Big Sky

I've got a good story here for ya. I manage to do this every year, it's usually a different body part every year. Here we go...
I hit a tree while skiing.
See, wasn't that a good story? Every year I manage to hit a tree somehow. It's quite absurd, but I always manage to get it. It's just standing there, not moving, and then I come along and hit it. It's quite the spectacle. Last year I hit one basically with my leg. It was nothing glorious, I just lost control and went right for it. The year before that I dropped a cliff, hit a rut, and started going head over heels down the hill. When I was flipping over once I saw a tree ahead of me, then the next time I flipped over I didn't see it so I thought I was alright. Well the next time I flipped around I wrapped myself right around the tree. I laid there for a couple minutes because I basically hit my left hip against the tree and I could feel it was swelling already. It turned out to be alright, but definitely hurt for a few days.
I wish I had as good of a story for this year's, but I don't. It was about the dumbest thing I could do. So there I was going down some moguls amongst some trees and I must have hit the mogul hard, my right ski popped off and I went headfirst into a tiny 3 foot tree! I know, I wish I had a better story too, but I don't. I rolled down the hill a little ways and had my friends come check me out to make sure I wasn't bleeding too bad before I got up (I didn't want blood all over my jacket). It turns out my face is just a little bit swollen and just a little bloody.
You want to know the worst thing about all of this? I just shaved off my beard. My beard probably could have saved my face. I mean the thing had been growing for almost four months. It was looking pretty good. Well not really good, it actually looked pretty bad; but I liked it.
Anyways, that picture is from when I got home later that night. And just so you all know, I did finish the day skiing. What else would I do?

Bridger Skiing II

I've been spending my weekends skiing at least one day of the weekend. And normally I manage to get one resort day and one backcountry day. Last weekend was a huge exception.
Tom and I made our way into the northern Bridger Range again. We ended up going out on Saturday which turned out to be a bluebird day! While we were skinning up, we noticed a little chute pretty far north of where we were. It was directly across this amazing little valley across the ridge from where we were. Tom and I took some pictures of it, skied some other runs for the day, but couldn't get this thing out of our head! For those of you who have never skied with me, I'm a nut about skiing chutes. They've got to be the most aesthetic lines to ski. They look amazing, present great challenges and they can be all shapes and sizes.
Just last year, I had just started skiing again. This was after 12 years of snowboarding. As it turns out, I picked up skiing pretty well. My first two months of skiing had passed by and I was sitting on top of the Big Couloir at Big Sky Montana with Ryan. I don't have any pictures of this thing, but it's about 50 degrees steep and dog legs about halfway down. This thing is nothing short of amazing. I never thought I'd be good enough to ski something like this, but there I was. Ryan said he had never seen me with that big of a smile before. I would have to agree. We skied the line, and at the bottom I made it my goal to search out these amazing features.
Now, back to the Bridgers...
Later Saturday night, Tom came upstairs, pounded on my door and told me we were going to ski this thing on Sunday. Well, let's face it, I can be talked into anything that sweet pretty quick. So I agreed and we made our way up the next morning.
This thing was unreal! Avalanche danger was moderate (which was pretty low considering the recent snows and wind), so we made our way up the spine to the ridge proper where we would start hiking north. It felt like where we were looking kept getting farther away. This thing was taking forever to actually get to. Along the ridge, we also saw a few more lines we need to get back to, but I'll save that for another day. Once we actually made it to the top of what we learned is called the Pipeline, we dug a pit and checked out the snow conditions. The top layer was a little weak, but a pretty small windblown slab. Farther down, there was an even weaker layer, but it was surprisingly solid. I know this is an oxymoron, but that's how it goes. Knowing that we weren't going to be backing away from this thing, we decided to go for it, and I had to call the first pitch...
We stood on top making plans of how to drop in and where to separate the pitches. Looking down a steep tight line was making me so giddy I just couldn't wait any longer... so I dropped in. The initial line is about a ski length wide. So there I am just hopping down this initial 30 feet or so until I get to a tree, make a turn and oh man does it feel good! I'm looking down at another tight area, so I only get about three turns in before I'm at another tight section. I sidestep a little bit down this icy section and make a jump turn right around a boulder where I would wait for Tom.
I look up and give him a wave so he knows he can drop in. He makes his way down basically the same as I do and we meet up by this boulder. Now we're looking at the wider (still not too wide) section of the run and it's looking good. Good snow, good turns, and a few rocks to watch out for. I give him a nod and I'm off again. My first turn was a little fumbled (don't worry Tom caught it on camera) but as I got used to the variable snow, the turns were amazing. My legs were starting to burn at the bottom and I was saddened and happy that the run was over. I was beat sitting at the bottom and we still had a long ways to get back to the car. I waited at the bottom and watched Tom tear the thing up! It was even good to watch someone else ski it! I'm pretty sure it doesn't get better than that. Anytime you can get stoked watching someone else do something, you know you're in heaven.
We make it down, throw the skins on to get out of the basin, and ski back down to the cars. I know what you're thinking right now... "only one run? You did all that for one run?!" Yeah. We did all that hiking and skinning for one run. To say the least, this thing was worth it!
After getting back, we grab a beer and some food to celebrate the descent. Truly one of the high points of my skiing career. Another one of these days we'll make it back to ski a few of the other lines we spotted... I hope.
Well, I'm all caught up on the posts. So now I'm going to be keeping up with my future endeavors, so check back when you get a chance.

