First, My Partners: Sean H. More of a general partner in crime, considering how little climbing I'm doing these days, and how much more alternate wackiness...
Onsight grade: WI4/4+, rock grade 10b/c sport, 10a trad at Pearly Gates, 31 July 03 (though it felt harder at the time...).
'Gotten Spanked' grade: 10d (Slip Not) at Monitor Rock, 27 July 03, 6 (my ass it's a 6) (Stinkzig) at Vedauwoo, 20 Aug 03.
Best clean lead grade: 10c (Unnamed) at Parachute, redpointed project 28 Jun 03, WI4 M3 at RMNP, 7 Dec 02, WI4/4+ at 10Mile Canyon, 12 Jan 03, 10c at Shelf, 18 Jan 03.
Best climbing grade (so far): 11b at Shelf, 27 Dec 02, 10d (Slip Not) at Monitor Rock, 27 July 03 (as in, well, I finished the route), WI5 at Ouray Ice Park, 19 Jan 04.
Lead airtime this season: 0'.
Total airtime this season: 0'. Back to 2001 Season climbs and photos Back to 2002 Season climbs and photos Back to 2003 Season climbs and photos Back to 2004 Season climbs and photos
8 January - Powder day at Vail w/ Sean & Cheyenne. Two days of travel home last weekend and a week of catching up and trying to be productive at work have ruined me. :) I'm hoping that my feet will take to the boots today... Yeah, they kinda do. We push it out with huge amounts of powder, at least in some places. I get chest-deep and neck-deep in a few turns today, but mostly it's just good conditions as we take a halfway mellow day. Sean & Cheyenne both are making incredible progress as telemark skiers. I'm not quite "on" today, but still amaze myself (and Sean as well) when I catch edges, pull the ski out of the foot of snow, ski on one ski through the bumps and crud for fifty feet, and put them back down without cartwheeling, and keep on going. My feet swell and hurt a bit by the end, though, so we call it early - about 3. Conditions are good but we're kinda wrecked. Time for some healin'. Eventually, anyway.
9 January - Vail w/ Arlene. I had actually hoped for an easier day today, but Arlene couldn't get out yesterday and is jazzed to try out the newish snow at Vail, so we head back up. The winds cooked up pretty good last night and everything that was fluffy yesterday is now wavy and inconsistent windpack, and the snow underneath is wet and heavy - difficult conditions at best, especially where we try and play, in the wide open spaces out back. I turn into a snowball a few times but we end up having a really fun day, pushing right up to last chair. My glutes and quads are completely fried by the time we're finished and even climbing the stairs back to the car (and a well-deserved margarita at the Cantina) is a major challenge.
10-14 January - Macon & Atlanta business trip to Warner Robins AFB. Too many places to be and things to get done this week, so I don't actually get out to do much active. Darn this early-dark season. I do finally get to catch up with Scott Hawley in Atlanta on my way through, and we try hard to keep from reminiscing about so many great mountain adventures in years past.
15 January - Breck w/ Sean, Cheyenne, & Dan. Just another fun play day, but Sean on the second run bruises his calf on his new, taller boots and has to call it early. He's been following through the tight trees the last few days and has really made progress - it's like he's a different skier completely these days. I give Dan the mountain tour and we hit lots of fun little runs off the beaten path. I found and started a little action in a pipe that I didn't know they even had on peak 9 by Briar Rose, but need lots more work on this before I can do it in public! The cold, cold weather has made the snow that fell in the last two weeks really clean and fun to turn on, almost velvet. Hope this continues, because it's shaping up to be a really good year.
18-21 January - San Antonio business trip to the former Kelly AFB. Work took too much time out of this trip, along with the early dark of winter and sights that I was interested in closing at 5pm, but I still got in a nice run in pleasant temperatures on the Riverwalk and spent a couple of late afternoons exploring and photographing the Missions along the lower river. I haven't been so happy to come home and be able to relax on a weekend in quite a long while.
23 January - A Basin w/ Dan & Cheyenne. We spent a mellow day out today, with bluebird skies and hard crunchy snow until the sun warmed the slopes up. About 11 I wasn't paying enough attention, caught an edge on a hard bump, and took a long spill - thinking I could recover it, I spun turtle and tried to get up in situ, but wrenched my less-capable knee and went back down and over. After finally coming to a stop and letting the pain subside for awhile, all was better, but we went and had a couple of beers and took it much easier for the rest of the day - no more absolutely huge airs, no more bumping it out, just mellow cool running. The day was absolutely sublime.
