Christmas Morning

Thursday we headed out of camp to climb Eeyore, an area classic.  I led the first pitch, which was definitely one of the scariest pitches of my life. I successfully got to the belay ledge in good style without falling and built an anchor. As I was building my anchor, it started to snow. Not heavy, but more then flurries. Once Kurt and Matt got to the ledge, Matt took the sharp end and led the crux pitch.

Several more pitches up, it really started snowing. We kept climbing in true alpine style, but soon opted to bail off the route because of slippery rock. By the time we got down, the snow had stopped, the sun was shining and  the rock was dry.  Another great practice experience in bailing! 

When we got back to camp it was a little late in the day to do anything so we just chilled around camp. Soon after we ate dinner the wind picked up and we retreated into our tents. The wind blew and howled, pulling out one of my guy lines. Then it started to hail, and snow and I spent the rest of the evening reading and went to bed early. 

I woke up in the middle of the night just as the snow started to taper off. I was cold and realized my therm-a-rest had deflated, from a very tiny leak, about the size of a pinhole. I figured I would patch it the next day when I could actually find the leak. 

Early the next morning I woke up and crawled outside my tent to the cold, crisp sunrise. It was like Christmas morning in July. 25 degrees and gorgeous.  We decided to go hike around on the glacier because we couldn't do any climbing. 

Our hike around the glacier was a lot of fun and we got some plans for other routes nailed down which would help us out on routes the rest of the trip. Afterwards, we went back to camp and hung out with some other climbers for the remainder of the afternoon.