NEEP
Northeast fork of East Pasture

Day 1 was to be the perfect kick off for FreezeFest. Ram had assembled a pretty talented cast of participants, a few of whom had never met the other. Scheduled to be in attendance: Moe, Bill Wolverton, Stefan, Dan, the Ram Clan, and of course, Tom. Rendesvous was set for 9 am, at the Goblin Valley entrance to the Roost.

As I made a few stops on Highway 24 to photograph the excellent morning light on the Reef, a few cars blew past me heading south. I figured those were my guys, so I snapped a few more and hopped back in my rig. Pulling up to the turn off, I saw a few cars, but no one I recognized. Bill and Stefan promptly introduced themselves, but there was no Ram to be seen. And Ram is never one to be late. Stefan broke the news.

From Ram: "Got 30 miles beyond Denver at 2:15 AM today and hit black ice. Only going 30 MPH at the time. Not sure to be happy for the guard rail or not. Front and rear bumper crushed in. Aaron and I fine. Tow truck came along in 10 seconds. Wow! Pulled my bumpers out, with the chains, so they no longer made contact with the tires. Limped home. Trying to rally to the fest in the next few days if I can secure a rental. Sigh. "

What a bummer. It's times like this when you really need to rally to keep motivation up, but I wasn't really feeling it. Slowly, the rest of the crew trickled in, and sans Ram, we headed out to the White Roost. Damn! It was cold out there. Could've sworn we somehow ended up in Antarctica. We were greeted by a stiff wind and sub-freezing temperatures. Skimming over our options, we discussed the possibility of water in Chambers, and decided we would set up camp and take a day to explore some other canyons in the area. Sounds good to me, I was already shivering. I figured that meant we probably wouldn't be doing a canyon. I put on my winter boots, a coat, and some nice warm pants, expecting a nice casual day of hiking. Silly me. Apparently, everyone else got the memo.

Tom had a couple of project canyons in the Pasture system that he had scouted a few years back. I remembered seeing one of the exits earlier this spring, and was curious to see what we could find. Tom remembered a pool of water at the end. I remembered a significant rappel. Neither of us were really sure which exit went with which canyon, but rumor was that neither of them are very intense slots.

The canyon was very slow developing, and it looked to me this one was going to be a dud. Luckily, my intuition was wrong. Slowly but surely, the slot formed, and before I knew it, we were into some pretty good stuff. Nice and skinny, a few easy downclimbs, and beautiful tierdrop narrows, similar to others in the neighborhood. Really, quite pleasant and very enjoyable. Two obstacles gave us a pause. A 30 foot rappel, and a pool of water (just as Tom remembered). There was no way to avoid the water, but Tom was on point, and harvested a few logs to make the pool a bit shallower for the rest of us. Good thing, because my boots were my "keep-my-feet-warm-around-camp" shoes, and getting them wet was going to be a real hassle. Nice work Tom.

Arriving back at camp, the wind was still howling, and a campfire was not in the cards. The party tent had been set up before we left in the morning, and we found our way there for the remainder of the night. Considering the circumstances, we had a pretty enjoyable first day.