29 January - Another unfortunate abort. Lana and I had planned a social road ride ending up in downtown, but as she was heading to drop off a sag vehicle the rain and sleet started in earnest, so we cancelled. I was really, really looking forward to this ride, too!! -- But there are plenty more days, and it's still late January, and the weather is typically fickle. Another day, another ride.
30 January - Breck w/ Phany, Arlene, & Cheyenne. Hmm. Apparently last week's crash did something more to me than I thought. For a couple of days it just felt like I'd hyperextended my left knee, but that went away like it normally does. Somehow though, I've damaged something in my right ankle and putting pressure and torqueing on it in boots seems to be a little unpleasant. Rather than risk further injury, I just downhilled on the teles with Phany today for a few hours before catching some lunch, catching up, and walking around the international snow sculpture championships in downtown. I think I'll chill from skiing for a bit and see if I can't heal.
2 February - Happy hour social meeting with a new group. Hmm, wonder how this might go. Sitting in a meeting today at work I crossed my right leg over my left, and yep, went into blinding pain for a few seconds as I reminded myself that the right ankle is definitely not working correctly. Funny how it doesn't seem to hurt if I am just walking around.
5 February - Road bike warmup ride w/ Lana & friends. To get back into the season and start training for some fun bike adventures this spring and summer, we rode from home to downtown on the local bike paths. Lana's group started at Green Mountain and added about 20 miles to the front side of their ride, but as a warmup for me the 26 miles to downtown was entirely sufficient. After some lunch I explored the light rail system and made it as close to home as I could, but the sun had set and it left me with another 6 miles of slightly uphill, chill, dark riding back to the house. Riding seems to be just fine on the ankle, I was happy to fnd. Afterwards I spent the night celebrating John's birthday at a Carnivale party in Bonnie Brae, catching up with some friends and just being social and having fun. Quite a full day, and an enjoyable one.
9 February - Another car repair day necessitated a bike ride to work in 20* temps, 12.6 miles total. The winter riding gear came in handy this morning - good investment.
12 February - A Basin w/ Sean, Dan, & Cheyenne. Not quite trusting my ankle after a couple of weeks ago, we took it easy. Well, easier than normal, anyway. We enjoyed the warm but cloudy day and the softness of the snow, particularly in the cut-up bumps that tended to line up like, bump-bump-bump-wall. I took a couple of good compressions in a few of those and got tossed around a bit. The most spectacular was a full ski-stop and head-landing (helmets are mandatory for this stunt).
13 February - Nothing in particular. We'd planned perhaps a hike or bike or something but events took over and it just wasn't a great day for being outside, with a chill wind blowing. Spark and I wandered around City Park and took some pictures and just relaxed (well, as much as we could, anyway). A Lupercalia gathering in Five Points rounded out the evening.
19 February - Keystone w/ Sean & Cheyenne. We bumped it out as much as we could. 'Nuff said. North Peak's liftline rocked. Sean and I switched out skis for a bit and I realized how light and flexy World Pistes really are - great for bumps, but not as hot on the harder steeper stuff. Sean made me switch back out after a fun bump pitch. :)
22-24 February. San Diego business trip, getting the juice on our NAS North Island (Coronado) site and figuring out what makes SoCal tick (it's apparently too many people being in a hurry all the time). A week of torrential rains leading up and into our trip saturated everything and made it green, but I couldn't wait until the skies turned blue again. My luggage with raincoat and umbrella of course didn't make the flight with me, but eventually turned up (after I was quite damp). I HIGHLY recommend the fish tacos at Guava Beach on Mission Boulevard. They're much better than even Wahoo's, a sure not-miss in SD.
24 February - Surfing, Mission Beach. Finally, a day it didn't rain, and it was beautiful blue skies all day - I was miserable sitting in my meetings about things I really didn't care much about, a hundred meters from the ocean, just wanting to be outside. Finally after a telecom meeting it ended and I drove up to Mission Beach and rented my board for a few days. I started out just walking over to the nearby Mission Beach a block away and tried to get used to the water again, not catching much but having plenty of fun as a warmup.
