Imperfect Betsy

With a new storm huffing at the door,  I trudged out to Middle Elden with friends Matt and Spence. Middle Elden lounges in the sun all day and even when it's cold enough in town for snow, it can be almost warm enough in the protected canyon to take your shirt off, find a nice rock to sit on and drink tropical cocktails out of coconuts. Well, it's not really that warm, but the snow melts fast.

Not fast enough, it turns out. After warming up we labored up-canyon in search of Entering Betsy. There was enough snow on top of Broken Symmetry, a beautifully pure line of crimps, pinches, and slopers up a steep wall with a flat landing, that it would be impossible to top the problem out.
Whatever, we had Betsy on mind and she was all that mattered. Matt  and I had spent the day before at the Waterfall plugging cams and climbing cracks. He'd spent most of the afternoon talking up this problem and the area.
Betsy is a problem named as some kind of male assertion on another after one stole the others girlfriend. Entering Betsy is the tastefully crude name of the low-start. It begins with a large dynamic move from underclings to a hueco and then climbs sloping crimps to an enigmatic top-out. It looks like a three-star problem worth twice the hike.
But somehow, in the few hundred feet between Broken Symmetry and Entering Betsy, we got hopelessly, miserably turned around. Matt, the only one of us who'd been to Middle Elden before, seemed to have no idea where he was anymore. He dropped his pad and wandered through the snow and the maze of jumbled boulders and never found Betsy.
I did, long after our muscles were cold again and the snow was seeping through to our socks. I saw a small cave and, since one of the walls was covered in a glossy patina of ice I wanted to get a closer look at, I climbed through and found Betsy on the other side. Of course, the top of the problem was coated in a thin veneer of snow.

The buzz of climbing was gone, though we tried to find something dry for another hour. After climbing one, kind of loose problem way up on one of the canyon's sides, we decided to leave and try Broken Symmetry on the way out.
Walking back down I wondered if the rest of Broken Symmetry would be wet. Earlier, it's snow cap was melting so fast it was pouring off the lip of the boulder and leaving all the face holds dry. now though, it had cooled down and the snow underfoot gave a satisfying crunch with each step.
Matt's dog, Roxanne raced ahead, occasionally turning back as if to say, "come on, this way."
Contributing to the comedy of errors, only the crux hold of Broken Symmetry was wet. It was enough to make the problem unclimbable and to make all of us smile.

Some days just don't come out of the mold shaped for rock climbing the same way some days, like today, don't allow decent writing or perfect luck. I once spent a stubborn week in the back of my truck in Red Rocks reading The Grapes of Wrath and waiting for it to stop raining. My summer was spent racing thunderstorms to the various bouldering areas in central Colorado, races I usually lost. And what I remember about all those days isn't the frustration with imperfection and rotten luck, but the tight comfort of my sleeping bag and the taste of wild raspberries I picked while wandering around in the rain and repeating the mantra, "at least my skin is waterproof,"a thought that can get me through most moist discomfort.
Going to Middle Elden was a bust, but it was still fun, and in my mind, worth every minute of unbalanced walking and cold feet. What I'll remember about this first trip to Middle Elden is the comedy of errors, the glossy ice near Entering Betsy and how much fun a dog can have running in the old crunchy snow. Next time, I'll bring the tropical drinks.