OK this is not another Black Hills TR. As some of you know I have taken a job in CO. So for the last couple of months I have been working on getting employed, selling my house, packing up, and moving. After 16 years at the same house and 21 years in Spearfish moving was quite the chore. It is amazing the stuff you accumulate after so long in one house. But thanks to the help of some of my friends, neighbors, and family the process was much easier, but still one of the hardest most stressful things I have ever done.

I had spent a few weeks getting ready to sell the house, selling the house, getting a new house, and packing up. I wanted to work as long as I could as I knew CO and the Boulder area is very expensive these days so I worked until about a week ago while doing all these other things. This meant no climbing, no mountain biking, no camping, no nothing basically for most of this time. I did squeeze in a ride on Crow Peak and 24 hours in the Needles but usually these things are taking place daily this time of year, but I had been consumed with getting everything done I had little time for anything else.

Last week it finally came time to pack up the truck so I spent a full day packing it in temps in the mid nineties but got most of it done in a day. I have to say a beg thank you to Chris M, my wife, and Jack but I bet I drank at least 5 gallons of water on that day as it was so hot and humid. Well finally we got it loaded and Jack and I jumped in and drove to Louisville where our new home will be. It took another 4 days to mostly unpack and get the house set up. It was unbelievably taxing but thanks again to family and friends it was much easier than doing it alone.

So last night July 4th we had gotten the house livable and it was time to relax a little. We watched fireworks with my family drank a few beers and made plans to go climbing early the next morning in Eldo with my brother Dan and Jack. My wife and the kids will be heading back to the Black Hills to stay with her mom while she looks for a job so I was super psyched to get Jack out before he left.

We got up at 5pm and made breakfast and were out the door at 6am. Turns out Eldo isn't too crowed at 6:15 as we were the only ones in the parking lot. Eldo is beautiful and cool this early in the morning. What do you do when you are with a 14 year old on one of his first trips to the Canyon and no one is there. Well you do the Bastille Crack of course. Dan who climbs here a lot did a great job linking the first couple of pitches.Jack cleaned it up like a champ. We had a little snafu as Dan thought the first two pitches linked were only 35m but they ate up 3/4 of our 70m rope so he just lowered me the rope which almost got caught in the crack but he freed it and we swapped pitches the rest of the way with Jack cleaning them in the middle. It had been many years sense I done the route and I had forgotten how fun it is.The views of the other walls are also great. We topped out and were back to the car by 9:30. We were back to the house before 10 where we helped with the last few details before my family left.
I loved the Black Hills, but I gotta say that living 10 minutes from Eldo aint all bad.