Arctic Blast in The Desert

The nice sunny warm weather around Thanksgiving has been replaced by record breaking cold in Southern Utah.  To make matters more dramatic, a couple of snow storms rolled through just prior to the cold spell and left the desert covered in heaps of snow.  My usual climbing crags and mountain bike trails have been frozen over.  Last night we dropped to Zero degrees and I don't think we came even close to getting above freezing today. So the snow and ice are hanging around for days, just as if we were living in Northern Utah.  Yesterday Deb and I braved the cold temperatures in search of powder and traveled up to Brian Head for a day of snow boarding.  Nice sunny day, no crowds but the mountain was very cold and frozen.  No soft powder for me.  We still had a good time.  Just had to warm up in the lodge a few times.  Today Marty and I ventured over to Chuckawalla for a few hours of rock climbing.  There was only one other die-hard couple there climbing when we got there.  The rock was remarkably warm in the afternoon sun and we had a good climbing session before Marty had to go take a final exam at the University.  Hope to stay warm tonight watching a movie with Deb as the sun goes down early this time of year.