I gave up on camping in the winter a few years ago. We had gone on a trip to the Southeast and though I had family in the general area it wasn’t close enough to keep us from camping out of the car and peeing behind frosty bushes in the morning.

One particularly cold morning in Horse Pens we awoke to a frozen gallon of apple juice on the van dashboard. The night before I had burnt a huge hole in my brand new puffy as we were trying to heat the inside of our van with a space heater. Yeah genius. Preparing coffee in the frigid morning air, while making pathetic attempts to hover in the tiniest rays of light amongst the boulders to find warmth, was needless to say de-motivating. Last winter I decide to give cold camping one last try as I made my way to Hueco Tanks on a random fluke. Despite a few arctic days, the desert winter was welcoming. Morning coffee blazing in the sun, stretch session on crash pads cooked by first day’s rays, followed by the best bouldering the country has to offer, it was heaven.

This winter I picked up some work smack in the middle of the Rocky Mountains in Aspen. It’s freezing. I would never camp in this. We have the cutest little bungalow style A-frame, and there are heat and warm showers on command. I tell you all of this because a huge part of me wants to leave it. I’m this close to moving out of our comfy warm house to go sit in the cold camper just to go climbing. Ah, climbing; how does something so wrong feel so right? Below are some photos of my favorite winter climbing spots; Hueco, St George and Vegas. I’m starting to think it won’t be too long before I’m back there…