It was cold this morning, in the low 40s. We got a pretty early start heading to Devil’s Lake and met at the East Rampart. We decided to climb in the Pseudo Hawk’s Nest area because there are lots of natural anchors available and there are a lot of routes in our skill level.
A large guided group was in this area as well, which can sometimes be annoying because they occupy a lot of routes for an extended period, but this group was actually very conscientious of that and let us climb a couple of their lines when none of the group was interested/had the energy. They also did a quick check of our rigging, which made us feel a lot more confident because none of us have extensive rigging experience.
At the end of the day we set up two of our own routes and hopped on one or two each of the guide group’s routes and went up and down a gully that was practically a climb itself several times.
After climbing, we built a campfire. One of the climbers is Italian and had not roasted marshmallows before, so we made s’mores. The campground had a wild toga party going on late into the night and we could hear their music from our site.