would clear!  We have met up with two great friends, Eric and Scotty for the trip down south, and we expect to meet lots of other friends down there.  As for now, we are doing what we usually do when the weather keeps us from the rocks- eating!

We got quite a bit of snow last night