Snow Style-y

It was raining today. And yesterday, when the weather was perfect, I was sick. So I started the day pouting. but Eric and I quickly got to talking about our upcoming trip to Chamonix, France in August. Talking about what routes we want to climb, where we are going to stay...all the fun things you think about before an actual trip. Then we started talking about how we are going to get to the climbs we want to climb....and the words 'ice ax' and 'crampons' started getting thrown out there. Then I started to get scared. :) So we took the middle part of the rainy/snowey day (in june!!) to learn the art of Self-Arresting. or basically : how to stop yourself when you are flying down a slick and hard snowy hillside at an ever increasing rate before you wet/soil your pants. i'm not a fan of mountaineering- too much futsing and too many details that just bog me down. but i have to concede that we will be crossing snow fields and glaciers while in France. therefore, I need to figure this thing out. Mission accomplished!

Colorado White Water

I just returned from a 3 day, 2 night white water rafting trip with my family around the Buena Vista, Colorado Arkansas River. It was an amazing trip. While the exact canyons we were hoping to float were closed due to unseasonably high water due to snow-melt, we floated other sections of the ARkansas River which proved to be as much excitement as we needed! My Uncle Larry and Aunt Jan and two of my cousins came down from the SEattle area. so we had a little family reunion to boot. The scenery was breathtaking, the water very cold, and the rapids quite fast with 6-9 ft standing waves. We had a fantastic guide who took good care of us, and even had breakfast, lunches, and dinners made for us!


a fresh spring bubbling up next to the river


the Family


relaxing during a rare moment of still (ish) water




in and around the Collegiate Peaks area of the Rocky Mountains




modeling our lovely wet suits


Mom and Dad


Nelson trying to pull harder!


cousins Mari-Grace and Mike

Bike. Climb. Bike

Eric and I have, for over one year, wanted to participate in a 'Human-Powered Climbing Day" where we ride our bikes up into one of the cottonwood canyons and climb a route. Today was the day! We biked from our house to Big Cottonwood to the base of a 400 foot climb called Outside Corner and back home again! It was about a 13 mile bike ride, one way. the rout was 400 ft, and I don't know the elevation gain (it was a lot). We are both very tired tonight, but very happy to have powered our own climbing today!























What would the day be without at least 1 flat tire? Thankfully this happened only about 2 miles from home and Eric is really good at changing flat bike tires (since he has them all the time!)