This trip took place the weekend before school started. Marie and I headed down to the Red Thursday night, but our climbing attempts were thwarted by rain on Friday. Not ones to flee from adversity, we went to Sky Bridge and nearly got washed off it by a veritable monsoon. That evening, we drove to the infamous hoedown island and watched some local festivities before returning to Miguel's.



On Saturday, the rest of the POC group came down. Our party now had Brian Scott - POC alumnus and longest running member, and three dogs: Cupid, Menifee, and Chili. We spent a good day of climbing at Roadside, followed by a nice swim. Well, Marie and I had a nice swim anyhow: the others went to some other swimmin' hole and got harassed by a ranger for skipping stones or something simiarly ludicrous.



On Sunday our big group split up. Some went to climb at Fortress, while others went for a hike to Raven's Rock. The hike was quite vertical, but shorter than I expected. Nonetheless, the view was wonderful. After the hike, we joined the rest of our people (and dogs) at Fortress. While we were contemplating Party Time, Shelley got stung by something, and - being alergic to such things - was taken to the Winchester hospital. We finished up the route, packed our bags, and went to see how she was doing. The hospital (one of the top 100 in the nation, apparently) took a laissez faire approach to Shelley's injury, and waited until she was thoroughly swollen and covered in hives before treating her. But our Shelley is not so easy to fell, and she pulled through like a champ.