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Desert Vacation – Backcountry Skiing?

Bookmark and Share            By Lou

If it seems a bit out of character, it is! But just to prove this old dawg can do a few new tricks, we did the 13 hour drive from Colorado down to Joshua Tree National Park for a week of desert rock climbing to kick off the ski season. Louie said, “dad, this will be the first ski season in my life I didn’t hit the slopes on opening day.”

But, the idea of doing a rock climbing vacation was Louie’s anyhow, so he’ll just have to suffer through a few more days of sunny warm classics on J-Tree’s cool formations.

We’re not that radical of rock climbers. A few 5.6 leads and some 5.7 top ropes are about our speed. But you never know what’s next, we’re improving fast.

Truth be told, we needed to come down here for a family Thanksgiving dinner event, and figured we might as well do some rock climbing at JT since my brother-in-law lives only miles from the park. It’s working great – nice vacation and actually a good way to enter what’s going to be a LONG and excellent backcountry skiing season.

I’m excited about blog plans for when we return to Colorado. First thing is to switch to WordPress so this thing has a real RSS feed and is easier to maintain. I promise, it’ll get done.

Thanks goes out from here to all you folks who’ve been visiting this blog so much.

Posted by Lou on November 21, 2005 | Filed Under Trip Reports 

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Welcome to Louis (Lou) Dawson's backcountry skiing information and opinion website. Lou's passion for the past forty years has been alpinism, climbing, mountaineering and skiing -- along with all manner of outdoor recreation. He has authored numerous books and articles about backcountry skiing and is well known as the first person to ski down all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks, otherwise known as the Fourteeners! Books and free back country information here, and tons of Randonnee rando telemark info.

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