Day 19: Climb

I finally got my climbing fix. Along the shores of Hudson Bay, there is a short bluff with large rocks. When I stood at the bottom, next to the salt water of the Bay, the bluff rose a few feet above my head. At a ninety degree incline with few obvious holds, the rocks looked perfect for a short scramble.

Bird Cove along the Bay with the last remnants of snow and ice.
The wind is still harsh enough to stain my cheeks red and make me wrap in layers. 

The details of the ice as it is molded by the wind and snow
melt. I wonder how long the beauty of the crystals will last.

The edge of a bluff in stark relief against a setting sun.

I was a called a goat woman of the goat people as I scrambled up and down the rocks by the British girls - ta by the way, you tossers! It was nice to climb something that wasn't polished by hundreds of hands, even the smallest handhold was grained and sharp, easy to hold. The difficulty came with the footing. Not that there wasn't enough spots for a good foothold, only that I was wearing my heavy, large, flexible hiking boots. The cracks I could normally climb with ease became challenging without the use of my legs. In fact, the last climb was a bit of an adrenaline rush. Though it was only about a two foot fall, I really didn't want to fall, so when I slipped and lost a foot, I scrapped my hands on the rock to find something, anything to grab. I managed to slow my fall with the friction of my hands against rock until my foot found a large enough crack to wedge itself in. (To the parents reading this, the drop was nothing. I would have been completely ok. I just didn't want to fall because mentally I wasn't attached to anything or had a mat under me, which made it a bit more tense. But it was much safer than sliding down a rock face with the hope of landing on the rocks beside a river in stead of falling straight into the river... Dad! - Happy Father's day!)

All is good though and the rest of the day was relatively uneventful - water sampling, filtering, picking people up at the airport for a group called EarthWatch.