Winter Bouldering at Governor Dodge - Dec. 13th 2008 - From John K

I have been following the weather pretty closely. Any weekend that looks to be 25F or higher, we head out for some climbing. This weekend, Dec. 13th, we planned to hit up the Dodge. Weather was iffy all week, and after many a person copped out, Paul, Chris and I headed out on Saturday morning. It was very windy, but as I thought, the Dodge was pretty protected from the wind. We had perfect conditions all day.



When we arrived at the park, we were informed of the deer hunters and we were told to wear some blaze orange. We were also told that the road leading to Qual Wall and the Group Camp B area was closed. We thought it wasn't going to be that far of a walk. To Qual Wall, it was a short walk, but to the Group Camp it was looking like quite a hike, so we opted out of that area.


The Lonely Boulders was our first destination. We geared up at the car and headed out. Making sure to stay off the main trails and groomed trails. No reason to get killed by a snow mobile. We made a lot of noise as to ward off any bullets that might be heading our way. We setup camp and started climbing. We warmed up on Flake Face V0. After that, we worked on Another Day Dream V3 and Day Dream Arete V5. We all got up Another Day Dream and after a few tries, I sent Day Dream Arete to complete my first V5 outside.We stayed in this area most of the day repeating the routes and just relaxing in the beautiful day we were given.

After some chillin', we headed over to the Godfather boulder. On our way over, we saw a hunter trying to get a deer into the bed of his truck, but he kept dropping it. So I pulled over and helped him get the deer into his truck. He thanked me, I wiped the blood off in the snow, and we continued to the Godfather. The boulder was in great shape, except the topout being covered in snow. So we climbed as high up as we could without topping out. We stayed here for the remainder of the day.

That ends our trip to the Dodge in December. We hope to see a few more days of good weather for climbing this winter. See you guys out there!

Climb on!