Finally

This is probably one of the most beautiful sights I've seen in a long time. Even though I overloaded my blog with pictures of ice climbing last time, my outdoor rock climbing gear was dusted off today, inspected, cleaned, and is packed until early tomorrow morning when I rope up at Palisade! It's been ridiculously warm lately, and since the weather looks like it's going to hold at a high of 40 for the next couple of days, a bunch of us are going up the shore tonight to pitch camp, so when the sun first peeks on the cliffs we'll be roping up for the first rock climbing of the season. :) If the weather stays gorgeous we'll be there camping and climbing through Monday, which looks very plausible as of right now. I'm itching to get outside since ice season has been over, and this is going to feel great!Besides bringing homework to read beside the campfire (some cheerful Uncle Tom's Cabin for my Authorship Grad Seminar class), I'm packing with the sleeve for the Dale as well as a barter hat I'm making for a climber from the Coast Guard, Andrew. I'm just knitting the plain black shell right now, but there's going to be a lot of mindless embroidery for this one that I'll tell about later.
For now, I'm going to double check my gear, eat a giant spaghetti dinner, and head up the shore for hopefully a great opening to spring and summer climbing! :)