"You got to know when to hold 'em,
know when to fold 'em,
know when to walk away,
know when to run,
you never count your money
when you're sittin' at the table,
there'll be time enough for countin'
... when the day is done."

So with my mother-in-law heading in for the next day and my wife giving me the green light to skeedaddle, I was pretty much game for a snowy walk in the forest. Who knows. Maybe we'd even get lucky, and actually get in some climbing. It didn't take much coaxing to lure my friend Grahm out for the day. At our age... it's all exercise. And hell, it was better than being indoors and playing poker or something lame like that.

Only thing was... it had snowed about 6" the night before. Gates might be locked. Roads closed due to snow. Rocks cluttered with ice, snow, or dripping.
But I'm a gambling man and decided to ante in and so I went for it and left the coast at 4am and arrived in North Fork at 8am on Saturday. I met Grahm, switched vehicles, and headed up the road and into the forest. The sun was out, but the sky was filled with clouds and the forecast was for more snow/rain. But when?

We racked and packed and hoofed it up the 1,000' elev. gain and by then the sun had disappeared and gray clouds had taken over. Should we fold 'em and walk away? Not quite yet. We decided to call mother nature's bluff and stay.

Along the way we saw some big @$$ bear prints in the snow. The pit boss no doubt. Probably out looking for breakfast? We eventually found our crag for the day, snowy, covered in icicles, but looking climbable. So with no small amount of fleece on, we chose our first two lines. Grahm had already climbed everything there so we decided to put in some new ones. Routes one and two were fun and went quickly. The skies were cold and dark but we were breaking even so far.

We moved down the wall and then caught a break and went on a run. Four more new routes, four winning hands! Aces everywhere. There it was. It had all paid off. The golden hour broke, lasted about 15 minutes, and then it was obviously time to run. We had lingered too long maybe, but reaped what we sowed. We counted our winnings all the way back down the snowy dark trail, lit only by the moon. When we got to the jeep it started to snow.

We beat the house, and were lucky for sure. But even old guys get lucky some times. I'll be musing over this day for the whole long winter, counting my riches in memories and snowflakes.





















Hope you are getting lucky too.
Cheers - Tom