Bridger Skiing I

This winter has been one for the record books! We've had amazing snow which has actually been consistent. This good old story is just from three weeks ago...
Mike and I were itching for some backcountry skiing because... well... we got over 80 inches in the mountains in one week! It has been freaking amazing! Luckily I've been sitting in my office all week watching it drop everywhere except my head. First off, I don't even want to hear about how studying is more important than skiing. We really need to figure out to whom is studying more important? I've already got one degree, another probably isn't a necessity...
Well, getting back to the good stuff on hand is the snow. I just started backcountry skiing this year, which has been lucky enough to be above the national average for avalanche deaths. Sorry Mom and Dad, and especially you Sister! I didn't plan it this way... stupid snow. errr wait... i love the snow, nevermind. On the plus side though, I'm always safe, don't worry (read: acceptable risk). So now that I have a touring set up, I've been getting into the backcountry here and there and now we're getting out when there is a ton of snow on the ground.
Mike and I wake up around 6:00 am and I meet him at his house at 7:00 am. Bright and early to get the fresh tracks! We're off and skinning up the northern part of the Bridger Range and thinking about how ridiculous all of the snow is. It takes about three hours to get to the top when we actually take our skins off our skis, grab a bite to eat and start skiing down. I can't tell you how excited I was to be skiing some of this stuff. It was absolutely insane! I took the first line and the snow was well over my waist. I wait about halfway down the slope looking into a tight chute that apparently goes off a cliff at the bottom of the chute. Probably not a good idea. So Mike and I make our way around this formation and get to the good stuff again. I'm watching Mike take turns down the next line and it's well over his head! He has to stop every now and then to keep the snow from suffocating him! Next I went down and it was actually hard to ski the run. It takes so much effort to make turns and we're essentially just plowing through the snow, not really skiing it. I could care less because this is the deepest snow I've skied in my life!
Well, we get to the bottom, skin back up and make one more run all the way down to the car. A glorious day!
I keep hoping another snow like this will happen again.

