As I need to practice self rappel, we head towards Red Cliff where are some nice walls for rock climbing. From the highway we climb to the area with the walls but unfortunately all of them have slabs of snow on top, with avalanches ready to be triggered, so we settled for a small rock. The place has something in common with Kinsman Notch, where I fell in love with ice climbing. The rock walls and the soothing dance of the snowflakes resonate with me. It is like the time gets suspended from the rocks and self rappels down, which totally changes the length of the minutes and seconds. Winter wonderland again.
We improvised an anchor and I self-rappel first, then climbed up the rock with the jumar and ice ax. Tried to make a friction hitch below the figure eight as a back-up for my mental comfort but it didn’t work well so I ended up using only the figure 8. Less strenuous than a classic climb up the mountain, the rope training is so fun. Somehow it takes me back in time when climbing trees - with no safety ropes attached - was a daily routine, the only thing changing from one day to another being the purpose of the climb - be it tasty cherries or delicious apples. All worries are gone and it seems like my only purpose in life is playing with the snow and going up and down the rock.
The colors of the sunset and the calm snow falling without disturbing the silence of the mountain made the training perfect. Even if the wind was picking up, I didn’t feel like leaving the “playground”.
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