The Snow is the Remedy

Rain and snow, frequent visitors to Flagstaff this time of year, appear to be on their way. Dark clouds are boiling up over the Pacific and quietly rushing over the Mojave to get caught up on the crags of the San Francisco Peaks. Pressures are changing; Christina has a headache, and I'm hoping to get out to the forest to climb before the snow weighs down the needles on the Ponderosas and icicles hang with melting determination from the boulders.
But there's something special about climbing in the snow too. While I lived in Prescott I regularly layered up  and took the broom from the kitchen and swept the fresh snow from the final holds of whatever problem I was trying. When you spend so many hours in a place focusing on little else but climbing it's easy to loose sight of where you are. The snow is the remedy, it changes things just enough to make me look around and see things I normally look past.
Snow always directs my attention to the boulder problems I want to climb most. I have to take the extra time to drive out, hike out, and clean off the ice to let the rock dry for a couple days. Going to places where the routine is as reliable as a morning cup of coffee, and changing it by simply wandering around, noticing the squirrel tracks linking trees like someone drawing lines between the stars makes that place feel new again.
 So come the end of this storm, or series of storms, I'll be skiing up Priest Draw with a quiver of brushes to clean the ice from the final holds of the Mars Roof. It will be the first time I've been there in any amount of snow, and the idea of spending time there with different intentions, those of being outside to see a place I care about with a different mask unique to this time of year, is as exciting as the first visit.