OPI

I Hurt!!!

2011-04-13T20:16:00.003-06:00

I have no idea what's going on right now. Last week after the race my shins and right calf are starting to really hurt. I feel like it shouldn't be from over-training. My training schedule has been having long runs on the weekend with a short run during the week. I haven't knocked up my mileage nor have I increased days. Oh, that's right, I did increase my days. Last weekend I ran both days as bricks and was really getting worked on the run.

Either way, I need to get this figured out because I was finally making some headway on my run and I don't want to lose the progress now. So the question is "what do I do?" Either I go through the pain and hope I don't get a stress fracture, or I back off and lose some running fitness. I'm leaning toward backing off, but it's so hard to take mentally. I still want to get out there and work hard to make progress towards my goal, but I don't want to take one step forward only to take two backwards.

The more I think about it the more logical it becomes I need to rest. Especially since last weekend I had a hard time sleeping and have been really sluggish this week. Might need to take my week off a little early. Stupid block training schedule!

Tough One

2011-04-11T00:13:00.002-06:00

This week has been pretty tough for me mentally and physically. I had a race on Saturday and got 3rd in my age group. I felt pretty good about the result but thought I could do a little bit better. I trained right through the race, so it wasn't going to be pretty, so I guess I should be pleased.

The training for the last two weeks has been tough and continuing. I haven't had a day off yet in this new block. That means i'm at 14 straight days and I'm starting to get strung out. Today after a 2.5 hour ride I had a short 35 minute run. It went pretty well overall, but towards the end I was struggling to keep a smiling face. My emotions were starting to get the best of me and I really started to struggle with things.

The point of this post is for me to bitch apparently. I might need to get a day off in here soon, so I don't crack...

Wheelset

2011-04-03T20:11:00.004-06:00

My dream bike is ready and rarin to go! I went and picked up my wheelset on Saturday but just rode the bike this morning. It was slightly breezy this morning and afternoon when I got out on my rides, but the wheelset even handled well (fairly well anyways) in crosswinds. The greatest part was that I only made it 2 blocks from my house when I got a flat! Ridiculous. Then I was trying to figure out how to use the extender for the valve... anyways, it took me a while to change a flat this time. I am glad it happened then than at a race, though.

There was a huge difference on the flats between these and the training wheels. Plus, they rolled so much better and were insanely smooth.

I planned on getting a couple of flat rides today to really test 'em out on the flats, but ended up doing some hilly rides with a few others. It was a ton of fun! Plus, both rides worked me over. I had a hard run yesterday and got worked at that too. I felt great about the pace and made some improvements on my 10 mile pace. I have my running partner to thank for that, though.

Other than the new bike and some good workouts this last week, life has been pretty good. Work was a little stressful last week but overall pretty good. It was noted to me by a friend that he thought I might not like my job. I quickly said I loved it! I come on here and rant sometimes so the negative does tend to come out at times. But that also means the great things come out also. More to the point: I love my job. I've been meeting some great people around here and have been loving the area too. No complaints coming from me!

Hope life is well for everyone else too!

Seattle

2011-03-06T12:01:00.002-07:00

Without skiing and climbing trips to report I find my life is fairly bland... in relative terms. I've been missing the backcountry and have been scheming up some plans to get out as soon as it gets slightly nice. I had the idea of biking about 60 miles into the Cascades with a bivy sack, some clothes, a lot of food, and a stove; park the bike and start on a solo hiking trip for a night. Get out there and push myself as hard as I can for 48 hours. I want to seek some of the adventure that I lost since last year. Who knows if I'll get around to it, but it's on my mind.

On another note, I keep trying to post some of my training on here but find it's quite boring. I get outside for runs here and there and have even managed a couple of cold bikes, but for the most part it's all inside on the trainer, in the pool, or at the gym. And let's face it... me telling you that I ran 8 miles on the treadmill constantly gets boring. So while things are slow now, I'll get on top of it when I'm outside more and getting out to races. Races start at the end of April and will run through August for sure, and hopefully through October.

I've also been trying to post about Fritz coming out the other weekend. It's been a while since we were drinking beers together in grad school. Fritz now has his dream job over in Minneapolis being something weird like an economist. He got a trip together to come over here and hang out for the weekend. As it just so happens... it was rainy in Seattle. Weird, I know.

We spent our first night drinking as much good beer as possible and sitting outside by a fire eating pizza. Who can beat that? Too good. We basically spent the entire weekend catching up and playing tourist: checking out the Space Needle, going downtown to PIke Place Market, drinking a ton of coffee, nursing a hangover, riding the ferries out to the peninsula, and eating sushi. All of that pretty much summarizes Seattle.

Relief

2011-01-17T15:14:00.003-07:00

Thursday I had an appointment to see a bio-movement specialist here in town. I was a bit nervous because I didn't want to hear about a long-term problem that would take me away from training. Fortunately that wasn't the case. Initially she had me stand up without shoes on to do a gait analysis and look at my hips. The first thing she says: "has anyone ever told you you have a short right leg?" Wonderful... at least that's fixable with an insert in my shoe. Then I do a few one leg squat exercises so she can see how my knee and ankle move. Nothing too crazy came out of that. Then I laid face down with my feet hanging off the edge of the table, and I find out I have a pretty big over-pronation. I was told more than double the normal pronation. So now I have a slight lift in my right shoe, and modified superfeet.

At the end of the appointment I ask if I can run and she tells me yes as if it's surprising I asked that question. Well, just a few days ago I had horrible hip pain and sharp knee pain. Are you saying I'm ready now and this is an easy fix?

So I head to the gym and get in 4.5 miles on the treadmill. No pain or anything! Hip was still a little tired, but nothing like it was. It felt great.

Now I'm back on hitting the workouts hard. Had a solid swim on Friday, 2 hour bike with 20 minute intervals and a 20 minute run on Saturday, and a 1 hour bike with 4x5minute intervals on Sunday. Today, as usual, I get worked over at masters. 3x300, 100 kick, 3x200, 100 kick, 3x100, 6x50 sprints. That was just the main set! Now off to Crossfit.

Now that my left hip and knee are feeling good and I'm back on training the only other fun news is with work. Last week was stressful with a few presentations, meetings, and reports due. I am really hating the cyclical nature of this job. 2 weeks every month I am working long hours. Then for the other 2 weeks I am in a lull... well sometimes in a lull.

Hope everyone's meeting their goals too!

The Hurt

2011-01-04T18:59:00.003-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted much, but I haven't really found much to post about.

Lately, life has been training, working, training... Same 'ol same 'ol.

But, I have had a few visitors lately. L came over for a nice little visit on Christmas. We managed to hang in Seattle for a little bit and hit up Brouwer's and the Bottleshop. Other than that, what else do you do in Seattle? You get sushi! That's what. We also managed to cook an amazing five course meal all with beer pairings! Except I really dropped the ball on one of my pairings... my bad.

A then came over for New Year's. We had to once again kick it in Seattle for a bit and I managed to see a few other good friends. Plus we had some amazing greek food. Quite impressed.

That's the down and dirty lately. I have had a nice problem develop though. I started having a stupid hip flexor pain in my left hip, but managed to get rid of it. It then started to move to the outside of my hip. So now every time I run more than 5 miles my hips gets so sore the next day. Stupid. I have been staying off of it... for the most part. Toned down my running and kicked up my swimming. I still need to get the training hours in and get my base down.

Hopefully the leg starts feeling better so I can get back into running. For the first time ever I miss running. I used to absolutely hate my runs, but I've been doing so well the last few months that I've become slightly obsessed. Maybe that was my problem.

Hopefully things get more interesting soon, but I can't promise anything.

Here's my life. yep, riding the trainer baby!

Hard Week

2010-12-12T21:44:00.002-07:00

Last week was rough. I had a long Sunday brick and felt tired Monday. So what do I do? I take Monday off like a wuss should do. Actually I'm trying to be a little more in tune with my body so I don't over-train. Tuesday was a good run and Wednesday was masters swim. I got absolutely worked swimming! My shoulder is still coming around in that department. I can easily do 60 pull-ups in a workout but I can barely swim a mile without my shoulder starting to hurt. Thursday was a day off. Swimming worked me that hard. Plus I wanted to do a good hard workout on my birthday. Friday ended up being a negative split miles for 4.5 miles, then sprints for another mile. Finally the weekend came and I did a bike workout with a friend. I did a 2 hour tempo ride with two short sprints in the middle. I felt worked at the end! I may need to change up my training schedule because I feel like I should have made more headway by now. Sunday was absolutely rough! I was way too tired to do anything. I sat on my couch most of the day and watched TV. Super Productive.

Other than the workouts being rough work was also a bit trying. I had a lot of projects put on my lap last week and had to do a bit of traveling and get a presentation together. Definitely a long week. My workouts tend to suffer a bit whenever I get really stressed out at work. After this next week things slow down a bit for me... for a week I hope.

Boring

2010-11-27T13:02:00.007-07:00

This is where life has been spent lately. Well, first off I should say I did manage to take 4 full days off. It was awesome. Although, I got quite bored when I still woke up at 5am and didn't have anything to do. So I watched awesome early morning TV. Pretty cool. Saved By The Bell and Married With Children... so good!

Can I say how boring riding the trainer is? It was crazy boring! You sit in one place and pedal. That's it. I either listen to music or watch TV while I'm doing it so I have some entertainment. Thursday I kicked off the new training block. One hour of easy pedaling on the trainer. It was awesome. It actually felt great to get back on to the new training schedule. Hopefully this time I won't screw it up and lose track of my workouts.

Speaking of the bike, below is the new carbon fiber aerobars! Pretty awesome. They are much more comfortable than my old set. Plus, these have the s-bend aerobars which I like much better.

And speaking of gear, below are my running shoes. By the way, I have apparently turned this into my gear blog.

When I started training again this year my old Saucony running shoes were really hurting my right foot. My left foot felt great but the outside of my right foot was absolutely dying! I had to take 3 days off every time I ran. Not awesome. So I decided to start in on a new shoe search. Here's what I came up with: KSwiss Blade Light and Zoot Kapilani. Now that I've tested them both out I found I like the Zoot's for running and the KSwiss for cross training.

The problem with the K's was that they were a bit too stiff in terms of cushion. I need soft padding because of my right ankle and left knee. Since they were a bit too stiff I turned to the Zoot's and they were amazing! great run platform and movement. Great cushioning. Extremely comfortable. The only downside was that I like the way the K's moved from heel to toe. They are extremely smooth throughout the entire foot movement.

Anyways, the Zoot's have been working well and I'm extremely pleased with them.
Last but not least is my realization that I need to work on injury prevention. Given the multitude of problems I've had in the past I decided to purchase the Trigger Point rollers and ball. They allow me to roll out my leg problems and get them fresh for the next day. I have been having problems with my left IT band and since I've been rolling it out with the quadballer (as its called) I've been feeling a lot better. So, a big thumbs up from me on TP Therapy.
Now I'm off to a quick core and upper body workout. Box jumps, cable machines, medicine balls... good times! I'm hoping I'll feel better than I did yesterday during my 3 mile run. I felt like it was ten miles after I ended up positively splitting my miles (ie. going slower each mile). Work legs... Work!!!!

Long Week

2010-11-21T17:51:00.002-07:00

Last week was rough! Work was much too stressful and the workouts were way too tough.

