“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through.
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
Winter Climbing
Some people climb outside in the winter. I usually don’t. I don’t love climbing in the cold, and I think winter is a good time to rest.
However, my partner Brian and I recently went to Colorado for a family wedding. Yes, a wedding in January in the Colorado mountains. Up in there. It was cold and snowy, surprise, surprise. When we drove back down to Denver after the celebration, we were reminded that when the sun is out, even 35 degrees can feel pretty warm, as long as you're dressed properly.
I have a favorite winter climbing outfit. It’s a lot of wool and several layers— a pair of stretchy Prana flannel-lined boyfriend jeans, an ancient tattered wool hoody from Old Navy, and a mustard yellow Arctryx hat with ear flaps and a pom pom on top are my favorite parts of the whole. I’d packed the outfit, so we rolled the dice and went climbing. Outside. In the bleak midwinter, as the old Christmas carol goes.
We considered two options: Shelf Road, a sport climbing area outside of Canon City to the south or Horsetooth Reservoir outside of Fort Collins to the north. We picked Horsetooth for three reasons. A) Bouldering seems like the better choice in the cold because you don’t have to stand around and belay. B) Fort Collins was a bit more on our path home to Pittsburgh— yes, we drove to CO in the winter with snow in the forecast. And C) The approach was super short so if it was too snowy or cold, it would be easy enough to bail and go shopping at Sierra.
We chose wisely. Horsetooth was beautiful. There was little, if any, snow, and the three hours we spent climbing around on two—yes, only two— of the boulders before it got too cold, were a reminder of why climbing in the winter can be so good. The rock was crisp and there were no crowds. Of course it was a weekday, but whatever. We decided to start late because when we’d awoken in Denver, temps were in the teens.
We arrived in Fort Collins by noon and were climbing by 12:30. It was in the mid to upper 30s— “perfect.” For five minutes at 2:30, I was hot. Sweater off. By 3:00 we were fighting with an increasingly steady wind and clouds sucking all warmth from the sun. Sweater on. By 3:30 our shivering bodies had quit keeping us warm. We took our climbing stuff back to the car, bundled up, and took a walk along the beautiful ridgeline trail. We could see all the way to Wyoming, I heard someone in the parking lot say.
Three hours outside, and midwinter seemed decidedly less bleak.
And then we drove to our cheap Airbnb for grilled cheese and tomato soup, TV, and an early bedtime. Keeping warm is a tiring business.
This short jaunt outside was the first time I’d bouldered on real rock in over a year and the first time I’ve bouldered outside since I broke my ankle almost a year ago in February. A year! So each time I topped out, every time I used sketchy, small footholds more than two feet off the ground to go higher and didn’t fall, was a win for me. My confidence is on the rise.
Even though I'm writing this on the coldest day so far this winter, with colder days to follow, I’m looking forward again to going bouldering outside on some warmer days— back to normal winter cold, I mean. This year for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long, maybe ever, the gate at Cooper’s Rock outside of Morgantown, WV, is supposed to remain open. This will be the first winter I’ll be able to boulder there in the best months to boulder there. By the time spring comes, maybe I'll be ready to transition to route climbing and camping. Or whatever, I just want to be in climbing mode.
Last year at the beginning of February, I wrote on my Substack, Pull-ups in the Basement, about needing to take a winter rest and not being riled by seeing posts on social media about other climbers’ winter climbing exploits. It’s also about climbing as play, and play as rest. It’s a good one, if I do say so myself; let me commend it to you. Ironically, a few weeks later I was recovering from surgery after breaking my ankle. I got what I asked for— rest, indeed.
So this winter, I’ve set a low bar for myself, which I think is a good recipe for winter climbing: I’m excited about not losing 8 weeks of activity. What can 8 weeks of consistency indoors and the occasional outdoor jaunt do for me as the year proceeds? I’m excited to find out. Already I feel like I’m back to where I was a year ago, pre-injury. I feel more myself. I can work on difficult boulder problems again. My muscles are feeling strong again. My fear of falling is receding. My goals for this winter are not high or lofty; just to keep that slow momentum going. Carefully. Consistently. Persistently.
Whether you make resolutions for the new year or are thinking ahead in a less intentional way, January is a good month to contemplate what, if anything, you’d like to accomplish as a climber this year. Maybe you’ve been working through a pesky injury. Maybe you’ve been stuck in a rut for forever and keep falling on all the same circuits. Maybe your core needs special attention. Maybe you’re looking for motivation, a little jolt that will get you excited about climbing again. Maybe you're wondering about starting a little training. Maybe it’s time to gather a good winter outfit and climb outside in colder temps than you normally would. Or maybe you need to slow down and hibernate.
ASCEND is a great place to go, if any of these are the case. Stay tuned here at the blog and also on IG for tips, tricks, (hopefully) motivational content, as well as event announcements. In fact, I just saw the infamous Joel Brady (@vampireprofessor) on IG sharing some climbing pro-tips. There is always something going on at the ASCEND gyms— even non-climbing stuff like yoga, acro yoga, fitness, slacklining, book readings, running clubs, etc.
You do you.
