Big Cottonwood

It's a lot harder to get out of bed early than a van early. In any case, we headed out to Big Cottonwood Canyon west of Deer Valley. It's the first time I actually measured the elevation profile of the drive to and from the canyon: an average of 6% incline/decline for 19.5 miles. Ouch. After a quick 45 mins we were at the base of JHCOB Wall. It was pretty sweet, sustained climbing. (Mike, those are laser-cut aretes). Diverse rock, mixed with slate, quartz, and petrified mud. There's absolutely a ton of quality climbs out here, and if the van makes it, we'll be back for a couple more days.

Three pitches and a crazy-death-talus-slide walk-off back to the car and we were on our way back up the canyon, putting up a pretty good smokescreen above 8500ft (as per usual), and relaxing in the condo (thanks again Jim and Nanci!).

Tomorrow we'll be hanging around Park City, likely taking a tour at the local microdistillery (still have to talk Emily into that one)...