First off, my monthly reports covering my five counties were due last week as we released press numbers on Wednesday. After I already had two of them done, I was informed by my boss over our monthly conference call that we were changing the format of these reports slightly. This means I got to redo two of the reports I already wrote. That was awesome. I was on edge until Thursday when I finally sent in my reports. Then what happens? One of the other economists was reading through mine to check for errors and since she was running a little late getting it back to me I already sent it in... with errors! Yep, I had to quickly redo that one because I honestly have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote a couple sentences in there. Feeling good about that one!

The workouts were really tough last week. I go in 4 week cycles and last week was week 3, the hard one. Week 1 is build-up from a recovery week 4 previously, then week 2 pushes harder on into week 3 which is the peak for each cycle. Week 4 is the recovery week where I am now in active recovery rather than full rest recovery.

Since last week was my week 3 I was dying. Monday was a 6 mile run, Tuesday was upper body cross training, Wednesday was a 3 mile easy run followed by 2 miles of speed repeats, Thursday was another cross training workout done primarily with a medicine ball and the cable machine, then Friday was another 6 mile run (which was supposed to be faster than Monday, but it was much slower). Saturday was a pretty easy hour ride on the trainer followed by upper body for an hour. Now today starts the recovery.

Week 4 is always nice in the cycle because I get to take it easy, but I really hate taking these weeks. No matter how many times I go through these cycles I feel like I'm losing my fitness, when in all actuality it's gaining when I come back on week 1 with noticeable improvements.

In other news it finally snowed in town. It's been snowing up on the pass in the Cascade's, but not down here. It's actually remained quite nice for the last couple weeks, but yesterday the snow came and the temperature has dropped hard! Looking forward to some skiing finally. Hopefully there will be enough for a Thanksgiving opening and I'll actually have something to do. Otherwise I'm just going to hang out and train. Good stuff.

Training

2010-11-11T16:00:00.003-07:00

I had it in my head that I'd start using the blog to keep track of my training over the winter, but haven't made much use of that. So now I'm going to start keeping track of things a little better and actually get some use out of this thing!

It's finally gotten cold around here and outside activities are at an end as far as I'm concerned (besides skiing of course). I am apparently too much of a wuss to ride my bike when it's cold and I hate running outside when it's cold. Yep... it is what it is. In grad school I managed to ride my bike to work/school everyday during the winter for the first year, but after I went sliding through a stop sign on my side with my bike right next to me I decided it wasn't a great idea at a certain point.

Training has been going real well the last month. I got a few 80 mile rides in and managed to only bonk during one! I was seriously relying on my americano I had at the turnaround point. It didn't really push me to the end, but it helped.

I've been trying hard to focus on my run this year to round out my swim and bike. Hopefully it works. I started off by getting new shoes. My Saucony's were really hurting my right foot lately, so I decided to try KSwiss and Zoot. The Zoot's won. They're so comfortable and don't rub anywhere. I did really like the way the KSwiss ran, they were really smooth on the entire foot transition, but were a little stiff in the cushioning department.

Anyways, I got 6 miles in today with a good cross-training workout in after that. A solid two hour workout. I had to bring an extra shirt with me to the gym because after about 10 minutes running I'm about through a shirt. And yes, I feel really cool changing shirts when I'm halfway through my workout.

And speaking of working out, I just finished watching Ironman Louisville and man there's some inspiration! Someday...

Oktoberfest

2010-10-25T20:42:00.004-06:00

Right next to Wenatchee is Leavenworth the Bavarian Village. Yep, the Keystone of the West!

It's actually a pretty cool town but it just reminds me of a tacky tourist trap. Every year they host Oktoberfest the first three weekends in October and Matt, Amy, and I hit it up the first weekend. It was a pretty sweet shin-dig but a bit on the pricey side.

There were 4 stages for shows that had classic polka music, massacred polka music, and classic German dances from some groups straight out of Munich, Germany! It was actually a pretty cool shin-dig. It wasn't anything big, but did have quite a few people. The area of town that's sectioned off has most of a street right off of downtown and is big enough to pack in some serious crowds. It was pretty full while we were there, but from what I've heard the last weekend has the most people and is shoulder to shoulder for blocks! Kind of glad I had no part in that.

For next year we're coming up with some classic German garb to fully partake in festivities. There were surprisingly a lot of people that were dressed up and even quite a few older people that looked like they were straight out of Germany.

Anyways, I'm keeping this one short and sweet. The festivities were pretty sweet, and I'm actually looking forward to next year. Plus it'll be right after I'm done with triathlon season. Hot dang!

91 miles

2010-09-25T19:56:00.004-06:00

Got in a nice long ride today. I wanted to shoot for at least 70 and maybe up to 80... added on a few more because the last little bit was slightly longer than I thought. It was a great ride though.

I started heading north of Wenatchee but took 97A instead of 97. 97A leads straight up towards Lake Chelan (which is amazing by the way) and starts with fairly flat roads that lead to a big climb up and over a pass. This part was not fun. Not fun at all.

After the nice flat ride it starts heading up and over the pass. This picture below is the nice little tunnel you go through before you hit a short valley that leads to Lake Chelan.

The fun part about going through the tunnel is their safety measures. It is nice and short, but come on... a button to turn on flashing lights that tells the motorists that there's a cyclist going through the tunnel... is there nothing better? For instance... make the tunnel wider initially rather than overlooking the details. Anyways, pretty funny. The button is right before the tunnel and it reminds me of a cross walk... except you go through a tunnel.

After I made it up to the Lake Chelan area I stopped at a coffee shop and downed an americano and muffin. I'm a sucker for that combo for some reason. Love having muffins with an americano. It was such a nice day I couldn't pass up the opportunity to hang out by the lake and watch the boats. Seems pretty exciting doesn't it?

After I managed to sit by the lake for an hour I hopped back on the bike with some slightly sore legs already and start pedaling up and over the pass again to town. All said and done, the ride ended up being 91 miles. I was pooped! I really need to plan out my nutrition better on these long rides. All I took along was a bottle of Hammer Perpetuem and a gel. Other than that it was water, coffee and a muffin. I have a feeling I'm going to be sore tomorrow....

Oh, and the best part of this is I get to sit in a car for a few hours to head over to Olympia for a couple meetings. Sitting in a car with sore legs is not fun. Anyone care to drive me?

New Bike

2010-09-16T20:41:00.007-06:00

I have been wanting this bike for years and finally made the plunge!

I am super stoked about this bike. Cervelo has to be the greatest bike brand, period. They have been focusing on road and aero designs for years and years. While other companies are off designing mountain bikes and cruisers, Cervelo is redesigning one of their road frames to make it even better. What's actually quite amazing is that they've had some of the same designs for years and haven't changed a thing! And these are pro bikes we're talking about, not just some bike to ride around town.

Enough of the ranting. This is my Cervelo P2. Isn't he gorgeous? I decided it's a he even though it'd be better for a male to be "riding" a she. Anyways, now I just need to come up with a name for the bike....

I've already gotten him out on a few rides this week and it is amazing. I've never ridden this fast in my life. Pretty sweet rig. I tried to take a couple pictures of the ride I normally go on, but only a few really turned out well. This is right along the Columbia River directly north of Wenatchee.

I've been really impressed with some of the roads around here and extremely unimpressed with others. When I first came out here I was riding my bike quite a bit just to figure out town and see what it has to offer. Well, I found a lot of broken glass in certain parts of town and an area that tends to have a lot of thorned bushes that get blown off and find their way to the road. After 4 flats in a couple of rides I just quit going there.

This last shot is a great fruit stand right along the ride. Of course there's about 5 others right along the route. All stuff that's essentially been picked that day, most likely about 100 feet from the stand. Not too shabby living in orchard country!

Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-15T22:02:00.003-06:00

I really need to keep up with postings. I have a lot to update and I haven't been getting on it! I need to make a goal of actually getting a few posts on here every month.

First off I managed a backpacking trip with Amy and Maggie up in the Cascades just outside of Leavenworth. We went on Labor Day weekend to get in three days and two nights of goodness. Amy had done all the work for this one figuring out where we were going and camping, so all I had to do was show up. That was a pretty sweet. Well the week of the trip I kept checking the weather to see if it was going to be nice. I really wanted to take my bivy because Amy and Maggie were taking their dogs which would be sleeping in their tents. This means I either need to take a tent up just for me or else I need to check out the ol bivy. Since the weather looked nice I decided on the bivy.

The problem here is that whenever I do a trip, any trip, something goes wrong. As soon as I decided to take the bivy I knew the weather would turn and it would rain. I just knew it would. When we started hiking on Saturday it was great weather, not too hot but sunny. We went about 11 miles in to the campsite right along a lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. It was a pretty amazing spot. Definitely can't complain about the location.

Once the girls set up camp and we start cooking it starts getting a little colder... After dinner we hike up to another lake right in a very tight cirque and it was gorgeous. Quite the setting... After we hike back to camp and sit down for a few minutes I am getting cold. Anyone that knows me knows I am always hot. Always. Once the sun starts setting the girls head for their tents and I start to set out my bivy. As I'm doing this what happens? Yep, it starts raining. This means I'm in a glorified sleeping bag trying not to get claustrophobic while trying to stay dry at the same time. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep. I woke up at one point and the continuous rain was getting louder... and yes it was snow. What backpacking trip with me is complete without snow?

When we woke up it was raining and continued to rain throughout the day. It would quit for a while here and there and slowed up quite a bit, but it was still wet. Well we packed up camp and headed to another lake to make our hike out of this loop only 10 miles. This means it is up and over a pass and down into a huge valley. This was even more gorgeous than the other camp. It was such a great area....

Well, by this point I'm getting cold as everyone is setting up camp so while the girls go on a short hike to get the blood flowing I hop in my sleeping bag knowing I don't have enough calories to keep trying to make me warm and/or hike more (you would think that since I had a strong hunch it was going to be raining I might have packed more food in preparation of being cold and burning more calories). So I sleep the afternoon away and wake up in time to cook dinner with the girls and promptly take off to my bivy for a night of sleep in the rain again.

The next day was pretty nice and we hiked out in pretty nice weather. It seems like we were caught up in the storm at the higher altitude and if we had just hiked a couple more miles we would have been in the clear. Interesting weather....

The hike out was pretty uneventful other than once we got back to the car it did start raining again.

The last bad part of this story is that I don't have any pictures. I managed to lose my camera in the move and I had been looking everywhere for it. I knew I packed it somewhere but just couldn't figure it out before the trip. Low and behold after all this I finally find my camera while I'm looking for my bike tool. So the point is I didn't have it for the hike but I have it now.... Yep......

Surprising

2010-08-22T17:16:00.003-06:00

I've had a week of surprises. First off, I've been getting very excited for an Ironman 70.3 next year and have started a training schedule that will take me to August of next year. I'm really dreading all the miles on the trainer and treadmill in the coming winter, but I really want to get back to doing triathlons again. There's something so amazing about going as hard as you can for as long as you can in a balled up sport. There's so much to train for and to be excited about, but it is also quite draining. Sitting inside on a winter evening pedaling a bike on the trainer is great to get the frustrations of work out, but is incredibly boring. It's the mental stamina that I've had the hardest time developing. My muscles are easy to train and my lungs are coming back already... but my mind is still having a hard time.

The big surprise, though, is that I have now changed my buying habits. What buying habits? Well, I used to spend money on climbing and camping gear... because I lived in my car and would climb a lot. Pretty easy to explain. But now that I am being civilized I am buying suits, collared shirts.... and... ties. Yes, I know what everyone is thinking and yes I did cry a little bit. Well, only a little bit. I just bought a few more shirts and ties and am looking at buying a couple more suits. At which point I start to wonder "what just happened?" I was a bum in every sense of the word and I am now trying to be a respectable part of a community. It's wild. How times change!

