The Winter of My Discount Tent

"It's not supposed to rain in the desert!"

I explain this to Wayne as I hand him a cold Modelo. Wayne and Bill from Eugene Oregon invited me to rope up with them today. Although it was threatening to rain most of the day, we managed to climb Generic Crack and Buins Crack, before the sky opened up to unleash a cold gusty rain. As for the climbing, I used to think a hand jam crack was easy. For some reason, if you repeat the same sequence for 30 meters, it gets very tiring.. who could imagine that.



After downing the beer, Wayne and Bill decide to head into Moab to eat. I decide stay at the campground and drive back through the bumpy road to my site. As I drive by the entrance to the camp sites I notice that someone's tarp has blown down the road. Hah, sucks to be them, I think to myself. Hmm that looks like my tarp. Wondering where my tent may have rolled to... It hasn't gone far, it just rolled over once and all of the contents are inside, but very damp from the open windows. It seams that the designers of this tent did not think anyone would be bold enough to set it up anywhere except a Sears floor display. No tie outs for lashing it down etc. I left the windows open to mimick the idea that huts in hurricane common areas have open vents to let the wind blow through them. This did not work.

I decided to set up my smaller two-man tent which has a lower profile and DOES have tie outs. Unfortunately I did bring any cord to tie them down with. So staked it down as best I could, transfered all of my stuff from El Cheapo, and packed El Cheapo away. Since we were down to a 2-man tent, I needed to tell Jeremy to bring another tent and this could only be done where one can get a signal. So it was off to Moab to get in touch with Jer, pick up some cordage to tie down the 2-man, and get some sympathy from Eve.

I am just so glad I did not go in to town with Bill and Wayne, dealing with all of this in the dark would not have been fun.

It's now Saturday morning and the hectic memories of Friday night are long gone and when I wake up this is my thought:

"It's not supposed to snow in the desert!"



View a panoramic snow shot

I'm looking forward to picking up Jeremy and Ben at the Airport. We will have to head back to the creek and decide if we will stay there and try and climb or if we are going to just head out to another location with better weather.

Till next time, KH