It was just as we had feared. The snow began to fall in a flurry of fat white flakes, landing on the chocked dolomite boulder to melt and puddle and make the rock dangerously slick. I was scrambling up the Cheese Grater when it began, and I watched it fall from the height of the rock as Chris bouldered below.
Five of us had come here, to the dolomite boulders below the Main Wall at Sinks, to play a bit at bouldering. Chris and I, the lucky ones, had chalk bags and climbing shoes to aid our ascents. Will, Scott, and Mike were left trying their hand at the pocked slabby rock with nothing but wide slippery-soled tennis or their raw bare feet.
All morning the weather had been questionable, snowing lightly then clearing, threatening more, then struggling to clear again just as more clouds blew in. Who was to know what would win out? So we had opted to leave for town early, while the weather was still on the okay side. In the hopes, we thought, of getting in some bouldering before the inevitable storm rolled in.
As with that stint at Onion Flats, however, this “storm” didn’t last long. It snowed just long enough to add some white to our hair to match the chalky white of our hands. Just long enough to make us marvel at the difference a bit of slick water can do to the climbability of a problem, and how quickly the rock dries again and returns to normal. Just long enough to be able to say, with just a hint of excited pride, “Once I went bouldering in the falling snow.”
