Climbs with Kelly

Kelly and I went rockclimbing last Saturday. It was our first climbing outing just by ourselves. We went to the hairpin turn on Mount Lemmon. That’s actually where I went rockclimbing the first time, back when I was out here in ’01 on a college service trip. And when Kelly and I were first together. I’ve been back a couple there with friends a couple of times since.

It was a nice cloudy day, and by the time it cleared up, the sun was away to the west, and we were in the shade of the rock. Usually it’s too hot to climb this low on Lemmon this time of the year, but Saturday it was quite pleasant. I led the first climb, and then Kelly climbed it after I did. We moved to successively to a couple of adjacent routes, each climbing them.

Climbing with Kelly was good. We are pretty comparable in skill level, which is certainly impressive, considering I’m significantly taller than I am. We didn’t push ourselves too much for the first time out, only climbing a couple of 5.8s and a 5.9. I’m looking forward to climbing some more difficult stuff later. We head up to Flagstaff for a sustainability expo tomorrow through the weekend, and are hoping to go climbing at least once.