Thursday, December 29, 2011

Christmas Day

We hope you all are well! Here are some pictures from the day which included...
Breakfast by the woodstove,
A hike in Moonflower Canyon,
A community dinner,
Visiting friends,
A drive through and dead car battery in Arches N.P.,
And seeing the new Sherlock Holmes movie... 

A good day, but we missed our family for sure...

More to come soon!













Friday, December 23, 2011

Moab and Castle Valley

Happy Hannuka, Happy Solstice and Happy Christmas!
We are enjoying life indoors for the holidays, chillin' near the woodstove at our friends new home in Castle Valley.  Over the last & next couple days we are enjoying the desert and the wonderful people here. 
We hope all of you have a GREAT HOLIDAYS, keep on your smiling faces and share your happieness with all of your friends and loved ones!







Thursday, December 22, 2011

Lizard Head Pass

From Mesa Verde we headed north, enjoying an amazingly starey night and crystal clear morning at Rico hotsprings.  Then in serch of low angle riding we fumbled apon the meadows at Lizard Head Pass.  3 days of riding comenced, once again challenging our lungs at over 10,000 feet above sea level.  The first day was short, but the next day we rode it from when the sun hit it in the morning till the afternoon's shadow had formed a thin crust on the surface.  That night instead of traveling on we melted snow to refill our water bottles.  Waking up to another day of riding, this day turned warm, getting into the 40's maybe and it was like spring skiing! 
From there we moved on to Telluride, where we watch the Patriots win the game agaist the Broncos and where met some super fly girls, watched their hockey game and ended up staying with them in Placerville for a night and a day. 
From there we moved on to Miramonte Reservoir outside of Norwood where we chilled in the sun reading books, trying to weave baskets (not as easy as it looks!) and making a few christmas tree decorations. 
Now we find ourselves in Castle Valley, UT for the Holidays...  which we hope all you readers are enjoying! Happy 3rd night of Hannuka, and Happy Solstice!














Outlook Hotsprings

After 3 long days, one in the classroom and two at 11,000+ ft above sea level we finally relaxed into the outlook hotsprings in Pagosa Springs.  The hotsprings were piped into the buidling where there were 3 soaking tubs in a cozey dimmly lit room and 3 tubs on the roof of the buildings looking out over the town.  We spent 6 hours in those tubs, the first few indoors and then finally outside, where it started to snow hard. 





Monday, December 12, 2011

Wolf Creek Backcountry Avalanche Class

We are now certified in level one avalanche awareness.  This was a really fun weekend.  We met such a wonderful mix of people, from all over.  Even a man from North Brookfield, MA.  Our course instructor grew up in Bridgeton, ME.  It was fun reminiscing about Wachusett Mt and proving once again if you can ski the east your capable of pretty much anything.

The first day started with 9 hours in class, with a couple of breaks.  We learned terminology, and extensively the DMF (decision making framework).  Basically, the best practice to avoid avalanche terrain and TRAVEL WISELY is to CHOOSE TERRAIN, OBSERVE, PLAN, & TEAMWORK. 

On Saturday we spent the night at 11,000+ feet up at Wolf Creek Pass.  A reasonable sleep except the bitter cold trips to the porta potty.  We spent the first half of the day in the BCA beacon park.  We really got an understanding of the technology that the beacons have and got to practice pin pointing and finding buried beacons.  Then we moved over to the snow plowed banks and there we practiced digging out a buried victim.  The plowed snow has very similar characteristics of the debris snow and is quite difficult to move. 

We started our accent to the summit to look at a recent avalanche and observe the snow on different terrain and aspects to better understand what the daily bulletins were describing.  To say the least we were so WINDED.  After the shoveling it was all up hill.  The descent was fun though, as we got to more southern facing aspects a crust had developd on the snow, fortunately our huge snowboards blasted through that while all the skiers got hung up. 

Our final day was preceded by the best sleep ever and we really cruised up the mountain on our skins, at noon we dug snow pits and practiced all the different tests techniques to better understand and point out weak layers.  It was really fun and the pit we dug to the ground was taller than us. When we finished 2 hours later we needed to really motor up the road if we wanted to get a run in.  Hannah was spent so she and a few others turned back and I went ahead with the rest.  We then climbed about 700 vertical feet in 14 minutes. (wheeze) The run down was dream like and I really fell in love with my new abilities to manage terrain and find stable slopes to ride.

Of course before we got back to the parking lot the instructor dropped a fake avalanche on us and it was hard and scarry to find the victim on my snowboard.  It took us less than fifteen minuets to find the buried beacon.  But I would rather practice prevention than search and rescue. 

The class was phenomenal and I will recommend this school specifically to anyone interested in taking there Avy 1 or 2.  In the least the class size was 8 students to 2-3 instructors.  Where others are 30 to 2.  That says it all!!

Thanks wolfcreekbackcountry.com, Sandy, Casey, and Mark. 












Thursday, December 8, 2011

The cold ...

After RMNP we had a great time visiting with friends in Lyon's, and watched a great fireworks display from their driveway.  That was on Saturday night, over the next few days the temp continued to drop in the front range.  Non-the-less we headed up into Allens Park and set up for the night at the trail head we wanted to skin the next day.  It was a cold evening perfect for a hot dinner and study time for our up and comming avalanche course.  We woke the next morning to blue skys and enjoyed the view as we waited for the sun to show its self from behind the mountain.  Although we waited till 9 am to start the temp still had not gone up.  We set up to go, leaving the sweet Daisy curled up in her jacket and blankets. However, after less then a mile we found ourselves turned back twards the car, when our feet were nearly frozen.  Plan B was to find friends and be warm and that's what we did over the next few days, visiting Boulder, Breckenridge, and making the long but beautiful trip down to Durango.