rocks are the skin of the earth: November 2008

I have been spending a lot of time in the Poudre Canyon these past few weekends. The temps have been oh so chilly and the water even chillier. The river crossings have been so cold and epic that I wonder with water so cold, how can it possibly be flowing freely down the canyon?! Will it just freeze already?

This is my ode to crossing the river section, and it goes out to all who have simply gotten a little chilly to the full blown hypothermia from falling in the river on all fours (Flan).

First we have Tisza crossing in her barefeet. Oh man. She did not fall in but I am sure it royally sucked. She is one tough cookie!

Next we have Flanimal who truly is an animal. We spent the day climbing on As Hard As They Come at the Gandolf area. Everyone who came up bailed due to the wisping snowflakes and threatening clouds. It ended up being just Amy, Flan, and I. Blake and Seth made it across to try a project, but Old Man Ken totally bailed and went to Red Feather. At least the girls made it out to climb!

On our way back after climbing hard all day, I crossed first with Herman's irrigation boots on. I made my best attempt at throwing them back across the river. My best attempt landed the first boot on a layer of very thin ice just out of stick grabbing length. The second boot landed in the water, but Flan was able to grab it, dump the water out and put it back on. With one boot on and a long stick in hand, she inched out onto the ice and immediately fell though the ice into knee deep water. It had to be miserable and her leg had to go throught the ice all naked and alone without any rubber boot protection. Eventually she grabbed the second boot and carried my wet napkin of a dog across the river. She went back and gave the boots to Amy who had a very successful river crossing. Again I made my very best attempt at throwing the boots across the river. This time they landed closer. It was getting dark and poor Flannery had been standing barefoot with her pants rolled up to her thighs for at least 15 minutes now. I could see her little legs turning pink from across the river. As she went to fetch my poorly thrown boots she slipped and fell in landing on all fours. We yelled what words of encouragment we could, and she got up dumped the water out of the boots, donned her crash pad and headed across miserable, freezing and soaking wet. I forced my down booties onto her feet and hugged her little shaking body. We got her in the car where Amy had the heat blasting and after all of this epic river crossing she says, "that was kind of fun." Oh Flanimal.