In the winter time, especially in the Northeast, it’s difficult to feel motivated. With the weather hardly ever cooperating, it’s a challenge to know when to put blind trust in the skies and head out. So many days are missed spending outdoors because of how much we rely on an app, until we realize it’s never accurate anyway. 

Tired of pulling on plastic, we decide to take a breather despite the rainy forecast. The roads are still wet from the night before as we drive through the city cast under a blanket of fog. The scenic route is all the validation we need to know we made the right choice.

As we approach town, the clouds begin to disappear. It looks like the weather is going to be nice after all. Sure enough, the sun warms us as we monkey around on the warm ups. A few boulders are still damp from the previous night’s rain, but that doesn’t deter us from trying harder on ones we can play on. Feeling lucky to be climbing on real rock, grades no longer seem to matter.  

With such limited number of problems to try, all of us take turns getting on everything regardless of the climbing grade. With little to no expectations of sending, we all surprise ourselves by making progress on climbs we usually would not have even tried. By the end of the day, although no projects have gone down, we all go home happier having left the city behind.