Anyways, things have been going well over here. I still haven't met many people, but that's how it goes. It'll be slow to get integrated into this community. I'm still trying to get in with the cycling club so hopefully I can finally find this mythical club.

Better get back to doing laundry so I have nice smelling clothes for work!

Olympic Coast

2010-08-07T19:09:00.003-06:00

Timing

2010-08-01T13:49:00.005-06:00

Sorry it's been so long but I haven't had much to post the last while. There hasn't been much to discuss until lately. I had been running around Washington trying to get a job and finally found one. I'm a Regional Labor Economist for the state of Washington. It's an awesome job and I'm pretty excited, but pretty nervous at the same time.

Well, I am now living in Wenatchee. A small town at the base of the Cascades. Pretty sweet location for various reasons: great biking, good hiking, great skiing, some good climbing, and best of all is the fresh fruit right from farms next to town. The only down side is there isn't a great beer store around. There are some good finds here and there, but nothing consistent.

I've also been spending the last two weeks in Olympia for work. I really liked it in the "rain forest". Plus it got me away from the 100 degree weather here... which was nice. And since I had two weekends over there I managed to get two weekends of backpacking and camping in

Olympic National Park hiking and camping on the beach. That was one for the bucket list. I've always wanted to hike and camp on the beach, and now I've finally got to do it. I don't really know how much more I really have on the bucket list, but there are some good ones left. Anyhow, back to the beach: it was amazing! Great weather... good friends... and a nice easy trip. I rarely go on easy hikes and I actually found this quite enjoyable. There's something about being on the beach knowing you're at the edge of the U.S.

Here are a few pics from Olympic National Park. I have more coming, so check back soon.

So Much...

2010-03-21T20:35:00.004-06:00

It's been interesting around here lately. I've been throwing out applications hoping someone bites and trying to force my way in to other places. It's been a bit rough, but I'm making a go of it. "A go of it" you ask? Yeah... a "go" of it.

I managed to make a quick trip over to Seattle to see a few long lost friends and also to pester a few businesses and try to convince them to hire me. There's nothing like running around a city with a suit then sitting down at a beer bar to throw back a couple Belgians at the end of the day. How is that for a businessman cliche?

Anyway, nothing turned up of the job hunt but I've got a few leads and made a few contacts, so it was more than worth it.

More importantly post avalanche activities have been going well. I think I'm only writing this because last night I had another one of "those" nights. It will always be weird to vividly picture being buried as I'm lying in bed trying to fall asleep. I'll just be laying there listening to music when I feel a little panic creep into my head.... then I can see these thick slabs of snow bury me. It's the exact scenario of where and how I get buried; there's no change to the situation at all. Then of course I sit there in a panic for a few hours trying to get the picture out of my head so I can sleep. I hope with time this avalanche will fade into the background. I feel like I always say this but I'm going to be hopeful because I honestly have no other way to deal with this.

Here's a few shots from Seattle:

How awesome is this?

I don't know why, but I was very intrigued by this.

Right at the Market and they had a few awesome Belgians made with yeast from the Westmalle Abbey. There was also an awesome double IPA that I had with fish and chips.

Exposed this shot for almost 2 minutes around 11PM. Turned out well.

The safety measures of the ferry.

This was a great spot right when you get into Olympic National Park from the north. Pretty cool park, but it was raining... and cold... and some seriously shady towns along the way. But of course I want to make it back to do a sweet hike along the beach. Looks amazing.

Ice Climbing

2010-02-13T15:00:00.004-07:00

I've had a hard time getting back into skiing, so I've now moved back into ice climbing. My shoulder isn't real strong yet, but holds up quite well. Especially considering that I wasn't supposed to start climbing until this summer. My shoulder was a bit sore the next couple days, but not a muscle sore. My muscles have been holding up fine, but my joint felt a little inflamed and tight. After some arnica montana though it felt great again. And I honestly can't tell you how great it felt to be hanging off a cliff again. There's something so amazing about climbing frozen water... hanging onto sharp metal objects...

On that note too, I finally ran 5 miles yesterday! Another high point. I was running 6 miles before the avalanche so I'm getting pretty close. Overall things are feeling a bit more normal. I've still had spells of insomnia a night or two a week, but that's really not bad considering it's only been a little over a month. I'm noticing this will take quite some time...

2010-02-03T21:26:00.002-07:00

Today I received the official notice that I am done with graduate school!!! My thesis is done and I'm waiting to hear if it's going to be published. It would be exciting to hear about a published paper, but I think a few papers will come out of my thesis. Good stuff.

Anyways, I'm done with that aspect of my life and am now applying to jobs all over the country. Literally anywhere from Alaska to Delaware. There's nothing like getting turned down for jobs because you have "too much education". Really? So I'm too smart to work for you... that seems... ummm.... counterintuitive. So you don't want anyone with the ability to get promoted within your business? O.K. just making sure.

Sorry for the randomness of this post, but that's my life. Kind of all over the place right now. The recovery has been going well. I feel great at this point. I'll still have some difficulty with this for quite some time, but I've been able to deal with this and pass on my story to a lot of people. It feels good to pass on information and let other people know first hand what can happen and how to deal with a scenario like this.

Alright, I'm going to go sleep and get ready for another day of searching for jobs.

Recovery II

2010-01-21T22:16:00.003-07:00

My emotions have been running high the last couple weeks and I don't know if it'll stop any time soon. I'm handling things quite well given the scenario, though.

First off, I already got myself back to skiing. On Friday last week my mind had been focused on skiing. I had to get back there to make things right again. As hard as it was, I made my way to Big Sky by myself and spent my morning in fear. The very first run I about lost it when the run got even a little bit steep. My mind went into a panic and I thought about the slope sliding. It's incredibly stupid in hindsight but somewhat rational when it comes down to it. My fear had me tense most of the day, but slowly my mind came around and I became one step closer to moving forward.

Speaking of unrational I think my head has been playing games with me and overcompensating for any fear I'm still harboring. You see when a person wants to backcountry ski or ice climb or alpine climb they have to prepare themselves for the worst or they'll panic when something goes wrong. We have to go into the back country thinking this could be our last day... this might be it. It's dire to reflect on the situation but we all do it. After I attempted Mt. Rainier for the first time I was forced to reflect on the dangers of my activities. For the first time I saw what risk can do to a person. It may not be something any of us think about, but indirectly our mind has come to terms with this idea. If you're hanging off the side of a cliff miles from help, your mind thinks about what to do if a rock falls and you break your leg or if your partner takes a lead fall and they break their ankle. We prepare ourselves for the possibilities... Without this mindset I'd be so much worse off.

But on the downside, preparing myself for this scenario also puts me at risk for being a little too cavalier. After dealing with my initial fear and insomnia it moved on to a developing acceptance. Acceptance didn't come too quickly, but it presented itself within a week and I was able to ski shortly thereafter. Seeing I could face my fear also forced me to accept that I will still ski and I'll still climb and I'll still put myself in dangerous situations. But it isn't because I'm being too cavalier, it's because no matter what happens to me climbing and skiing will always be my outlet. But this isn't everything. Being able to get back out there and try to enjoy something that almost killed me allowed me to see that maybe I was on borrowed time. Maybe I need to live life as full as I can. Take risks in my personal life and my active life. But this isn't how it should be. I should take this borrowed time and enhance it. I should be safer than I ever can be and learn as much as I can and just be me again.

So what if I came close to dying, I'm still me and that won't ever change. Why should this situation change me and make me safer or make me more cavalier? It shouldn't! I'll always be who I am and everyone knows that... including me. I know a few of you reading this right now are smiling and shaking your heads. You all know I'll be back out there eventually. And you know what? You're gonna love that I'm out there too. Most of you wouldn't know who I was if I sat inside all day playing video games and twiddling my thumbs.

I'll be safer than I've ever been but I'll still be out there living my life.

Recovery

2010-01-10T19:15:00.002-07:00

The recovery has been difficult but surprisingly my mind is coming around fast. The initial few nights were terrible. I couldn't sleep well and would barely make it to an hour of sleep and would wake up for a few hours extremely panicked. I luckily wasn't having any nightmares but would wake up scared and very stressed. It was extremely unnerving. By the third night I was starting to feel better because I had a little post trauma session with my physical therapist. She has been a savior in this situation. So kind and willing to listen to my crazy antics. And extremely helpful throughout my shoulder rehab to boot. Without her going the extra distance for me I would be so much more worse off. It's honestly amazing how much she cares.

Anyways, after my session with her I felt great emotionally and physically. I slept great that night and have been doing quite well ever since. Although I have been having a slight problem actually falling asleep. When I lay down in my bed my mind apparently thinks I won't wake up again. It has been difficult, but considering it's only been a week I think I'm doing quite well.

Oh yeah, and I managed to actually move my skis. They've been in the same spot since the accident and today I finally moved them up to my bedroom.

Overall I'm feeling pretty good and am now able to move past this situation. Happy one week anniversary!!!

Avalanche

2010-01-04T16:44:00.004-07:00

Sunday was a day you always hear about but think it'll never happen to you. My number has been up multiple times this year, but this was as bad as it could have gotten minus the fact that I was as lucky as I could have been. It was a crazy day but here I am.

Tom and I went to ski Mt. Blackmore just south of Bozeman. We made the six mile skin in and summited the peak in clear conditions. It was an absolutely amazing day. Very calm wind and an amazing wintry setting. It just felt absolutely amazing to be out again and in the environment I've missed the last couple months. Well, we sat at the summit for a few minutes and took in all of the amazing terrain.

After a few minutes on the summit we took our skins off and started inching our way down the ridge we had just skinned up. It was hard windblown snow. Going down we both made ski cuts to check the stability and couldn't even get a very unstable wind slab on top to break. Although there were some unstable layers underneath we had a hard time getting them to break. When we dropped off the ridge we made our way down into a bowl and made another ski cut. We still didn't get anything to break. Just to be sure we dug a pit and checked stability. It was a little bit of an isolated area and we got different results than what we skied directly to the left of the pit. It was amazing how much variability each area had. Looking back this should have been our stopping point. Although, at the moment we were able to ski these slopes and weren't getting any ski cuts to break. Hindsight is 20/20.

After skiing the bowl we went up and over the ridge back into the main bowl we came up. The chute we skied was just over this ridge and led into a huge open bowl. After getting a hard ski cut at the top of the chute we still weren't getting any instability. Tom skied down the chute without any problems. I sat up top and waited for him to get to a safe zone so I could ski down. After he was behind a rock outcropping I dropped in, made a few turns and heard a "whoompf" behind me. At this point I wasn't totally panicked but was a little scared something large was breaking behind me. I made it a few more turns into the chute and then my feet were swept from underneath me. I was on my back sliding down the hill and trying to keep swimming towards the surface. I was hit by something and was turned around so I was still on my back going head first downhill. Time was so slow and I honestly can't believe how far I had gone. After I started to slow down at the bottom of the hill a larger second wave of snow came down and completely buried me. I was down about three feet. At this point my right lung had been compressed and I was trying to control my breath but couldn't do it. Staying calm was the first thing I was thinking but I just couldn't do it. After about 10 quick breaths, since my entire body was compressed from hundreds of pounds of snow, I lost consciousness.