Spanish Peaks

After being in Colorado and then going back to Rapid to see the folks and my sister and brother-in-law, I made my way back to Bozeman to start classes. We started extra early. We go through an intensive math course covering matrix algebra, linear algebra, and a lot of calculus. After living in my car while going to class I decided it might be time to just get another camping trip in while I'm homeless anyways. So a week after classes officially started, Jared, Carson, Molly (Jared's dog) and I made our way up in the Spanish Peaks just south of Bozeman.
This was about as uneventful as trips get, but the Spanish Peaks are majestic and quite a tantalizing landscape. Sharp peaks are everywhere, and yet at the same time you hike through lush landscape. We did a fairly easy hike that was roughly 7 miles in. We hiked right along a river the whole way in and eventually came across the tributary lake. This is where we camped. We went out for just a night, but it was amazing. The trail is a fairly flat hike most of the way and then the last two miles start uphill. The peaks start getting closer together and we slowly made our way in between what looked like a saddle between two peaks. When you start getting close, there are a few small waterfalls, and as you finally crest the hill, you notice you're walking into a huge cirque! It's amazing when you walk up because you don't know where you're going really. Sure we have a topo map, but that doesn't show the beauty you walk into. The first thing you notice is the cirque, and then all of a sudden you notice you're standing next to a small lake. That would be our campsite that night.
We set our bags down, filled up with water and ran around the area. It was great, you could see these huge boulders across the small valley and as you get closer these things are actually huge! We continued to check out the boulders and stare down into the vast valley.
That night Jared, Molly, and Carson stayed in Carson's new tent (which is sweet by the way) and I stayed in my sleeping bag and space blanket. Just to my luck, later that night was the area's first snow. There I am with just a space blanket covering me and it starts to slowly snow and then the fog moved in and then it started snowing even more. That was about 4 or 5 in the morning. A nice little wake up really. And if we add to it that Jared let Molly out to throw up and then got excited I was there at which point she came and licked me. I was getting licked by a dog that had just thrown up. I was trying to avoid her, but I was in a mummy bag and couldn't get my arms up to shield my face. Aside from being a little wet and cold, the trip was great and I got to see another area I had been dying to see.
Another check off my to do list. It doesn't get any better than this.

Colorado

Here I am a few days later, in Colorado. I had just spent a few days in Rapid City with my parents letting my infected heels get better. Luckily they turned out alright. They sure were pussing, and I couldn't wear shoes for a while, but they did heal. I'm heading to Ft. Collins to meet up with Matt Buechler so we can have a go with an adventure race in Breckenridge. We had always talked about doing one, but we finally got the cahones to take a stab at one. Luckily it turned out to be a good story.
Since Matt was working, it was my job to get up to Breckenridge, scope out the area and get a campsite. Well, I made my way up Thursday and low and behold, in classic Opi form, it's raining. I ended up sleeping in my car at the campsite because the ground was so wet and basically a mini river. It ended up raining all through Thursday night and into Friday. As it turned out I didn't even need to get the campsite because Matt and I both ended up in a hotel because it was so soggy around the area and we didn't want to sleep in it.
Friday night we get our first map of the race and they give us points to find on the map and do our first stage of orienteering: trying to figure out where we should theoretically be. We spend the rest of Friday night getting our gear together and going through the logistics of the course. We were doing a 12 hour course, which all in all was pretty true to it's time. You can imagine how good we felt at the end of the race. Sure it was nice to be done, but after ten hours of constant movement, one is bound to get a little tired.
Saturday morning we wake up, have a little breakfast and get all of our meals together for the rest of the day. Once we step outside, we both notice the one thing we'd rather not have: rain and fog. We're up at about 10,000 feet, so the clouds really sock in the area. Initially when we get to the course, the rain lets up and the sun actually comes out for the first section of the race, but the rain will start up later in the day...
The first leg of the race is a kayaking section around Lake Dillon. It's pretty big with many nooks and crannies. Initially Matt and I sit in the kayak with the main field, and then.... we start going all over the place! We can't steer this thing for the life of us! We're running into the other teams all over the place and before you know it we're way behind everyone. Finally after we had run into about three other teams we got our shit together and actually starting going in a straight line. So, right from the get go we're already coming up from behind. As we continue on, we find that the checkpoints are pretty hard to find and at one point when Matt jumps out to get the checkpoint, he jumps back into the kayak and we almost tip over! To which the team of two women behind us say "we'll save you!!" After that point we knew we were going to win... or something. After the kayak section we get to the orienteering/trail running section and when it's all said and done, we received a lot of penalties. Basically we missed some checkpoints, ran out of time and my knee injury came back. Really quite eventful. I'm sure everyone can imagine looking for a little box in a vast amount of woods. We felt like a couple of geniuses because we were so close so many times to these things without actually seeing them. The ego was slowly deflating all day...
Finally we made it to the mountain biking section. By this point we had been on the move for about six hours, but we were heading into our best section. We were a wee bit tired at this point and had a huge uphill biking section to contend with, but spirits were still good even with our ego deflating. A little ways into the mountain biking section it started to rain again. Mind you this section is pretty rocky and has tons of tree roots on the trail. Essentially we were getting rocked by the wet rock and the mud. About halfway through the mountain biking section full on exhaustion was setting in. Matt was about spent, I was getting tired, and the rain wasn't helping anybody out. At one point my brakes were about done because the mud was so thick and it was making my brakes useless. Do keep in mind that we will be going back down all of that uphill. At one uphill section Matt and I couldn't even pedal anymore because our tires were filled with mud. We ended up walking the bikes for a little while until the mud wasn't as thick and we could actually pedal again. After this section it was the long downhill to the glorious finish line!
While we made the finish line and felt really good about ourselves, we didn't do very well. Mind you it was our first race and all, but we actually landed.......... LAST! Yep, we got dead last in our group. We weren't last overall, just last in our racing group. As it ended up we were racing against sponsored teams. Almost half of the teams there were sponsored, and us being the rookies.
Overall the race went well. We didn't get disqualified, no bad injuries, and we weren't the last ones on the course. Maybe next time we'll notch it up to second to last. I am setting the bar pretty high, but I think we can do it.

