Last Friday, the day before the big Memorial Day weekend and the Indy 500, I climbed Independence Monument in the heart of Colorado National Monument southwest of Grand Junction. The last time I was at Indy, back in mid-April, the fierce wind, plummeting temperatures, and shards of snow flurrying across the canyon conspired to make me bail from Sundeck Ledge a scant 70 feet below the summit. My English mate Dennis, who has his own blog here on cave-digging in the old country, did manage to summit that day along with Joe Cook. But I was cold and frozen; my windbreaker offered inadequate protection from the wind so I took the easy way out and slid down the ropes to shelter and warmth. My last look at Dennis revealed eyes as big as saucers as he clambered up the unprotected chopped steps to the final summit overhangs. Back on the ground he told me, "Bloody 'ell, I had visions of being swept over that vertical east face by the wind." He didn't even sign the summit book, instead contenting himself with merely peering onto the summit from the safety of the last anchors on a ledge eight feet below and placing an "I was there" hand on top.

It sucks to be a climber in Kansas. Actually it sucks to be a climber at a lot of places. Louisiana, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, and Delaware for starters. How about New York City? Lots of good climbers live among the teeming masses there. Rat Rock, a rat-hole of a crag in Central Park, is where they go on summer afternoons to put hands to living rock when they’re tired of grabbing plastic. Or how about Carderock in Maryland just north of Washington DC? Three words describe it: Slimy, slippery, slick.

It's been a rough spring to be a climber in Colorado. The weather: up and down, up and down. Good one day and crap the next. Rain, wind, snow, and then sun. It's hard to make plans or to get out on the rocks. Last week I spent over in western Colorado and eastern Utah with my English buddy Dennis and it was like that.

On Tuesday we ventured into Colorado National Monument to run up Independence Monument, a proud 450-foot-high tower first climbed by the intrepid John Otto in 1911 via a pipe ladder. The sky was clear and the air warm as we walked up the trail with Gwendolyn. Ian and Joe were meeting us in half an hour. We stopped, chatted, made photographs. All was right with the world. But by the time we roped up in the morning shade of the tower's west face, the nice day was quickly disappearing. Clouds scudded across the sky. A persistent wind began to blow. By the time Dennis and I were at the bolts at the end of the long first pitch, it was getting downright cold. After two more pitches, we stood on Sundeck Ledge, a broad airy platform perched on the south ridge just below the summit. The wind gusted. We brought Gwendolyn and Joe up to the aerie. My son Ian, who was going to lead up behind us, had racked and roped up at the route base before his mobile phone rang. Work calling, unfortunately. He had to get back to the drill rig up by Rifle to sort problems with the directional drilling tool.

Back in early December after two solid weeks of cold and snow in Colorado, I yearned to get down to the barbaric southlands, to the dusty prickly desert along the Mexican border, to the home of the winter sun. "Hey Brian," I said, "we need a trip south and go rock climbing. Get out of this murk."

I was thinking the same thing," he said readily. "In fact, why don't we go down to Arizona and you can take me to all those secret places you know about?" So the plan was hatched and two days later we wheeled south on Interstate 25 like migratory birds.