My partner had turned his beacon to search and luckily quickly found me. I can't imagine what he was thinking seeing a huge area of white and no person. When he dug me out it was about 6 minutes from when I was buried. He said when he first saw my face he thought I was dead. I wasn't responding and had snow in my mouth but he quickly noticed I was just barely breathing. He cleared my airway while yelling my name at me and I finally came around only to mumble something uncomprehensive. I then pass out again and wake up again when he almost has me entirely dug out. The first thing I tell him is: "that would have been a peaceful way to go." I vaguely remember saying this but was utterly shocked that's what I say first.

After he gets me fully dug out we both sit there in shock and note that we're some of the luckiest unlucky guys. But once I stand up I start coughing blood and basically litter the pit of which I was buried in blood. My partner starts to get worried at this point but we've only found one of my skis and would therefore have to hike the six miles out. Not an ideal situation but doable. I insist that we probe a little bit longer to look for the ski and we eventually find it and are able to ski out. It was the greatest feeling.

The ski out was the most unnerving scenario I could imagine. I was exhausted, stressed out, and my emotions were all over the place. I was happy to be alive but depressed I had to deal with my own possible death. Helpless but in control.

We made it out by 7pm. I had just about stopped coughing up blood at this point but still felt on edge since I wasn't at my house. I knew I wouldn't feel safe until I made it home and sat down in a comfortable environment. And this was the other high point of this scenario. First finding the ski and now making it back to my house.

I'm still trying to sort through the details and I haven't been able to quit thinking about this scenario constantly. There was so much going on at that moment, but this gives the big picture. Anyone who wants to know more can call me and I'll give the last of the details.

The point is: I'm out alive.

Almost Done

2009-12-22T10:21:00.003-07:00

I finally defended my thesis yesterday and am now essentially done with grad school!! So freakin excited I can't take it. I still have some corrections to do on my thesis, but everything should be done in just a few short weeks.

In other big news I also did a few sets of pull-ups doing 3 reps each time. Mind you my shoulder was rocked afterward and it still hurts a few days later, but the point is I did it. Unfortunately my mind immediately went to thinking of climbing again. "If I can do pull-ups then I can climb too..." I am one unrational and overzealous human being. Don't worry though, I'll keep off it because I am truly scared of hurting this thing again. Not good.

Anyhoo, just thought I'd fill everyone in on the good news in various facets of my life. Maybe I'll even have a job soon. Woohoo!

Here's one of my favorite ski runs I've ever done. Steep and narrow. Couloirs are the greatest features out there.

It's always something...

2009-12-02T10:59:00.006-07:00

Some of you know how much crap I've put up with while trying to get my masters degree finished. It's been a fight right up to the end. There was a point where I thought things would get better and my advisors would just want me to finish, but I don't know if they've ever really reached that point. I, on the other hand, have reached that point of wanting to be done about a year ago and finally let my professors know I was going to be done. And that's that.

To give you a little background the previous research done on prescribed fires in the political landscape has not been researched in the economic literature. Awesome, that means I'm contributing a strong paper to my field. On the other hand, though, it also means I'm trying to find what data is pertinent and significant. Well my data was hard to get (I was trying to get it from multiple government agencies who apparently think grad students are idiots), and my theoretical framework was extremely difficult. I made my own equation of how a public land agency acted when it came to prescribed fires and tried to get comparative static results to make predictions on my regression analysis. Low and behold I don't get any significant results and am stuck with a useless equation I spent months developing.

After all of the struggles to get things to work and get data to work I am finally at the end. But it wasn't that easy. I had to get an actual defense date set. Well I ask my head advisor and he's on vacation the next couple weeks. OK, that kind of sucks, but I'll make it work. Now I talk to my other advisor... and he's on vacation when my other professor gets back.

Oh, you've got to be kidding me. How is that possible. Well the last professor says he's on vacation yet farther into January when the second one gets back. No way. How is that even possible that the order in which I ask my professors when I can defend they're progressively gone later and later. Just humorous. Well, now I've changed my committee again and am now defending on the 22nd. Can't wait for this to be over. That will probably be the happiest day of my life. The constant struggle has been so tiring and it's taken a lot to grit the teeth and keep going after the finish.

Sorry for the boring post, but I at least thought I'd let everyone know that I will be defending. I realize everyone thought this was a mythical thing "defending" but it's real... I wasn't lying.

Hope life is going well for everyone.

Shoulder Recovery

2009-11-24T11:06:00.004-07:00

I haven't written much about my shoulder and the recovery thereof. When I first hurt my shoulder I hit a brief stage of sadness thinking of recovery but an actual happiness that my shoulder would be better than when I had surgery on it 7 years ago. I had a shoulder that would chronically pop out of place after my first surgery and had grooved part of my bone because of it. Since that first surgery I had always thought it was going to get hurt again because it was so unstable. Even though I knew something was coming it was still hard to accept the fate that is recovery. It's a long and lonesome road and takes everything I have to keep myself going sometimes. The constant pain is torture and yet when I make even a little bit of headway it makes me so happy that I can keep gritting my teeth through it all. Even through these hardships, though, I think I'm making such good headway that I will be able to climb again and I will be able to do triathlons again. Having 5 pins in my shoulder will forever be a reminder of the commitment that's involved in climbing or backcountry skiing. Even if there is a lot of risk involved there is a lot of satisfaction.

I've gotten a little bit off point, but the point of this post is to fill you all in on the recovery. For as hard as it is there is a lot of happiness of getting back to normal. I still have a long road ahead and for as much as I feel like recovery is slow my PT informs me constantly that I'm far ahead of the curve. She's been keeping my head above water on some of the bad weeks.

I'll be back here soon enough...

2009-11-12T19:19:00.005-07:00

Hello everyone. I've been working on my thesis revisions and generally staring at my computer in a dumbfounded nature. I feel like it's been working. And in amazing news I woke up to a glorious whiteness that is winter. There was easily a foot of snow down before I even left for work. Pretty sweet. Plus it's been snowing all day and we'll be above 20 inches here soon!

Anyways, the real point of this post is to throw up some pictures from climbing Devils Tower. This has a pretty good story to it too.

A couple friends told me they were heading there one day and I said I would be heading back home so I'd meet them there the next morning and climb with them. Well, they get there in good time, throw up a camp and are able to have a good 'ol time while I'm trying to pack up my climbing gear back in Bozeman.

Well, I'm gathering my gear and since I had just finished up school I was hoping I still had enough brain usage to remember all my things. I don't leave Bozeman until almost 9pm. This makes for a long evening of driving and I finally pull over somewhere in Wyoming and sleep just off the interstate with some truckers. When I wake up at 6am I hop in the drivers seat and take off for the Tower. Luckily I get there before they even wake up so I at least don't miss them. On the downside, though, I got up too early and am now waiting in the parking lot just getting my gear together. When they finally wake up and meet me in the parking lot we roll on over to Soler with way too much gear and string the two pitches up quite well. The climb was a lot of fun (I've only done the first pitch before) and we made it up without too many complications. Although we did have a good 'ol time with three of us on a hanging belay. So crowded and uncomfortable.

Well, here's the photos from the trip.

Yep, I look pretty stoked right here.

The summit

Final Days of the Thesis

2009-11-07T22:00:00.003-07:00

I just handed in my last chapter to my advisor a few days ago and am now working on revisions. This means I'll be done with everything this semester and can finally move on from academia.

The downside is that I still have a hurt shoulder and cannot therefore go run around on the side of a cliff or even hiking for that matter. It was so nice the last couple days that I wish I could be out climbing rather than doing physical therapy. For once I'm going to do this rehab right and make sure my shoulder is as good if not better than before surgery.

Anyways, here's some more pictures from random beer tastings and the general snowiness of Montana (at least until the last few days when it decided to be 50 for some reason).

Old Pictures

2009-10-21T13:21:00.003-06:00

I thought I'd also post some old images from climbing and what not while I'm waiting for my data to run. This stuff takes about 5 hours to run once the program is started. So here's some pictures of the young me.

Brew

2009-10-21T13:08:00.004-06:00

Since my life revolves around my thesis and physical therapy, I don't have much of a life. Sadly I don't post trip reports anymore, so the next best thing is to post a few pictures of some friends and I drinking extremely good beer. A few of us get together and have "tastings" of a couple beers. These trappist ales are brewed by monks over in Belgium. Pretty hard to find beers, but definitely worth the wait. I also bought a few to age for a couple years.

These are from a tasting about a week ago with IPA's and Imperial IPA's from Boulder Brewery, Grand Teton Brewery, and Lagunitas Brewery. Excellently hoppy beers.

Jackson

2009-10-15T10:55:00.005-06:00

I had to hit Jackson one more time to see the doc. so I had Fritz and Ryan come along to hit a few breweries while we were down there.

Nowadays

2009-09-13T13:12:00.003-06:00

Now life revolves around coffee and my thesis. I finally have my last piece of data and can start working on my last section. I am ridiculously happy. Here's some pictures from the coffee shop B-randt and I usually hang out at on the weekends and a few pictures of some hops and brewing beer. Good stuff.
Maybe I'll actually start posting some relevant things about daily life now that I can't climb or ski for a while. Maybe...

Tetons VI

2009-09-13T12:12:00.006-06:00

Here are some pictures of my last climb in the Tetons when we were snowed on and climbed through ice sections. Pretty uncomfortable day all around. Fun to look back on, but very tense at the moment. You can see some ice on the rock and a little bit of snow here and there, but the really disconcerting part were the clouds that you can see getting closer and closer up until they started spewing snow on us. Pretty good last climb....

End of Summer

2009-09-13T11:43:00.004-06:00

I had surgery on August 19th and everything went very well. The first couple weeks after surgery are terrible. Waking up in the middle of the night (a couple times) to take pain meds, not being able to do anything with my right hand, being generally uncomfortable from bone being drilled, pins put in....
Anyways, I thought I'd post some of the pictures from surgery so those of you who are interested can check em out.
This first one is showing the main socket and just above the socket in the lower right photograph. Anything red is torn and inflamed. Apparently everything is supposed to be white. The lower right photograph is my biceps tendon that was torn from a bone spur that was shaved off.
The second set here is showing my rotator cuff. The top is the main cuff and is in excellent shape. I was relieved to hear that. It would have made rehab worse if that part was torn also. The bottom two are showing the torn labrum and inflammation. The doctor could completely pop my shoulder out of place "with ease" as he said it.
This third set of pictures is showing a lot of things. The upper left picture is showing my shoulder completely out of place. The next two in the upper right and lower left are showing some of the sewing that starts to happen through the socket to anchor and repair my labrum. He cut out some labrum because it was stretched so far, had to sew it up, then anchored it.
This set is showing the anchors and the labrum. The upper left and upper right are showing the pins that were put in to anchor the labrum down. The bottom two are showing the sewing of the labrum. At this point all of the torn and inflamed pieces of bone and flesh are taken out by now which is why most everything is white and healthy again.
This set is showing the anchored labrum and the fact that my shoulder is no longer able to be popped out of place. The upper left photo shows the anchored labrum. The upper right is showing the sholder not being able to be popped out. The bottom left is showing more of the anchored labrum. I don't remember what the lower right is... umm... i'm going to guess my shoulder.
This last set is showing the bicep tendon that was shaved down to healthy and untorn muscle. It's also showing a little of the bone that was shaved down.
I now have a usable shoulder. Pretty excited.