Tetons II

After Jason, Tom and Slama left, it was just me. I made plans to meet up with another friend, Dave Ring. Once again we spent some good time at the parking spot just outside of Jackson getting ready for another ascent of the Grand.
This trip up the Grand was a little bit more exciting. For starters I had rubbed my heels raw from the last ascent up the Grand and now was trying to baby my feet so they didn't get any worse (Of course they're going to get worse, just keep reading). And we had some troubles with Dave.
I think we first went wrong when we decided to do a car-to-car. This is when we leave the car at about 2:00 am and climb all the way up and back down in a day. I know, it does sound like a good idea. A couple days after Dave got there, we started up for the Grand at 2:00 am. We leave the car and have our headlamps on and actually manage to spot a couple eyes in the distance. I thought the worst, but hoped for the best. We kept walking while keeping an eye on the eyes, and luckily they never moved. Further up the trail we see two more sets of eyes, and past that even further we see three more sets of eyes! Wouldn't you know it... we later found out that they were all bears! Luckily black bears, so they all stayed put, but nonetheless, it was a little scary.
As we kept on hiking we reached the lower saddle by about 7:00 am. We had breakfast and continued on to the Exum ridge. Dave was starting to talk less by this point but we were both in good spirits. When we made it to the base of the Exum ridge Dave was talking less than before and my heels were full on infected. They hurt bad enough that I was scared to even look at them. I was starting to get a little worried about Dave, but he's a trooper, so I put those aside and focused on the climb. But as we continued up Dave was getting full on altitude sickness. He was getting a little confused about the route, was staring past me when I talked to him, and was essentially not talking by the time we were just a few pitches below the summit. Well, long story short, we made it to the summit and back down to the car by 5:00 pm. Just in time for dinner and a beer before bed!
After being that tired and basically worked, we decided to stay at the climbers ranch in the park. We popped open a couple beers and about two beers later, we were hammered! I am a lightweight to begin with, but I have never been that drunk from two beers before in my life!
The next day we recovered and I dealt with my heels. My right one was pussing and my left one was just bleeding. I needed these to get well quick because I had an adventure race in Colorado a little over a week away. As we laid under trees and read we decided road biking in Yellowstone was in order.
After healing we left the Tetons and pointed north to Yellowstone. We had another wonderful night in the back of the suby's and awoke to another bluebird day!
We gathered our things and started the ritual of donning the spandex! Most of you must be jealous right now. And let me tell you it's justified. Spandex is awesome. We ended up doing about 60 miles that day. I couldn't believe Dave could do that after having altitude sickness just two days earlier. It's insane! A bad-ass... if you will. That night was our last for the Teton trip and we spent it in Cody, Wyoming. It was a beautiful drive and a beautiful trip.
My few remaining days before the next trip to Colorado would be spent with my family in Rapid City. My heels healed... kind of... well good enough for doing that adventure race the next week.

