Oh Hyalite...

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

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

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

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

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.