Tis No More

2009-08-11T08:05:00.004-06:00

While climbing a few weeks ago I managed to have a minor climbing accident just below the summit of the Grand Teton. While I was leading out on a short pitch below the summit, I managed to let my left foot slip on some ice and pop my right shoulder out of place. At that point I thought I was in big trouble. A rescue perhaps? Luckily we made it off the summit and back down to the cars, but my climbing is over for the next 6 months at least.
When I went and saw an orthopedic surgeon he immediately scheduled me for an mri and found out I had torn my rotator cuff (more specifically my labrum) and had chipped some bone in the process.
Surgery's in a week and a half.

Tetons V

2009-07-25T16:05:00.004-06:00

Here's some pics I've taken around the area.

Tetons IV

2009-07-25T15:15:00.007-06:00

I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures so you know where I've been and what I've been doing. The stories are pretty good, but if you really want to know... give me a call.
So far this year it's been pretty snowy. A lot of late snow has been making climbing difficult, but we've been making a run at it. Things are starting to pick up now... but I did pop my shoulder out of place on the top of the grand.

Long Time

2009-05-14T13:26:00.002-06:00

Sorry it's been forever since I last posted. It's been horribly rainy and snowy around here so I haven't been getting out much. Plus, I'm trying to finish up some data so I can write my last chapter for my thesis. This data is being quite elusive right now, so it's taking a lot longer than I wanted.
Anyway, I got a job at Jack Dennis Outdoors in Jackson, WY. I'm now living in my favorite place to alpine climb. I'm ridiculously excited and can't wait for the summer climbing to begin. It's still snowy in the Tetons for the next month or so, but climbing will commence soon enough.
I went climbing a few days ago and my partner had his camera, so hopefully I can get those from him and post those soon. Other than that one time outside here, it's mostly been gym climbing. Kind of disappointing, but there's some fun routes up now.
I'll get some pics up soon of Jackson so everyone can get a taste of the Tetons and the surrounding area. Good Stuff.
Hope life is well.

Big Sky

2009-04-04T16:38:00.004-06:00

The last few days, and probably the last week, we've been getting pounded by storms. I've been in my office working for almost all of them, and finally on Friday I decided that I needed to have at least one fun day before the resorts closed.
I had to wake up ridiculously early to get to the resort by 9:00am because the roads were horrible and we were in a winter storm advisory. When I woke up Big Sky had a foot of fresh snow. Some areas, usually around the trees or the leeward side of the mountain, had about 15 inches. It was amazing. There was no one up there either. I was still getting fresh tracks at the end of the day. Too good.
Here's a couple videos I tried to take while skiing. It was actually quite hard. The first one is great because I have no idea what happened, I just kind of fell. Sorry they're so shaky, but I thought I'd post em anyway so you guys get a taste of what I ski most often.

Zion

2009-03-26T12:19:00.004-06:00

Here's a few photos from Zion National Park. Wish I had more to show everyone.

St. George

2009-03-19T12:21:00.010-06:00

Well, I finally made it down to St. George to see a few friends and they ended up being out of town. Funny how that happens.
unfortunately this trip started off just like any other trip I've been on: interesting. Ashley flew to Vegas so I drove down to pick her up. When I get there I call her to find out she's just off the strip, so I head straight for the strip and the road I think she's on. Although I'm close, they both started with the same letter, I definitely wasn't on the right road. In fact I was on the wrong side of the strip. So, I then start heading the other way only to find that she thinks we've gone too far, when in fact we hadn't gone far enough. So I turn around and try to head the other way, only to find I'm still not finding her. Well, after circling the strip about four times we eventually figure out that we both think we're on different ends of the strip. That was fun.
So once I finally make it to her we finally start heading back to St. George to find a place to camp. Well, after an uneventful drive, we make it to St. George just a little before 4am. That makes it 17 hours of driving. Yeah... sweet.
The next day we were awoken to a crew cutting trees and shrubs right next to where we decided to "camp". So after a good couple hours of sleep we get up and made our way to a coffee shop to get the day started. Good stuff. Our first destination was Chuckawalla Wall right outside of St. George. It might be a 30 second walk on the high end. Pretty good access.
After one climb I started not feeling so well. I eventually took a break in between climbs and was on the verge of puking. I was just a little too wasted from a week of writing the thesis and driving 17 hours. I started feeling better the next morning but it was a bit touch and go there for a while.
Well, that night we all camped next to the prophecy wall which we were going to climb the next day. Again we woke up to some cold temps, but it always warmed up nicely. Unfortunately this wall is in the shade until just after noon. Climbing the first couple of pitches was a bit cold, but once the sun came around we were quite hot actually.
We camped at the same site the entire trip so we wouldn't have to keep moving camp. It was pretty nice to come back to the tents already set up when we were tired. Anyways, the next day we took a day off to go cruise around Zion. We first went and hiked Angel's Landing, then went over to the end of the Narrows for a really easy hike. Basically this hike was all flat. It's a good thing too, because Angel's Landing is a ton of vertical over a few short miles. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the park and finally made our way back to St. George for dinner. Luckily there is one restaurant there that has a liquor license so we could actually get beer above 3.2%. It was amazing!
The next day we made a trek towards the Arizona border and climbed some limestone. It was extremely sharp, but incredibly fun stuff. The first couple climbs were uneventful, other than our hands bleeding a little bit from the sharp rock. After lunch we went and checked out a different wall that was in the shade. I got on a climb that was shutting me down, and when I took my second lead fall, my right heel landed right on a bolt. It didn't hurt at the time, but the next day it was swollen and I definitely couldn't walk on it. So, this is where the trip ended for me. Luckily we were heading out the next day, but I was still bummed, because the climb Ashley did the next day was one of the routes I really wanted to do while I was down there. Oh well, I'll have to make another trip down there.
When Ashley and I got back to Bozeman, my foot was hurting enough that I actually went to the doctor to check it out. Luckily it wasn't broken, but just bruised. The doctor told me that a bruised heel hurts as much as if it were broken and takes just as long to heal. That's fun.
Unfortunately this also puts a hold on skiing since I can't necessarily walk yet. I'm a little bummed about that, but not horribly bummed because we came back to warm weather. I imagine the snow is a bit on the bad side anyways.
In a few weeks I'll be back on the foot and will have more trips to report, but for now I'm going to have to rest. Really not excited about that.

A week of adventures

2009-03-01T15:54:00.002-07:00

Ashley came over to Bozeman the other week and I ended up renting a cabin out in Hyalite (everything seems to revolve around that lately). Anyways, I thought there was only one cabin back there, so I rented the one that was in Hyalite. Apparently it was a different cabin than I thought it would be and we were off on a wild goose chase for a cabin none of us knew existed. It was a classic adventure with the TEAM. Anyways, we took the wrong road (apparently the right road was about half a mile before this road) and hiked in a few miles to find that this cabin, and the road we were supposed to turn on were nonexistent.
After a few miles of hiking we turned around and ended up going back to Brandt and Tess's place. We ended the night there eating food, drinking beer, and resolving to never go anywhere I made plans for again.
After that Ashley and I got up to Big Sky for some skiing and managed to hit it on the best day of the week with about 6 inches of powder! And it was a bluebird day! pretty sweet ski day.
The last adventure was up to Big Sky again just this last Friday. Amy, Cole and I went up to hit the almost 10 inches of powder that just got dumped from the latest storm. It was quite good. Oddly enough, though, there were a ton of people up there and it was a Friday. Apparently Bozeman shuts down after a good storm. And on the up side I didn't hit my head again so the noggin is doing great.
Well, that should bring everyone up to date on the endeavors, but hopefully i'll be getting out again soon either on the ice or out skiing.

Hyalite Peak Story

2009-02-04T11:49:00.002-07:00

Usually I get in a few backcountry tours with Tom each winter, and we hadn't done anything yet. Since the weather has been warm, we decided that high elevation was in order. Hyalite Peak has some good vertical between the 7 miles in, so we went for it.
We woke up early and were at the trailhead by 7:30 kind of ready to go. We were only kind of ready because neither of our coffee's were wanting to work. Well, we threw the skins on the skis and took off up trail.
Luckily the first few miles of the trail are pretty flat so things were easy going the first little bit. The last 2 miles, on the other hand, start to get a little bit of an elevation gain. Around mile six, we come straight up to a small saddle and are in the bowl to get to Hyalite Peak. Once we got into the bowl, we could see lines everywhere. It's this amazing cirque of peaks that has chutes and wide open lines.
We made out way up the safest way possible, since avalanche danger was considerable, and ended up right below Hyalite Peak. We both wanted to summit, but we thought that might be a bit too dangerous. So we turned around and checked out some lines on the other side of the cirque. This is where we saw a few good chutes and decided to go for it.
I put in the first skin track angling up the side and stability seemed to be pretty good. Tom then followed up and we found ourselves on a ridge between two huge cirques. We were essentially between these two bowls standing on the ridge. It looked like there were great routes no matter where we went. Unfortunately if we went down the back side, we probably would have cliffed out and been screwed. Therefore we stuck to out side and lapped the chutes a couple times. These things were just open enough to get a few good turns in and either go over the cliff at the bottom or b line it between a couple of rock faces. When I dropped into my chute, I found myself on some badly windblown crust and therefore decided going off the cliff was probably a bad idea. I B lined it through the rocks and skied down to some great powder.
After we left the cirque, we skied the trail all the way back to the car. A good seven miles of skiing!! What a great run. We found ourselves around great powder and even managed to hit a few cliffs. Since I'm somehow obsessed with cliffs, I decided to go right off one and got rocked on the landing. I essentially landed it, but my weight was going forward too much and I proceeded to land on my head a little ways down the slope (pictures are below). After that we managed to hit another cliff that was even bigger. I say we, but I mean me. Tom didn't really want to hit a 20 footer. I can't blame him, but it was pretty sweet. By this point, though, my legs were incredibly tired and I just flopped down when I landed. 0 for 2. Oh well, I'll get em next time.
Well, the rest of the way was skiing practically on the skin trail so we could go fast enough on the flat parts. That made for some exciting skiing through the trees trying to pick up speed.
The next day was a very bad surprise for me. I apparently had hit my head a bit harder than I thought. When I woke up I went to the office to do some work and kept misspelling words. It was horrible. I kept having to think really hard and even managed to find myself just sitting there staring at the computer not knowing what I was doing. I figured these were bad signs. The next few days I spent with a massive headache and no ability to concentrate. I imagine it was a minor concussion, but since I never went to the doctor, I can't be sure. I know I should have gone, but it's just not fun going to the doctors. Especially since they were going to tell me something I most likely already knew. Why would I pay someone to tell me something I already know?
Well, after about a week the headaches went away and I was mostly back to my normal self. Apparently wearing a helmet doesn't mean you're invincible. Bummer.

Hyalite Peak

2009-02-01T13:12:00.007-07:00

I'll have to add a little story later, but the short story is Tom and I both got hurt and the skin in was 8 miles. My injury was my neck and head (my helmet works... it's official) and Tom's was a toe injury. Sounds like weak sauce but he definitely had blood in the sock when we got back. Tomorrow I'll get to the details. Have fun looking at the pictures.

Oh Hyalite...