25 February - Surfing, La Jolla Shores and Pontos (Carlsbad State Beach). I traded my travel day for Sunday, and hence went surfing all day today. I started off reasonably early at La Jolla, where the surfers kept gathering before high tide - and even though it got more and more crowded, it was worthwhile. I only caught a few smaller mushy things, and called it after about an hour and a half, but it was nice not being the only one out there. The waves here are smaller and less consistent than in Costa Rica, and the water is a lot colder and darker, and it's a lot rougher with an onshore breeze - but it's still fun. I wandered about La Jolla for a while afterwards and then headed up to Carlsbad and Oceanside, exploring where I lived thirty years ago. Nearly on a whim and only stopping at sany beach breaks, I pulled over in roadside parking in Carlsbad and headed towards where two or three other surfers were out, about a half mile walk north along the beach and under the campground bluffs. I later learned this was Pontos break, a pretty reliable and fun spot. The other surfers cleared out shortly as the surf went down and down in waning tide, but I stayed and had some fun by myself. One ride, that's all it takes to make it worthwhile.
26 February - Surfing, South Carlsbad State Beach and San Onofre Trail 2. I planned to link up with Surfer Scotty for breakfast this morning, but to get started I got up early and headed to Carlsbad for some (hopefully) turns. It was strange being out in the chill overcast, the only person in the water; I was wondering if everyone else knew something I didn't about things like, oh, great whites being around. Nothing bad happened, although I managed to scare myself a few times just looking at the dark water breaking in front of (and on top of) me. I pulled out after a bit after an hour and headed up for breakfast in San Clemente to hang with my old riding partner; the surf report was weak so we toured the area and hung out for some margaritas on the pier before heading down for a couple of hours in San Onofre and some more pummeling. I couldn't get up all afternoon (although I got washing machined and beaten into the bottom and generally hammered enough to lose my velcroes watch right off my arm), unfortunately. It was a valiant effort, though, and after we spent the evening in San Clemente trying to get Scottty to build up some confidence to talk to the cute girls wandering about.
27 February - Surfing, South Carlsbad State Beach. Scotty was off to a week of work lectures in Canada followed by some heli-boarding in Banff, and I had a plane to catch. On the way back south I stopped by in Oceanside to pick up some more shells for my GF's jewelry and then to Carlsbad again; the tide was still rising and the water was glassy when I arrived. I practiced sitting on the board waiting for the next set instead of laying down looking like a tasty, crunchy seal and I think I got the hang of it, almost. I got two really decent rides out of a couple of hours, and left the water cutting my travel time pretty close to get to the airport and home. This was a pretty good business trip. :) I'm definitely still afraid of the water at a deeper level, but it's easy enough to just put it aside when I'm out playing. I'm looking forward to some more ocean trips to keep working on this!
5 March - Vail w/ Sean & Cheyenne. We made it a relatively mellow day with the fairly difficult snow conditions.
7-11 March - Salt Lake City business trip. This was my first entirely solo business trip, after the rest of my team was rescheduled at the last minute to other priorities. I found it quite different and worked until late every night, accomplishing much but missing the accompaniment. It was nice to hook up with Tony, Nicole, and Zack in town on Monday, and to have plenty of time to go everywhere that I wanted during the week (monastery, antelope, temple square).
9 March - Alta, solo. The Greatest Snow on Earth? Not after two weeks of baking sun. This morning was bulletproof and I almost gave it up and said the heck with it, until finally the sun warmed Devil's Castle and the Ballroom enough to have some fun, sometime after noon. The bumps under Wildcat beat me silly as I kept bumping out all afternoon, but in the end I decided not to stay the extra Saturday for skiing (based on having to leave before anything would have been soft enough to enjoy). I hope that my team trip will be rescheduled before the season ends so I can partake of some better conditions here.
18 March - Vail w/ Sean. Finally, a powder day in the Mongolia bowls, even though it was dry up front. Cold, windy, and wet, the lifts froze us every run but we kept going back for more. Only where we could find deep freshies could we ignore the ice-hard crust and bumps underneath the blow-in new snow. This was a most excellent, high-powered day. Spring and the storms that it brings is finally upon us.
