We are back, nature!

After two long weeks without being able to go outside because of the weather, we got lucky again this week and indulged in another rock climbing adventure. Not only did it not rain but the sun came out to greet us as well. All day was a bit cloudy but the second we made it to our climbing destination, the sun came appeared out of nowhere. That's what I call "good timing."

The drive this time was not too long. There was not enough time to entirely zone out but I was able to dream around for a bit. Because we had a huge van we didn't make it too far up the mountain and had to walk the rest. The walk was awesome because it made me notice all the leaves on the ground. Leaves on the ground have been around for a while now but it's fascinating how much they have changed since I first saw them. Not only do the colors of the leaves on the trees change but so do the leaves on the ground. In addition, it's not only the color that changes, it's the texture of the leaves as well.

Last time when I paid close attention to the leaves on the ground, most of them were yellow, some were red, even fewer were green and brown. Yesterday hiking up the mountain, 99% of the leaves were simply brown; one color. All the leaves on the ground, this time were kind of crispy as opposed to really soft as last time. Every time I stepped on them, it sounded like I am stepping on potato chips spread all around the ground. It was surprisingly loud stepping on those leaves; the noise was almost interfering with our conversations.
 
When we finally got all the way to the mountain, I started to look around the area and I realized that not too much had changed. Looking up on the trees, I saw the same variety of colors. The trees still had yellow, red, green and brown leaves. The only thing that changed was the amount of leaves on the trees. The trees are not as over-packed with leaves anymore. Now, it seems like I can see and acknowledge every single leaf without having difficulty separating them from all the other leaves. Because there were not as many leaves on the trees, the sun was much better able to shine through the trees, re-energizing us for our next climb. The leaves as well gave us a somewhat benefit to our climbing process because they made the floor much softer so that psychologically climbing up the wall felt much safer. In case we would fall, the ground would catch us softly.

The last difference to all the other times we have climbed before is the fact that we climbed for the first time at a conglomerate rock instead of gneiss. For me, that made a huge difference. It's like I was introduced to somebody new, a new friend that I from now on had to trust. Conglomerate by definition is made up of all other rocks so we didn't lose gneiss entirely. However, the climbing was a different. The conglomerate had many more holes in the wall, created by little rocks that had fallen out of the wall at some point in time. Some of those holes were big enough to be helpful for our climbing process but others were just irritating because I would stick my finger in and try to pull myself up. Most times those little holes weren't enough, they just hurt my fingers and especially made the muscles in my fingers sore.

As a whole, this trip was packed with lots of new environmental adventures so it was definitely worth going. I just hope that we will have a couple more of those climbs outside before it gets too cold.