2009-01-18T10:00:00.005-07:00

So I spent the entire week trying to track down my boss to no avail. So I apparently thought that meant I should ditch Friday and go skiing instead. It seemed like the perfect idea... and it was. It was clear skies and no crowds at Big Sky. Perfect day. Well, almost perfect. Our area has been in quite the warm spell and hasn't seen snow for weeks. This seems to be typical of Montana though. Get good snow early and then January ends dry. Hopefully by February we'll see some colder temps and more snow.
After the skiing, a few of us went to the Banff Film Festival to watch some inspiring outdoor flicks. They show movies from ordinary mountain culture all the way to insane skiing and climbing. It's a good mix of shows to get the motivation going.
Well, after the show I packed the 'ol backpack for ice climbing the next day. Jeremy, Amy and I went up to Hyalite to see how the ice conditions were. Since it's been warm I was a bit wary of things melting, but it turned out to be okay. Definitely not great, but not horrible either. I hadn't been ice climbing for a few weeks, so the confidence was waning a bit... and it showed. Not only were we doing a pretty stiff climb, but it took 10 swings to break away all of the bad ice to get to the good stuff. By the time I made it up the first half of the climb I was freakin spent! So tiring to swing that much and make zero progress. Stupid ice climbing.

Ice Climbing

2009-01-11T21:33:00.007-07:00

I'm disappointed to say that I did not make it to Cody, WY right before Christmas as was planned. Jeremy got sick as we hiked in and when we were at the base of a climb he got dizzy and on the verge of puking. It was ugly.
So, we hiked out and I went ice climbing in Rapid instead. It served for a few good days of ice, but nothing like back in Bozeman.
The pictures are of Slama and I in Spearfish Canyon.
This coming weekend a few of us are thinking about doing a big ice route out in the Absaroka/Beartooth's. I'll let you know if we make it out there.

Ice Festival

2008-12-11T15:26:00.002-07:00

Well, this last weekend My buddy Eric and I entered an ice climbing competition. The basis of it was to climb as many routes as possible in order to get the most points. They gave about 30 routes points based on difficulty and the length of the hike. Saturday we woke up around 5:00am and were driving a little before 6:00am in order to get to the parking lot by 6:30am. We packed our things for a full day of hiking and climbing in order to get going by 7:00am. When the gun went off we started hiking... then we started running... then we slowed down to a hike again... then we were racking up for our first climb.
During the day, we rarely stopped for a break. We were climbing well, moving fast, and racking up points. By days end, we had climbed 8 pitches and taken 9th place out of 13. Not great, but I don't think it's too bad considering this was our first time.
I'll put pictures up if I get some from Eric.
This weekend is studying for finals and finishing up my theory section of the thesis. After that, it's off to Cody, WY to do a few days of ice climbing before heading home for the holidays.

Rock/Ice climbing

2008-11-30T08:25:00.009-07:00

I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted something. My good.
Well, I haven't been getting out too much, and I honestly didn't think any of these deserved to be put up by themselves, but now I'll throw a couple of little day trips together.
First off is rock climbing at the Gallatin Tower. We just did a couple of routes since it was ridiculously cold. I'm pretty sure we just spent a Saturday afternoon getting in one last day of rock climbing before the ice season starts. It was a pretty good day, but man were my hands cold!
Next up are a couple trips of ice climbing. The last week I've gotten out ice climbing three times. I've been ridiculously excited for ice climbing this year and I don't know why. I shouldn't be because this was the one sport I always told my father I would never do. Whenever I'd think about it it always seemed too dangerous and well.... just stupid (in the words of my father). I can't tell you how many times I've been hit by big chunks of ice or have seen ice columns collapse. I know this isn't what you wanted to hear, but I'm just saying that no matter its dangers, it's quite the experience... and it's something that makes me extremely happy no matter the danger. That being said, though, I always maintin that climbing is a mitigated hazard. All I have to do is not climb when it's too dangerous or at least find a safer route or safer protection when it is somewhat dangerous. That obviously doesn't take away all of the danger, but it doesn't make it overly hazardous. I think I have reached a point where I can objectively say whether or not something is too dangerous. This is thanks to all of the routes I've climbed, all of the high mountains I've encountered, and all of the random hazards including bad rock and ice that I've come across. But, as we all know, there will be random events that happen like weather. Oh, all the times I've been thwarted by weather...

Pictures

2008-09-28T11:55:00.005-06:00

Life has been pretty boring lately. I've been trying to write my thesis and taking one class. The class is going well, but the thesis is not. I can write when I'm passionate about it, but when a paper is forced and extremely formal I feel as if it is bad writing. Writing about climbing and skiing is all about someone's emotions and love for the thrill... the adrenaline... the scenery. I can live through the scenes again and write down how I felt, and what I saw. Writing about mathematical analysis of prescribed fires I can't really live through again. Weird, I know.
Soon enough though, my thesis will be done and I'll actually be making money. I can't wait.
Aside from that, here's a few pictures from the past couple weeks.

Here's my sister and Olivia at Yellowstone

This is the Boerger family in Yellowstone
Jen and Jake.... how cute
My Pops through the trees in Yellowstone
Another of the Pops... I really like these ones.
A few friends in my backyard. This one is taken for 45 Seconds
Same picture, but for a minute. I think these turned out really well. Since we can't really see their faces it looks more like an art piece that is meant for us to put ourselves in and picture ourselves there rather than just seeing people. I'm going to try these again at some point and see how well they turn out. Maybe try some different angles and times.

Teton Clips

2008-08-24T15:14:00.003-06:00

Here are two videos of the climb. This first one is a little sheltered, and hence not as windy. Plus, it's a little early in the morning, so you don't see many clouds. The next video is on the ridge proper, and is extremely windy. That's just as the clouds were hovering around us. You can hear me say I think the wind is 60mph... I was only 35mph under the real wind speed. Also, you can hear me being optimistic about the summit, but we in fact do not make it. We end up just a couple hundred feet shy of the summit.

Tetons III

2008-08-24T13:05:00.006-06:00

I need to let you all know that I did have a previous trip to the Tetons a few weeks ago, but it didn't go well from the start, so we didn't even do any climbing... hence it's not up here. But, I did just get back yesterday from another trip down yonder to the motherland of alpine climbing... THE TETONS!!!!
I had been planning this trip with Loy, who lives over in Oregon, for quite a while. She was going to be in the area for a previous engagement, so I suggested she come climbing with me. Since she loves mountains as much as I do, she was in from the get go.
Well, we met in Jackson on Monday night and woke up bright and early (4:30am) to get to the ranger station and get our permits for camping. After that we spent the rest of the day walking around town and drinking a couple beers. You're right, we really should have been drinking water rather than beer, but there's a microbrewery there; we can't resist that temptation. So later that evening we had dinner with some friends of Loy's father. After that, we started packing all our gear to get ready for the hike in the morning. Since I was carrying the tent, I had to wait until morning to pack because we were sleeping in the tent that night. That being the case, I was a little late in the morning. I thought I could pack faster than I really could. I wasn't too late, but late nonetheless.
Well, our permits were for the Lower Saddle camping area between the Grand Teton and the Middle Teton. This is the highest camping area in the Tetons at 11,100 feet. It's a good 8 or 9 miles from the trail head, so we took off early. The hike in was a good hike and both of us were making good time.
When we got to the Lower Saddle, we set up the tent and got everything ready for the next day. Drinking water from the snow melt and cooking some food felt pretty good after the hike. Luckily this hike isn't real long, but it definitely is steep. A fair amount of vertical is had over the last half of the hike.
We would be leaving for the Grand Teton at 5:00am, which means we were getting up at 4:30am. It was dark, cold, and very windy. Ridiculously windy we would later find out. Well, we started hiking and before long we were at the start of the route. The had picked up even more and I was a little worried about the climbing. It's not really exposed, but gusts of wind this high do make a person nervous when clinging to a rock at 13,000 feet. The first pitch is a short traverse to the ridge proper, but has some really good exposure under your feet. A good start to the route really. After this pitch it's roughly eight pitches of climbing with a little scrambling here and there. We were climbing well and made a lot better time than I had expected. Part of this was due to the fact that I didn't place a lot of gear for protection. This means I don't place much gear and it also means Loy doesn't have to take it out. It's all about efficiency.
Almost every pitch, Loy would come up to meet me and ask if I was getting really cold, e.g. hypothermia; and I always said I was fine. Apparently I thought my shivering wasn't visible. She was being a good partner keeping tabs on me. Even if I wasn't answering her properly sometimes, I didn't want her to know I was pretty freakin cold, she still knew how I was doing.
After quite a few cold pitches, we were getting closer to the top and the wind was getting faster and faster. We could also see the cold front moving in. There was a layer of clouds almost level with us heading straight in our direction. As we moved on to the top, we were essentially sitting in the clouds. Visibility was decreasing, both of us were cold, but I still wanted Loy to touch the summit (this is what they call summit fever). Luckily for us, she was smarter than I was and suggested we go down for safety reasons. I had to agree, but it sucked turning around about 200 feet from the top. It takes a bad situation and a good mind to recognize this.
Well, we started rappelling and the wind felt like it was going to throw us off the mountain at times. It would literally knock you over and push you around. Luckily we only have two rappels to do, then we hike the rest of the way. As we got further down we could see we were walking out of the clouds, but not the wind. We were both a little worried that our tent was going to be gone. Winds this high were definitely making me nervous, but I really thought we'd be okay.
Once we got down we could see that our tent was waving in the wind a bit more than usual. Not a good sign. When we got up close, we could see the tent was completely collapsed! It was a disheartening sight. If we couldn't fix the tent with what we had with us, we would have to hike all of the way out. Mind you, we were pretty tired by this point. Well, we look at the tent, and it has holes all over it. Some of the seams are torn, the poles are bent, and there are some good holes. At least the holes in the rain fly weren't too bad...
well, we taped a few sections of the tent, and the poles went back in and luckily held. At this point I'm more than a little nervous that this thing is going to collapse again. I was putting money on midnight. Then it would be dark and make everything harder. Good times. Luckily it held that night and we made plans to hike out the next day even though we had permits for two more nights.
The hike out proved to be very fast and everyone was amazed that we had been up there the last day. "Well, the winds were pretty high, but was it really that bad that these people are amazed?" It was that bad. When we got down we went to the ranger station to ask the rangers what the wind speed was up there (they have a weather station up there). When we drove over there I dropped Loy off and asked her to go in and check it out while I waited in the car since there weren't any parking spots. Her conversation went a little bit like this:
Loy: "We were up at the Lower Saddle yesterday and we were wondering what the wind speed was."
Ranger 1: (amazed look on his face) "Hey guys, we've got a survivor from the Lower Saddle in here." A few other rangers poke their heads out from the back room and all give her a surprised look.
Ranger 1: "Well, it was 50-60 mph constantly with gusts up to 95."
Loy: (amazed look on her face) "Really?! That's crazy."
So, my tent's breaking point is apparently 95mph.
We spent the rest of the day wandering around town and showering over at the friends house. We went and had lunch/dinner over at the brewery and had a couple beers. Quite a relaxing afternoon after all that went down. We had been cold and shivering and bearing 95mph gusts and now we're in a brewery having a couple beers toasting the successful climbing experience. Successful in the sense that we didn't die or get injured.
Loy took off on Saturday morning and I stuck around town for a little bit just taking it all in. I sat at Jackson Lake Lodge in the park and started thinking "when do you really start to question what you're doing? Is it when your tent collapses from hurricane force winds?" Maybe, maybe not. I always wonder when climbing will take me too far, but I imagine I'll never fully get myself away from it. No matter how tiring and crazy it may seem sometimes, pushing your comfort zone of what's possible always puts a smile on my face.

Mt. Cowen Video

2008-07-22T10:48:00.005-06:00

Here's a video from the ridge over looking the climb. When you see the highest peak, the North East ridge is going down it. The video follows right down that ridge about halfway through.

