Head in the Clouds – A Spring Vedauwoo Trip Report

I guess all it takes is one blog post about wildfires and droughts, and the next thing you know, it rains all weekend!

Brave climbers on the Nautilus in the rain

I should not complain about rain at all. It helped contain the fire and saved many homes. But last weekend was the first time that we were able to round up some climber friends for a trip to Vedauwoo this year, and of course the rock was too wet to climb on Saturday.

Happy to be out in Vedauwoo

So, we went for a little hike instead. Vedauwoo is still quiet in May. There were a few brave climbers out on the wet rocks, but many of the popular campsites were sitting open and the trails were relatively empty of people.

Carrying the babies back to camp

We had many great wildlife sightings this weekend, even with our two-dog, one-baby, four-people circus. Rachel and Ben had two moose sightings, and on Saturday night we had a moose walk right through our campsite! Mark and I saw a HUGE marmot up in the rocks on Saturday, it probably sat 4 foot tall as it scanned the valley from that high perch. And there was a rare Bob Scarpelli sighting as the legend of a man hiked in to climb at the currently under-utilized Nautilus.

Of course, I didn’t get any pictures of them. But I did get a bunch of the kiddo!

G+stick=happiness

So, Saturday was a quiet, chilly day for us. We started a huge campfire in the wet ring, but ended up with pouring rain at about 8p that night. There was some talk of playing games in the trailer, but we were all ready to turn in early.

"Yeah, that just BLEW YOUR MIND."

Sunday dawned bright, sunny, with the ground covered in a nice layer of frost! We let the world warm up for a few hours as we made breakfast and packed up camp.

Our nice trailer!

By the time we were parked at the Reynold’s Hill lot, there were more clouds moving in. We walked over to Tiny Town (as Mark and I had scouted it a few weeks previous), and set up to climb.

Mark climbing little rocks in Vedauwoo

Tiny Town is a really fun, little, bolted 5.8. Mark had a fun lead on it, and Rachel remembered all of her awesome belay skills. This was Ben’s first outdoor climb, and he did great! He said his feet hurt like mad in his new shoes, but he really enjoyed standing on top of that giant granite boulder.

Ben starts out with some Vedauwoo body-jamming sweetness

While everybody was climbing, G played a bit in the bushes, had his lunch, and then I tried out some advice from CragMama and took him for a walk in the backpack to get him to sleep for his afternoon nap. It actually worked! He zonked for at least 45 minutes in his little blue tent while rain showers blew by and we all enjoyed the crystal-y goodness of a sport climb in Vedauwoo.

Napping in his little blue tent

After I finished cleaning the route, the Gabinator woke up, and a bigger storm blew in. We packed it up after the one nice climb, and headed back to the cars. Even though we were rained on for two days, and only got in a single route, it was still a REALLY fun weekend. You can tell I had a great time, because there are 26 photos attached to this post!

Feels so good to be up in the clouds!

Sometimes camping is more about friends and relaxation and not the epic conquests that we hear so much about. And that is totally fine with me!