I started a thread on this but thought a TR would be much more appropriate given the magnitude of what is happening up here. I am thinking that it will be something similar to Big Mike and Sandra's epic TR of going to Trout Creek, meeting up with tons of ST'rs, Yosemite, Facelift, and a trip to Red Rocks. Accept mine won't have any of that. I am sure it will still garner thousands of responses as it does definitively prove that global warming is occurring when it gets cold in the Black Hills in mid November. I will post updates occasionally through 6 months of this polar vortex up here so that you all can participate.

It all started at the beginning of time, but that is another story. Actually this started on Saturday Jack and I went to the Tower and he was going to try to lead Walt Bailey a long hard 5.9 that he had cruised while following the week before taking out all of the gear clean and still smiling at the end of a 180ft pitch. Well the vortex had obviously changed the gravity that day to the high end of the spectrum as he got up the steep flake at the beginning of the pitch and then got spanked and decided to come down. Now he is only 13, but the vortex induced high gravity day was obviously the cause of such a disaster. I had to take over but my still throbbing feet are precise proof of the gravity shift. Regardless we summited in beautiful weather and lounged around on the top with some folks from Bozeman for a while before descending into the inky blackness.

If we could have known that the descent was an omen of things to come we surely would have immediately started splitting wood. That being said on Sunday my daughter decided to go on a picnic and to throw some rocks into a pond as she was really looking forward to learning how to skip rocks(she throws like a girl). We conquered the rock skipping and hiked up to a beautiful spot to eat up above Spearfish Canyon. We ate and came down where I went for a ride and did a little trail clean up.

We went to bed hearing that the vortex was moving in so we closed the garage doors and turned in early to save our energy for the impending horrors to come. Sure enough the storm that had shifted the forces of physics had moved in over night and had left a whopping 4 inches of snow on our driveway. I spent the morning shoveling and then hurried off to work. That is all for now, but I will check back in occasionally as conditions and cell service warrant.