Mt. Cowen

2008-07-22T09:18:00.007-06:00

Anyone that knows me well enough knows that I often have a "fun" time on my trips. By fun I simply mean that everything is stacked against me. Cowen turned out to be one of those. Good times.
Last summer Tom had suggested that we go climb Mt. Cowen out in the Absarokas/Beartooth Wilderness. This peak is only 11,209 ft. But what it lacks in height it makes up for in pure intimidation. I never expected to feel like I was walking into the Tetons for the first time again. That was pure intimidation. This turned out to be the same.
Since we never got this trip together last summer, I just started making plans and told people I was going and then I would see who ended up going with me. It worked out well because Brandt and Tom ended up coming. We were heading out Friday afternoon when a torrential downpour and hailstorm rolled through. At that point we were all wondering if we should actually go because the streets of Bozeman were actually flooded. We apparently went against our instincts and still decided we would make it. We left Bozeman at 5:00pm and got to the trailhead a little after 6:00pm. We had 8 miles to hike.
We threw the packs on and started hiking at 6:30pm. About a half mile into the hike, it started raining again. We all stopped and put on our pack covers to keep our gear wet, but didn't put on our jackets because we were sweating enough that it really didn't matter. We were trying to hike fast so we could make camp before nightfall. We tried... but it didn't work.
About 2.5 miles in we were going up switchbacks and walked over this crest only to see a grizzly bear just a little ways in front of us. The bear looked at us and then went running off. This area is known to have a lot of bears so we had two cans of bear spray with us in case we did get attacked. Eventhough we did have the spray, it was pretty simple to have the bear just go running off. Couldn't ask for an easier confrontation really.
Well, we kept on hiking, finished the switchbacks and eventually rolled up and over another ridge crest where we got our first glimpse of the peaks as they broke through the clouds for an instant. Just imagine a rough granite peak poking out of the darkest most ominous looking clouds you've seen. We all stopped for a minute and tried to take it all in, but our time was forever getting shorter to make it to camp by nightfall.
We kept on hiking and before I knew it my feet were getting soaked. Oh right, it's raining. Blisters forming... feet getting sore... keep going. We were all getting tired by about 9:00 or 9:30 and just kept on hoping we'd be making camp before long. Carrying camping and climbing gear was just a little too heavy to move fast enough to make it before nightfall and before we knew it we were putting our headlamps on. But, before we got the headlamps on we came upon a little excursion that made us even more tired and possibly a little desperate.
Just as night was falling we were met by the trail going in two directions. One direction looked as though it was closed and the other went across a river. With such a good snowfall year, the river was still high enough that it had taken over the trail and we were forced to cross the river to the other drier side. We walked across a couple downed trees and made it to the other side where we put our headlamps on. We found the trail on the other side, but it soon disappeared. "I'm cold, wet, and we're lost." Not how I envisioned this going. We backtracked, crossed the river again and started hiking next to the river. After about 45 minutes we finally made it back to the trail. It's now about 10:45. We've only got a half mile to go.
We keep hiking along the wet trail and come upon camp a little after 11:00pm. We should have been here about two hours ago if we weren't forced to start late because of a hail storm and we wouldn't have gotten lost. We're searching in the dark to find a place to camp and eventually just put our stuff down in the best spot we can find. We throw the tents up, get our food and start cooking. I start to filter water while Brandt and Tom start to eat. I'm absolutely starving now staring at the lake we're next to pumping water into our Nalgenes. "This could have gone a little better. I think we should have just called the trip off from the get go." Oh well... we're here.
When I'm finally eating, I ask Brandt what time it was and low and behold it's 12:20am. "Wow, this pasta and cheese tastes ridiculously good!"
We pack all our food into a bag and go to find a tree to hang it in. I grab my p-cord and tie a rock on the end to toss the rock up and over a tree branch. I'm way off. Possibly a little too tired to be doing this. Brandt suggests "maybe you should toss it underhand." Alright, here we go. Didn't get it again, but you know what let's just see if we can haul the bag up off this branch. We tie the bag on and start to haul the food. I'm standing underneath holding the bags off the ground while Tom starts hauling the bag from the other end of the cord and the branch comes down right on my head. "Well, this is fun." Luckily a different branch held it and now we're hauling the bag up and tying it off. Finally.
We all go to bed and decide we'll get up at 6:30am and be off hiking by 7:00am. Wouldn't you know it... we didn't get up until 9:15am. What just happened? Well, you need to start the approach for alpine climbs like this one very early because the hike, the climb and the descent will end up taking all day. Since we didn't get up early enough, the climb was out of the question. The last thing I wanted was to be on the peak only to get caught in a storm. While I may be stubborn and try to do things beyond potential sometimes, I do manage to get a good decision in once in a while.
Well, we ate breakfast, looking at the beautiful cirque we were camped in and decided to hike the approach just to look at the climb. So we all grab our cameras and make off for Mt. Cowen (which you can't see from camp). We start hiking up a steep scramble and come up over the ridge and see a couple beautiful lakes sitting in a tight cirque. We are taking things slow since we've got all day and manage to take some pictures, have a bite next to the lakes and then keep moving on up the valley. As we're getting higher, we're coming upon more and more snow. We scramble up snow and rocks, and go past small waterfalls. Brandt stops about halfway up because his knee is hurting him. We leave him right next to one of the waterfalls and Tom and I keep hiking up to the ridge to get a glimpse of the route. As we near the top we start to see Cowen over the ridge and realize the route is still another short valley away. "You mean we would have had to climb two ridges just to get to the route?" Tom looks at me, "I guess so." Then he lets out a great chuckle that signals the full extent of how massive this thing would have been to climb today. If we did get up in time to climb it, we definitely would have been extremely tired by the time we got to the summit and we would have had a pretty big descent to do after that climbing down a snowfield and through a couloir then down to scree and boulders. Fantastic.
We take some pictures and a little video and get the heck off the ridge. We end up basically skiing in our boots down the snowfields and make the descent in about 10 minutes compared to the hour it took to get up.
When we get back to camp, we lounge around and finally realize how tired and hungry we are. We fire up the stove a little before 6:00pm, eat, and are in bed by 8:00pm. You never quite feel like a real man until you are in bed before your niece who isn't even a year and a half old.
We wake up the next day to more clouds and a little rain on the hike out. Luckily it wasn't raining right when we woke up so we could pack our tents while they were dry. When we put the bags back on, we all wince a little bit at the weight and the sore hips from the hike in.
For the most part, the hike out was uneventful, minus Brandt's hurt knee. I was starting to get worried we might have to split up Brandt's weight so he wouldn't have to have weight on his knee, but luckily he made it the whole way out with a little hobbling. When we were most of the way out, we were met by a little rain for the last couple miles. Start in rain and end in rain. Not so bad. It kept it cool, but it also gave me a couple bad blisters from having wet feet.
When we made it back to Bozeman, we pick up some steaks and potatoes and go grill at Tom's place. Oh, don't worry we're basically making the early bird special (4:30pm). That's dinner time right?
We might try this again in a couple of weeks, but we'll see. Not too stoked right now to have another go at it. But, as people know, I'll keep going back for more... sore muscles, blistered feet and all.

Hyalite

2008-07-13T09:28:00.005-06:00

Last night I went up to Hyalite reservoir to take some pictures of this waterfall. They turned out pretty good for my first time doing longer exposures. It basically has to be night to take these and then the exposure times were around 20 to 60 seconds. Enjoy!

Yellowstone II

2008-07-06T19:43:00.006-06:00

For the fourth of July, Amanda and I decided to spend a few days running around Yellowstone since she had never been there before. She's spending this summer working here in Bozeman with MSU. She works with and helps out farmers around the area. Mainly smaller farmers. She's on a crew that will go help pick various crops, but from the sound of it mainly potatoes. The whole thing sounds pretty good for farmers to get free labor.
Anyways, we went to Yellowstone to take pictures and relax. I was initially a little scared we wouldn't be able to find anywhere to camp, but we ended up finding a spot in the northwest area just south of Mammoth. A good time was had, and most of all, we had good weather.

More Beehive Basin

2008-07-06T15:47:00.004-06:00

Beehive Basin

2008-07-01T07:41:00.008-06:00

Before I update you on the Beehive Basin trip, I need to inform you of other events also. The first one was doing a triathlon with my Pops back in Rapid City. We decided to do a team event where I would swim, my friend Dave would bike and my dad would run. Dave and I weren't necessarily well prepared for this sort of thing since we decided to do it about a week or two before the race. Not exactly good training time. Pops, on the other had, had been training for a while and was in better shape than us. We just need to get him swimming like mad and he'll rock these triathlons in no time. Well, we ended up doing pretty well in it and actually got second place in the team category! Not too shabby. Next year we'll get first.
Next up was a little bit of time spent in Big Sky for the annual Western Agricultural Economics Association's meeting and conference. This would be my first time going to a conference of any sort, nonetheless an economic one. It was a sign that I should be growing up and making progress towards a career. I feel like it's coming right up. I'll save that for some other time though. Well, the conference was actually pretty good. Good food, good speeches, and an excellent area.
This is a fairly big conference and had people from all over the U.S. I ended up meeting quite a few people from different areas. And I can now say that economists might actually be a little more dry than accountants. I know you'll like to hear that Pops. It was quite the realization. At least I add a little bit of excitement.... kind of. Mainly professors just try to ignore me when I come in with a bloody face....
Well, to get on to the good stuff; I went to Beehive Basin right next to Big Sky and did some climbing/skiing. It was pretty amazing and for once had some really good weather. There was barely a cloud in the sky. Tom came down Friday night after my conference was over and we camped along the road taking in the amazing scenery of stars that night. It was amazingly clear. We woke up at 5:00 am, finished packing the gear and took off on the trail by 6:00 am. We were carrying our skis, ski boots, ski poles, ice axe, crampons, rope, climbing gear (cams, nuts, quickdraws), and some food and water. The night before we decided the 12 mile round trip, a climb up a couloir, a 6 pitch rock climb, and a ski descent of another couloir would take us about 12 hours on the upper end. We were a little off.... with food, water and time.
When we started hiking at 6:00 am it was fairly light out. A somewhat welcome sight. It was good we were hiking in the light, but it was not fun hiking that early. As much as I like alpine starts, I do enjoy at least sleeping until 8:00 am. The initial hike up was pretty straight forward and didn't offer any surprises. It's an easy hike with not much incline the whole way on a good dirt trail. The trail goes right next to the river draining the area and offers a nice subtle background.
Of the 5.5 mile hike up to the base of the climb/couloir, only about 2 miles was on dirt. There was still enough snow that we hiked about three miles on snow! When we got up to the base of the South East Couloir, we got the rope, crampons, and ice axes out to start the climb. It wasn't too bad of a climb, but it was just a little bit icy since it's in the shade most of the day. When we got to the top, we were sitting directly on a knife edge ridge. This thing dropped off on both sides of you making for a lot of exposure. While the climbing wasn't necessarily hard, having skis and ski boots on the backpack and having that much exposure did make the climb very interesting. While we were switching the snow gear for rock gear, we started to put the sunscreen on because it was beating down on us. We had been in the shade most of the day, but now that we were on the ridge, there was no hiding from it.
When we set off on the ridge, the climbing was very straight forward. We had no route description nor had either of us climbed it before, but we just kept on going and hoped everything would work out. We managed to get ourselves scared a couple of times because of snow on the route and because we thought we might be off route because the climbing was getting harder. That wasn't really making us feel any better, but we did manage to stay on route as best as I can tell. Aside from the climb, we had awesome views from every vantage point. We could look in every direction since we were on top of the ridge. Absolutely great sights!
Once we made it to the top, we made our way off the back side and heard that this was a scramble down a couloir. Well, because of all the snow and ice, this was not an easy scramble. We downclimbed a little chimney into a snow chute, and then scrambled lower to a snow filled couloir. That downclimb took us a very long time.
Once at the bottom of that couloir, we made our way another 200 feet to the ridge and looked down into the South West Couloir we were going to ski. It felt great to finally make it to that point! The packs were so heavy and hiking and climbing all of this in one day was quite a chore! With a little food and the last of our water, we sat staring at the couloir and getting ready to ski. Tom went first since I lead the other couloir. When he dropped in he immediately set off a wet slab. He turned right into it and I thought he was going to get taken down by it, but he skied away from it. We both sat there looking at each other surprised that this wet slab was as big as it was. It took quite a bit of snow with it, and while he skied down the rest of the way, he was still setting off other sections. When he got down it was my turn and I did the same thing! The slabs weren't as big as his, but we were setting these things off constantly! I had never seen anything like it.
Once we reached the bottom, we could keep skiing out for a couple miles until it turned to dirt again. By this point we were absolutely famished from having eaten a couple clif bars during the day and we each had two liters of water... which had been gone for a little while. While heading back you hear the roar of the water draining all of the snow melt down the valley. It was a horrible reminder of how dehydrated we were. After putting the skis back on the pack, I finally succumbed to temptation and drank straight from the river (we didn't bring a purifier). Luckily I am not sick, but that could have been a bad scenario if I did.
Well, we finally made it back to the cars at 8:00 pm. 14 hours later! It was something else to go that far and do that many things. I did enjoy all of the climbing and skiing, but I was absolutely spent by the end of the day.

