Cindy e-mailed asking if I wanted to carpool to Vail. No, thanks: After our conference I was going climbing with friends, while someone brought my car home. “I probably shouldn’t mess with a plan that’s in place,” I added.

“You’re right about not messing with plans,” Cindy emailed back, and that was the last time one single thing stayed the same.

Fall is the time, just after my spouse’s hunting season, when I generally take a climbing trip—to the Red maybe, or Red Rocks, or the New. But this year my older son was applying to college, a process invoking parental responsibility, and thus my week-long outing East or West shrank … to a long weekend here in Colorado.

Anyway, I asked Heather, and she was up for it. We’d go to Shelf Road, near Canon City, four or five hours away at this time of year. We put the word out, and Jamie Lynn and Andrea were maybes.

Then Heather got this great new boyfriend, Andy - could he come? These are generally women's trips, but only loosely.

Sure, he could come. His roommate, Nick, too.

Heather also said something about camping.

That was when I yelped. “Camping?!”   We were in her car, and I looked at the snow outside the window. Personally, I’d been thinking of filling up a room or two at the Super 8.

Meanwhile, I was asked to a press event, a North Face conference to be held the Thursday in Vail, 80 miles from here and right on the way, and I really wanted to see Conrad Anker’s presentation on climbing Meru.

Also meanwhile, Heather, a p.t., got fully  loaded up with patients for the Friday. Andy, though, had business in Denver—did I want to climb in Eldo? Sure. Bit of a detour but Eldo would be great. We’d meet in Vail.

“I’ll drive,” he said, “I have a dog.”

He didn't know anything about the motel idea, asked if the Super 8 would take pets. I called, inquired; the motel said no.

By Tuesday night Andrea was out, Jamie still a maybe. She could ride with Heather on Friday.

The calls and texts only proliferated. Wednesday night Nick decided to go do multipitch climbs in Eldo, while Jamie declared herself in for sure, and all over the Super 8 idea. Our friend Wendy sounded interested, but with Jamie plus Heather's dog, Heather's car was full. Heather, Andy, and the dogs would camp.

That night I stayed up until after 1:00 a.m.: helped the rec center prep for a climbing comp, rushed late to a basketball-team parents' meeting, did laundry and packed  clothes for two events and every kind of temp, loaded gear, searched for guidebooks. When, just in case, I dug out winter camping gear from atop our towering shelves, two sleeping bags fell off on my head; another one veered away behind the shelving, and as I fished it out with a ski pole, five more sloughed off the top.

I set out a key to my car by the coffeepot so Mike could fetch it in the lot where my writer friend Allison P left it. I loaded up food and camp dishes, and tried to remember details. Water bottles. Hand warmers. Phone charger.

Andy was picking me up in Vail at 8:30 Friday morning, so I arranged to meet with/ interview Conrad at 7:30 a.m.

On Thursday morning just as I was leaving the house, Andy called. His meeting was off, so we’d go straight to Shelf. Friday was to be sunny all day, Saturday and Sunday partly cloudy.

Late that afternoon as I was walking uphill on snow at the conference venue in Vail, freezing cold in my jeans and thanking my stars for the weekend's Super 8, Jamie called and bailed. She said, “I wanted to let you know before you left.”

Oh, I'd left.

I called Heather. Should we call Wendy again?

Busted back to camping, I found Allison P. to retrieve my car key, descended to the hotel garage and, taking two trips, hauled all my gear up to my room at the conference venue as the other attendees all gathered in the bar; from the halls I could hear their laughter. I stashed the Eldorado guidebook and various other items in the car. Then stayed in the bar until 1:00.

At 6:45 a.m. my phone rang. Andy was out, sick with flu. Heather called me and then called Wendy, but Wendy was sick, too. Heather’s camping gear was all packed up at Andy’s house, half an hour away from her work. Somehow, she said, between patients, she’d call around for a dog-friendly motel. Next phone call: Never mind, Wendy was taking the dog.

So at the end of it all, we were back to where we started. Heather, me, and the Super 8.  “We’re still going!” we praised ourselves. She’d pick me up at about 5 p.m. I got permission to stay in my room until 1:00.

I was taking notes at breakfast with Conrad when the phone in my pocket buzzed again. Sick of it, I didn’t answer, but from the message found out about the one thing we could never arrange around. Heather had just checked weather and the latest report predicted temps in the 30s, snow and rain.

Oh god, had Allison P left with my car? No, I spotted her. I fetched down camping gear, clothing, and climbing pack, and got in the car, too.

Halfway home, we stopped in Costco, where in the aisles I saw a friend, Davis. When I explained one-quarter of the recent timeline, he shook his head and said, “I gave up on the group thing years ago.”

I had a cart full of groceries when my husband texted me: “Canon City forecast [just] partly cloudy for weekend ... ??!!”

What?  Could Heather have looked at the wrong page? A default setting? I started to text her, and then stopped. Sometimes you just have to let it go.

(Postscript: Heather called just as the author began heading home over a mountain pass. She had been correct about weather, per two out of three sites read.)

Photo: Top, Climber on Surreal Estate, Shelf Road. Was it asking so much to want to go here? Second photo, moonrise over this wilderness sport area. Photos: Bob D'Antonio, Shelf Road Climbing.