26 March - Vail w/ Sean, Phany, & Jim. You know those days when everything is just completely "on?" When everything works perfectly and you can do no wrong, when you are just completely convinced that yep, you're the best skiers out there, having the most fun, finding the best untracked runs? Today was one of those. Wow that feels good. I need a soundtrack and a movie team to follow me around on days like today. Mongolia was great (again), and we did some OB from the top of Cat III, then finished the day off with a slew of great bumps and margs at the cantina. Spring skiing should never be allowed to end.
(Took a break from proper updates here for a bit... my pardons. Too much bloody work, and getting pictures prepared from all of the travels.)
8 April - Breck w/ Spark. I took Spark skiing today; tried to do some videotaping of her skiing on the rented gear, and ended up wiping out backwards (well hey, skiing backwards on teles, videotaping, is bloody hard - especially the transistion to reverse!). That was the best take of the whole weekend. We hung out with Phany and drove everyone else out of the dining room at Fiesta Jalisco with silly (loud) antics. Getting up early to come home for Spark's job Saturday morning was not so pleasant...
10 April - Eldora w/ Sean. It snowed heavily last night, but after a couple of days of blazing sun the ice was thick even on the north-facing slopes. Eight or nine inches of powder on top of ice bumps was unpleasant, and the continued wet, heavy snow all day soaked and chilled us. I'm not a big fan of Eldora yet, but I may need to give it a chance when it isn't all ice.
11-15 April - Oklahoma City business trip. Solo trip to a decent city in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't come up with much interesting to do besides photography of a few sites - although I'm sure I've missed something.
16 April - Bike ride around Bear Creek Park w/ Spark. Spark is toying with the idea of trying a triathlon in a few months, and it's still too damp with snow to try to take the bikes out off of paved trails. The paved loop here, although not particularly exciting, is a pleasant diversion for an hour or two.
17 April - Bike ride around Johnson Reservoir w/ Spark. As opposed to Bear Creek, Johnson right by my house is tiny and exceptionally boring. It should be just about the right distance for short, 5-mile-ish runs when I feel the need to do some concrete work.
21-22 April - Houston business trip. Short trip to learn about NEC requirements for abandoned cabling abatement. Hot and humid, and omigod the roads in this city are messed up. I'm not looking forward to coming back here unless I have LOTS of extra time to get places. No time to go and do anything personal on this trip.
25-29 April - Norfolk business trip. Another solo trip to a beach area - but the swell was dead flat all week, so no point in taking time to find a board. I enjoyed walking and photographing the beach, looking for washed-up detritus... but I was ready to go home after I learned I couldn't probably get a personal tour of another sub or 'carrier.
4-6 May - Dayton business trip. Oh, last-minute travel is wonderful. There's not much else to say about this, but I'm looking forward to spending a little more time in the AF museum with the camera next time I'm in town. Boy, is Ohio dead! It was even hard to find an open restaurant here... I'm obviously looking in the wrong places.
10-15 May - Carlsbad Caverns roadtrip w/ Spark. I've wanted to do this trip for a long, long time, and finally I have another reason - to be able to possibly capture at least some of it on film (on my last trip twenty years ago both my skills and equipment were severely underpowered for the task). Because of the late-planning nature of the trip, we couldn't get into all of the tours that I'd have liked - but we did get to do the Natural Entrance twice, Big Room, Lower Cave, King's Palace, and Slaughter Canyon (New) Cave tours, and we had a really great set of rangers that let me play with the tripod and stray a little. Big thank you to Jess and Abby!
(A few weeks of major projects and preparing for my house party, but not much getting out and doing things. We've gone running a few times and biking a bit more, in preparation for Spark's triathlon in July, but I am looking forward to doing some real training for, well, something, one of these days soon. I also got my new travel schedule - Woof. I'm gone every week this summer except for the 4-day weeks around major holidays, travel travel travel. At least I'll rack up some major frequent flyer miles. Sounds like Surfer Scotty is taking a job offer with his company in Sydney, so I may have to plan a month trip next year to surf with the sharks and climb in Kiwi land.)
11 June - Went up to the SOBO Latin Dance and Street Festival to hang out with Sean & Anne; the live music was good, but the rain was a little bit of a bummer. The choice of food (Polish or Mexican) was not what we were really looking for either, but we dealt with it a little bit. Dancing a little with Spark was fun, too. I'm now signed up for the Imogene Pass trail run in September, if work travel plans to Germany fall through for the month of September. I hope this one won't be as traumatic as some of the other things that Sean and Anne have talked me into!