Yellowstone/Tetons

2008-06-11T17:09:00.006-06:00

Well, I have somewhat disappointing news. I know, I know, not what you wanted to hear, but I'll say it anyways: I didn't go to Utah. I ended up calling the trip off because I was extremely unmotivated to do anything after I took my exam. So... instead of going to a marvelously warm climate, I decided to go to an even colder one. Not the best decision I've ever made, but I did have a blast.
My initial intention was to go by myself and spend a few days taking pictures and wandering around, but there was a bit of turn of fate. Brandt recently moved up here and has been unemployed. By choice. He's just having a good ol time wandering around and doing nothing. Much like I was about to do, so I told him he should come along.
I took my comprehensive exam on Friday and left for Yellowstone that evening. I'm currently living in my car, so it's very easy to pack. I drove down that night and was instantly greeted by passes being closed because of avalanches and avalanche danger. I realize this sounds crazy... and that's because it is. When it's June there shouldn't be so much snow that avalanches are running across the highway. But on a lighter note, global warming's a myth. There I said it. I'll expect comments from everyone on their take. Pro or Con. Just put down something short.
Well, After spending all of Saturday sitting in the same chair next to the fireplace at Old Faithful Lodge, we decided it might be time to move on. So Brandt and I went down to the Tetons with hopes of better weather.
Even though the Tetons are South of Yellowstone, that doesn't mean anything... apparently. It was still cold and snowy and rainy. It was a smidge warmer, but that really didn't matter. It was cold enough that the couple degrees warmer it was really didn't do anything to make me or Brandt feel warmer. But, we did get a little break in the weather for a morning where I got a few pictures.
When we initially got down there on Sunday, we went all the way to Jackson to go to Snake River Brewing to have a couple beers to celebrate Brandt's birthday! It doesn't get much better than that. Having some good beer with good company is one of the greatest things ever! And I was that great company for Brandt, as was he for me. That night we kept the tradition together and stayed at this pull-off I've always stayed in in the Tetons. I point it out to everybody. It's almost my home away from home. I mean, I've been there every summer at least for a week. Same spot every time. I do switch it up once in a while and stay at the climber's ranch, but for the most part I stay at the pull-off.
On Monday we had some good weather in the morning, so we took off to the park to take a few pictures. It didn't last long, so we went to the Jackson Lake Lodge and had a few drinks... and then a few more... and then we ended up being there for about 9 hours! I don't know what happened in all that time, but we did have an awesome waitress that we talked to a lot when there weren't many people in the bar. So we ended up spending a lot of time reading, drinking, and chatting with the waitress. It was quite a day.
Finally on Tuesday we decided it was time to head back to Bozeman because the rain and snow was really getting annoying. I kind of wanted some spring weather. Or, oh I don't know, some summer weather... since it's summer. When I was driving through Yellowstone heading back to Bozeman, there was a little break in the weather and I got a few pictures. Not too many pictures but I got a few.
All in all a very good trip to get me relaxed before I dive head first into my thesis. Oh yeah, I passed my comprehensive!!! Now all I have to do is finish the thesis and get the heck out of here to actually make some money. Probably won't happen until January or so, but it's at least something to look forward to.

Devils Tower - Not This Time!!

2008-05-29T19:42:00.007-06:00

Well I tried as hard as I could, but sometimes the weather wants nothing to do with it. This is one of those times. We initially went to the tower and were greeted by snow. Yes, it is May. You wouldn't guess it from the snow coming down though. Our next attempt was thwarted by rain. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that wherever I go an epic adventure will unfold where weather is definitely a factor. Stupid weather.
Since we couldn't climb the tower we went over to the Hills. We still climbed through the snow there because we were clipping bolts and not placing trad gear that would slide out because of ice. It was so cold that I would lead about half of the pitch, have Jason lower me, and then he would climb up and finish leading. It took a long time just to get one route done. Quite monotonous, but we got a few climbs in nonetheless. The next day was amazing and we actually had good weather. We decided to not go to the tower because I thought the cracks should have a day to dry out just to be positive they weren't icy. The last thing I wanted was to climb up, place a piece of gear and have it slide out because of ice. Not fun.
So we spent what time we had climbing in the Hills and not at Devils Tower. Oh so very depressing. I was really looking forward to climbing there, but when you get shut out you get shut out.
I'm now back in Bozeman studying for my comprehensive exam. I failed it the first time, but I'm determined to pass it this time. Passing it the first time would be great, I know, but I didn't... so here we are. So I take that on June 6th. If all goes well, I'll be taking the next week off and going to Utah to do some climbing and canyoneering with old firefighting buddies. I'll keep everyone updated. There are going to be some good trips this summer.

This is Jason coming up on pitch three of White House Wall. This climb is directly behind Mt. Rushmore. I'm taking the picture and we're about 400 feet above that road you see below.

Pictures

2008-04-26T08:28:00.010-06:00

I finally got some time to get my pictures converted and finally have an efficient way to get it done. So here's a few good ones.
Here's a panorama I put together when I was home over Christmas.Here's a Bald Eagle sitting just south of Bozeman tearing into a deer carcass.
This was a nice late evening shot just outside of Bozeman. The sky is what's great on this shot. As you can tell I exposed for the sky and left the farm in the distance a little dark. This is what I was going for to show the highlights in the sky in what we all like to call BIG SKY COUNTRY!!

This is a nice area about half an hour east of Bozeman. There's a couple good alpine climbs I'm going to do around here this summer. So you should be seeing a few more from around this area soon. I liked this shot because it has good color and you can feel yourself being drawn in to the mountains in this somewhat ominous landscape.

This is going down Gallatin Canyon towards Big Sky. There was a nice day one weekend and since I had to study for a little while that day I decided to take a little time off and get a few pictures. I just happened upon this river going through the canyon and got some good shots. As you can tell I enjoy simple shots and this is definitely one of them.

This is just north of Bridger Bowl. There's a few areas right around this I skied at this winter. There's also a few to the right of this area that look glorious. Might have to scope them out since it's still snowing here in Bozeman. I couldn't pass up putting this image in because it has simplicity in a complex landscape and a gloriously blue sky.

I'll be going to go climb Devil's Tower in Wyoming on May 8th through the 11th, so check back a few days after that and I should have some more pictures up and a quick trip report.

Long Time

2008-03-29T17:30:00.004-06:00

It has been quite a while since I last posted anything because 1) I'm lazy and 2) I haven't had time to get on any good trips. But, I will fill everyone in on what I've been up to.
First and foremost I've been spending tons of time at my lovely office. To answer questions right away: yes I do have an office and yes there's a sweet chalkboard on one whole side of the office. Life is pretty good when you've got your own 10 foot chalkboard.
Besides taking tests and studying I had the joy of going to Aaron Helmers' wedding in Seattle, Washington. It was on the 22nd of March and I spent Thursday through Sunday there. I thought I might be lonely because I was one of three people invited from high school, but after I saw Aaron's family at the hotel, in classic wedding form, drinking did commence. I don't think anyone got too drunk, but we felt good, had good conversation and enjoyed the short vacation. I'm going to try to give you all a sense of what the wedding was like but truthfully it was too good to describe. And just to tell you up front: I forgot my camera. I know, i'm a regular genius sometimes.
So his wedding was outside of Seattle proper and in a suburb northeast of Seattle. It was on a private golf course on top of a hill... but this small hill gave us a sight of downtown Seattle and a great view of the Olympic Mountains in Olympic National Park to the west. It was amazing. The best part was that I could see this from where I was standing as one of the Groomsman. After the wedding a few people asked me what I was looking at. Of course I told them the truth, because really that's what everyone would expect from me. (don't worry Aaron I still had my eye on you most of the time) After the wedding there was the dinner at which point I ate one of the best meals of my life! The food was ridiculously good. But I didn't want to fill up on food because you know.... there was free booze. Anyway, the whole trip ended up being amazing to see Aaron, his family, and a few long lost friends (Loy and Leah).
My next adventure wasn't an adventure at all. I don't have any pics because I was by myself.... sorry. But I can tell you it was one of the best ski days possible. It is now April and we should be in spring skiing time right? No. I went out last weekend and was greeted by knee deep snow with some waist deep in areas. I was one of the first chairs up at Big Sky and was rewarded exponentially. I hadn't even crossed someone's tracks until about 11:00 am. It was absolutely amazing! Truthfully I wasn't expecting anything like it. I had kind of come to terms that the ski season was over and I was ready to move on to climbing, biking, and other summer activities. But mother nature was not having it. Apparently other people were done with the ski season too because I was one of the very few people on the hill that day. A Saturday nonetheless. Just ridiculous. Even at the end of the day I was still getting fresh tracks through the trees. Good stuff.
Well, I think that about catches you up. I've got some pictures I've been meaning to put up, so check back in a week or two and I should have those ready to go. I go out every once in a while and get some shots of the area with my sweet Canon 40D. It's amazing in case you were wondering. One thing I miss though is the darkroom. I loved developing photos and being hands on with my pictures. Now, I sit in front of my computer and adjust some things and then convert it from RAW to JPEG. It's really not fun. Maybe I'll get used to it as I use it more, but that day isn't coming soon. So as soon as I get efficient at it, I'll be posting more. Especially once the summer rolls around. I've got an amazing trip lined up for Utah... all of Utah. Anyone who cares to join just let me know....

Big Sky

2008-02-23T19:28:00.003-07:00

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

2008-02-08T15:31:00.001-07:00

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

2008-02-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

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

2008-02-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

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

2008-02-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

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

2008-02-07T19:30:00.001-07:00

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

2008-02-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

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

2008-02-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

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!