....then, three pitches up the easiest route on Castleton, me, my partner, and a father/son team below all get to !BAIL! in a maelstrom of fog, rain, wind, and lightning Saturday afternoon...

Kudos to whomever recovers our tricams, #11 stopper, screamer, biners, and chordage...

Point being...I come to Utah to escape the two solid weeks of rain in the SE and it rains all weekend. Did I bring it with me? How often does a storm like the one Saturday happen in the Moab area? Just curious...

According to some friends of mine, that storm dropped nearly 1.5" of rain. As to how often these types of storms happen...well, spring in Moab is usually amazing, beautiful, often windy, and often sunny. But the storms do happen regularly, and when they do, you wish you were nowhere near the desert (actually, I love the storms, just not climbing in them). Anytime I see those clouds, even relatively far away, I seriously question my climbing plans. They build up, move quick, and a tower isn't the most fun place to be in a lightning storm, as you, I am sure, figured out. :)

Good try Ben. I summited once in the snow wearing a pair of shorts up there. Truth is, you have to be ready for anything in the high desert. But this time we have been having an unusual late May storm that is completely soaking the place! I spent the weekend a 100 miles south but that had more to do with drinking, the swimmin hole and horseshoes than gettin the walls done.

Steve

I'll have no lip from you laddy. It's been raining every weekend here in CO and it's been raining almost every day for a week straight. I can't guide, I can't climb myself. I think I'm getting seasonal depression. Really though, that does suck.

I think we're going on 9 straight weeks of having at least one (usually both) day on the weekend completely fouled by weather. Rain now and plenty of snow earlier.

Well, I guess it's good, as a relatively uneducated Southerner with a new Southern Utah transplant, that we're not the only ones fouled by this ridiculousness...we did get in about fifteen pitches over three days. A bit uninspiring, but, given the weather over the weekend between SLC and Moab, we're well pleased.

How about them boulders tumbling down the scree cones...I was askeered hearing the cracks and shoots without knowing what they were until the father of the lower team saw it happen and we made the connection...scary.

weather was perfect at the creek this weekend. bad enough that it was empty. good enough that we were able to crush ourselves every day. the front range weather is starting to frazzle me.

For some reason it always seem to rain in the Moab area over Memorial Day weekend. Although the amount of rain has been variable, I went there over Memorial day every year and I'm pretty sure it rained every time. Sometimes we got lucky and it was just a night time drizzle, but I've had it pour the whole time too.

"weather was perfect at the creek this weekend. bad enough that it was empty. good enough that we were able to crush ourselves every day."


this.