Days 13-15: Castle Rock and Almo

The next few days included meetings and work time for Glenn, but we also managed to get out and climb some as well. We tag-teamed an ascent of "Big Time" (5.7 sport) and linked in the 5.10a trad pitch "Diamond in the Rough" which was the highest-grade trad onsight Glenn had done to date. Afterwards his achilles was feeling pretty rough, so it was huge for Cassie to take over and lead us the rest of the way to the top (while Glenn followed barefoot!).


We also appreciated the flora at Castle Rock State Park, including this beautiful juniper tree that was absolutely thriving!


On the topic of appreciating nature, we also spent some time each night this week stargazing. The area is a designated Dark Sky Park, so the stars were ultra visible. We even started learning to identify new constellations: Draco, Cepheus, Cygnus, Lyra, Capricorn, Hercules, etc.! We also found Alberio, the head of the swan Cygnus, which is a binary star system exhibiting two different colors. The naked eye can't distinguish them from each other, but we had previously seen them through the telescope at the Washburn Observatory on UW-Madison’s campus. (This was on a great date night a number of months back, where we also saw Saturn’s rings through the telescope!) We were so engrossed looking at the constellations to the South, we were delightfully surprised to turn around and see… the aurora borealis!!!!! We knew there had been a big geomagnetic storm that was supposed to make for prime northern lights opportunities, but we also assumed that southern Idaho was beyond the likely range of visibility, so we were thrilled to observe this wonder - a first for both of us. The lights were bright enough to hide the surrounding stars, spanning a large part of the horizon.

Other atmospheric appreciations included this rainbow over the rocks and (of course) a bunch of good sunrises and sunsets!




We continued to eat well this whole week, cooking some delicious meals and then supplementing with ice cream from Tracy's General Store in Almo. This also marked the approximate halfway mark of our road trip, with Boise coming up next!


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