February 2025 Recap

This was a pretty good month overall. On 2/2 I was able to get out and climb on rock for the first time of the year. It was an extremely windy day and we only climbed one route (Rapunzel, Rapunzel 5.10b) at The Palace, but it was a really cool rock tower to work our way up. I led the route and I think my favorite part about it was how diverse the climbing was: overhung climbing into thin slab into a small layback section into a small mantle into a fistjam followed by a finger crack, finally topped out with some easy face climbing. (Click on the images to see them uncompressed).

Later that week I was able to get out and session a fun black diamond bike trail at Horsetooth Reservoir which was pretty cool. I personally really enjoy super chunky features on techy trails, so this trail was perfect to start sessioning to eventually send all the way through. (Click on the images to see them uncompressed)

Before winter break I had tried this (admittedly easy for the grade) 5.12a route in the Poudre Canyon which felt extremely doable for me. At the time (admittedly right at the end of the session) when I tried it first, I thought it was at the limit of what I could project on rock, but after giving it a couple of goes on toprope in February I felt differently, not quite limit climbing. Although I didn't get a toprope send in, I worked on figuring out the beta for another session.

(Click on the images to see them uncompressed)

Some weekend birding in Morgan County with friends was fun, and cool to get to explore a county I had only ever passed through on the interstate. Another thing I finally got around to doing this month was skiing! I had never been in my life, so it was finally time to get on a slope and learn the ropes. It was pretty darn hard (for someone who had never touched a pair of skiis in his life), but I thought it was extremely fun and wished it wasn't so expensive...

In the climbing gym on campus mid-month I was able to work on a V7 boulder that was pretty perfectly my style: small holds, slightly overhung, and big moves. After a few sessions I was able to find a beta-break and send the boulder, pretty epic to have another tougher boulder under my belt.

After Inauguration Day, I began spending as much time as I could in the expansive national forests so close to where I live, especially working on highlighting and photographing wildlife on our public lands to showcase the importance of them. With a government that loves to hate everything that makes America "America", it's more important than ever to make sure that our public lands stay protected. Below is a female Common Goldeneye I had some time to work with as she fed in a small hold in the frozen Poudre River.

Common Goldeneye

Merlin

Extremely small-in-frame Black-billed Magpie backlit atop a Ponderosa Pine.

Common Goldeneye

A serious cold snap hit Fort Collins at the end of the month and froze everything over, meaning there were cool textures in the ice to photograph.

Bushtit

Tracks in the ice

A cool boulder I've climbed at Piano Ridge.

Right at the end of the month I began working on a project mapping out Northern Saw-whet Owls in the Fort Collins foothills, and have so far found almost four dozen of them which is really amazing. A little Rotary Park bouldering session on the 28th was pretty fun as well, I started working on a nice V5 traverse problem on a really interestingly featured boulder. Overall, a very fun and action-packed month! I didn't see an insane amount of birds, just over 100 species, I think the most memorable bird moment of February was pulling up to a roadside pulloff to play for saw-whet owl and hearing a Long-eared Owl calling of its own accord! I've wanted to hear one for ages, so it was really awesome to have happen entirely naturally. Heads up, there won't be a March recap post, I'll do individual posts for all of the fun individual adventures I went on as there were a LOT.