13-17 June - Columbus, OH business trip. I was thoroughly convinced that Ohio was a pit based on my last trip, to Dayton, but Columbus is a pretty okay town. Perhaps that's because my hotel was pretty much on the OSU campus... I made it out running a couple of times on their really nice trail system, and am looking forward to more good German food and beer on the next visit! Friday was a long day - OH for breakfast, delayed plane, saw the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty, lunch in NYC, and home in time for dinner. All travel should be like this.
18 June - Sean & Anne introduced us to the newest family member, Sadie. Congratulations!
27 June- 1 July - Huntsville, AL & Macon, GA business trip. Not much to report - lots of flying, driving, and meetings. Not having a car kinda bites when you're far from home and want to do things apart from your traveling companions. We stopped at one covered bridge on the roadside, but the others just weren't into it enough to let me take any time to go to the others on the route that I wanted to photograph.
10 July - Hiking around Winfield w/ Spark. After some run and bike training last weekend for Spark's upcoming triathlon, we opted into taper mode for the weekend and did some camping and hiking in the Sawatch.
11-14 July - St. Louis, MO & Rock Island, IL business trip. Hello to hurricane Dennis. It rained and was miserably hot and humid the entire trip, and nothing but work was accomplished. Again, no car, but time for sightseeing was limited as I put in my 40 hours in the first 3 days anyway.
18-22 July - Montgomery, AL & San Antonio, TX business trip. (I got my own cars for this trip, conveniently scheduling my flights just off of my companions' travel schedules.)
24 July - Hiking in Peru Creek w/ Spark.
25-28 July - Columbus, OH business trip.
1-5 August - Harrisburg, PA business trip.
13 August - Getting back (hopefully) into some longer runs, I gave Waterton Canyon (12.4 miles) a try this afternoon. It was exceptionally pleasant to run in sub-70 temperatures in the middle of the day again, for a change.
Hmm. It seems as though I have neglected keeping this updated for a wee bit. Well, what have I kept busy with? I'm starting my photography business, primarily. Organizing and figuring out what I need to do to get it running has taken most of my time (as you can see by my lack of entries in the journal). Although it isn't fully online today, feel free to see if it is when you read this: DeepEarth Photography. The photography bit is the easy part; it's the sorting and processing of thousands of images into something workable, and hopefully profitable, that is the real work here!
Let's see. Back to reconstructing my last couple of months.
21 August - RMNP photography and hiking trip. Wandered through the park's trails, got rained on, got cold and wet, came home.
24-28 August - Took a tour of SW Colorado with Spark; we hit Pagosa, Durango, Mesa Verde, and then spent a couple of days in Ouray and hiking around in Yankee Boy basin. Surprisingly for this late in the season, the flowers were still pretty decent up high.
4 September - Wandered around, mostly in vain, at Blue Lakes below Quandary. The sun was pretty harsh at altitude (meaning it was a nice blue sky day), and the photography didn't turn out very well. Still, a nice hike and day out.
9-11 September - Imogene Pass Trail Run with Sean and Dave. Nope, forgot completely to train. It was a ball. 17 miles and 6000 vertical feet, and I even got some time to throw in re-capturing things like Box Canyon that I had flubbed with the camera a couple of weeks earlier.
12-16 September - Business trip to Montgomery, AL. I got an afternoon of shooting in at DeSoto Caverns near Childersburg as a bonus.
21 September - RMNP w/ Sean & Dan. They went fishing, I went photographing. I was a little worried about the large, obviously protective bull elk when his herd approached me in the middle of Moraine Park, but they eventually just passed on and left me alone. I wandered up Fern Canyon a piece, and came back with some decent fall foliage shots.
1-2 October - Mountain foliage shooting trip, solo. Taking a long loop, I went through Leadville, Twin Lakes, over Independence Pass, down to Aspen, and up to McClure Pass. The night at McClure was chilling, but the fall colors were fantastic.