Tetons

So, I'm going to start from the summer of '07. Sure, this is a little back dated, but I've got some good stories (you all know the ones.... mainly where I get screwed or get myself in to some sort of trouble). So here we go......
At the end of June I made my way just a couple hours south to the wonderful world of the Tetons. I've spent many summers trying to get to the top of these peaks and this summer was nothing out of the ordinary. I initially spent the first week with the parentals. We got ourselves a good room (way too spendy) and wandered around the area constantly. For those of you who know, I enjoy living in the 'ol suby. Luckily I had that to look forward to and a hotel for the time being.
My pops and I set up a little date to do some white water rafting. Pretty freakin sweet. It was both of our first times down the river, and let me say, an awesome introduction. The river wasn't too wild, but it had a few awesome areas and we saw some great wildlife! After that we managed to find ourselves at a brewery, lounging at restaurants, wandering around town, and even seeing some moose and bears! We couldn't have asked for a more eventful time.
When my parents left, I went to my favorite area right outside of town, parked, and made myself a little nook in the back of the suby where I would be living for the next few weeks. To most people the suby sounds like a crappy place to live. Sure it's tight quarters in there, but cozy is a good thing.
The next day a couple friends (Tom, Jason, and Slama) showed up to get in on the fun. We were going to be trying for the summit of the Grand via the Exum Ridge. It's true, I had tried a couple times before and had been stormed off, but the third times a charm right? That's exactly what I thought. So we all sat outside our cars in my favorite spot and talked about the climb and all the gear we'd need. The next day we were going for the lower saddle...
The hike up was very uneventful. Jason kicked all our asses while the rest of us walked at a normal human pace. When we met up with him at the meadows, he had already been there for an hour! Apparently we're really slow. Once we all gathered again, we made our way up to the lower saddle and set up camp. We spent the rest of the night in a hail storm. Enough hail so the entire area looked like it had snowed. It was so noisy in the tent we were yelling at each other in the same tent!
Well, we made our way up to the base of the Exum ridge and I led the first pitch. Slama and I were on one rope team and Tom and Jason were on the other. We were so hell bent on making it to the top that we never took any pictures. It was a pretty straightforward route and we made the summit in the early afternoon. The next day we were supposed to go down to the meadows and stay a night there, but.....
Well, the next morning came and we packed up our things from the lower saddle and started hiking for the meadows. A big sidebar must be made now, but it'll make sense. Well up in the lower saddle, people pack their shit out. So we poop in these big ziploc bags that have some chemicals in them to make the shit not smell and to gel it up. Enough of the sidebar, on to the good stuff. Well, the first time I was in the Tetons, I put my shit bag on the outside of my pack in case it broke. Well, it never did. So this time I had more faith in it and actually put it in one of the pockets. The trail up there is pretty rocky and bouldery, so there's a lot of jostling. So there I am jumping from rock to rock and I start to notice a not so good smell. So I get a little nervous, but we could just be going by an area where the marmots pee a lot. So I quit thinking about it, but as we keep going, the smell stays with me the entire time. As we get to the meadows, I finally take my pack off and sure enough, my shit bag broke. Urine and (thankfully) just a little crap in my bag. All of the good stuff happens to me. So I end up hiking all the way out and washing my stuff off from a spigot in the tourist building in the park. Glorious stuff! I'm pretty sure I've never had that many tourists wondering what the hobo was doing before. Sure, I stunk and all my stuff stunk, but I was outside at least.
Luckily I got everything pretty clean and spent the night not smelling urine.

Day One

Well I finally broke down and made one of these. It's probably about time. Sister and Parentals: you guys will have a much easier time keeping tabs on me now. I don't know if you'll want to see everything on here, but it's here nonetheless.
As for everybody else: here's some pics of my adventures and a few stories to inspire/reminisce.
This is my last semester of classes in graduate school, so I may not get out doing something fun every weekend, but I sure as shit try hard. Let's face it, having fun is way better than learning.
So grab a beer, throw some tunes on and no matter where you are, live it up!