8-11 October - Breckenridge w/ Phany. Another (isn't this annual?) early snowstorm traps us in town. Gee, what a shame. 30" of snow, a hike, a run, and a climb up Breck's peak 8 for first tracks through 2+ feet of cement - wearing Phany's gear, 2-1/2 sizes too small for my feet. It was quite fun.
16 October - Spent the day with Dan at his workshop and at NCAR, doing product photos for his new guitar business.
18-21 January - San Antonio business trip to the former Kelly AFB. Work took too much time out of this trip, along with the early dark of winter and sights that I was interested in closing at 5pm, but I still got in a nice run in pleasant temperatures on the Riverwalk and spent a couple of late afternoons exploring and photographing the Missions along the lower river. I haven't been so happy to come home and be able to relax on a weekend in quite a long while.
19 February - Keystone w/ Sean & Cheyenne. We bumped it out as much as we could. 'Nuff said. North Peak's liftline rocked. Sean and I switched out skis for a bit and I realized how light and flexy World Pistes really are - great for bumps, but not as hot on the harder steeper stuff. Sean made me switch back out after a fun bump pitch. :)
25 February - Surfing, La Jolla Shores and Pontos (Carlsbad State Beach). I traded my travel day for Sunday, and hence went surfing all day today. I started off reasonably early at La Jolla, where the surfers kept gathering before high tide - and even though it got more and more crowded, it was worthwhile. I only caught a few smaller mushy things, and called it after about an hour and a half, but it was nice not being the only one out there. The waves here are smaller and less consistent than in Costa Rica, and the water is a lot colder and darker, and it's a lot rougher with an onshore breeze - but it's still fun. I wandered about La Jolla for a while afterwards and then headed up to Carlsbad and Oceanside, exploring where I lived thirty years ago. Nearly on a whim and only stopping at sany beach breaks, I pulled over in roadside parking in Carlsbad and headed towards where two or three other surfers were out, about a half mile walk north along the beach and under the campground bluffs. I later learned this was Pontos break, a pretty reliable and fun spot. The other surfers cleared out shortly as the surf went down and down in waning tide, but I stayed and had some fun by myself. One ride, that's all it takes to make it worthwhile.
7-11 March - Salt Lake City business trip. This was my first entirely solo business trip, after the rest of my team was rescheduled at the last minute to other priorities. I found it quite different and worked until late every night, accomplishing much but missing the accompaniment. It was nice to hook up with Tony, Nicole, and Zack in town on Monday, and to have plenty of time to go everywhere that I wanted during the week (monastery, antelope, temple square).
8 April - Breck w/ Spark. I took Spark skiing today; tried to do some videotaping of her skiing on the rented gear, and ended up wiping out backwards (well hey, skiing backwards on teles, videotaping, is bloody hard - especially the transistion to reverse!). That was the best take of the whole weekend. We hung out with Phany and drove everyone else out of the dining room at Fiesta Jalisco with silly (loud) antics. Getting up early to come home for Spark's job Saturday morning was not so pleasant...
17 April - Bike ride around Johnson Reservoir w/ Spark. As opposed to Bear Creek, Johnson right by my house is tiny and exceptionally boring. It should be just about the right distance for short, 5-mile-ish runs when I feel the need to do some concrete work.
10-15 May - Carlsbad Caverns roadtrip w/ Spark. I've wanted to do this trip for a long, long time, and finally I have another reason - to be able to possibly capture at least some of it on film (on my last trip twenty years ago both my skills and equipment were severely underpowered for the task). Because of the late-planning nature of the trip, we couldn't get into all of the tours that I'd have liked - but we did get to do the Natural Entrance twice, Big Room, Lower Cave, King's Palace, and Slaughter Canyon (New) Cave tours, and we had a really great set of rangers that let me play with the tripod and stray a little. Big thank you to Jess and Abby!
(A few weeks of major projects and preparing for my house party, but not much getting out and doing things. We've gone running a few times and biking a bit more, in preparation for Spark's triathlon in July, but I am looking forward to doing some real training for, well, something, one of these days soon. I also got my new travel schedule - Woof. I'm gone every week this summer except for the 4-day weeks around major holidays, travel travel travel. At least I'll rack up some major frequent flyer miles. Sounds like Surfer Scotty is taking a job offer with his company in Sydney, so I may have to plan a month trip next year to surf with the sharks and climb in Kiwi land.)
