Snowbird on a Powder Day!

Eric and I went up to our ski resort, Snowbird, on a sunday with actual powder! it seems to never really dump on the weekends around this place, so it was a nice treat- especially for eric since he can't get up there during the week. we had this tease of warm weather last week and the week before, and now it's nuking snow like it's january. march is actually a big powder month here with some of the best skiing to be had.









"I'm cold. no more pictures"


Eric, the beloved husband and photographer.

Let there be more usable space in our house...

We have finally finished the lighting in our front room. we haven't been able to use this room very much during the winter months b/c it is so dark in there and we didnt' even have a lamp. last night eric and our friend BJ finished installing track lighting and eric and i found a couple lamps to help light the way. i'm so excited! it's been a lot of fun to 'nest' in the house and add a few pieces of furniture to make it a home.

Tales from Joshua Tree

Last week Eric and I and my friend Jamie road tripped out to Joshua Tree National Park and met my brother Nelson and his fiance Krissy for a long weekend of climbing in the park. I developed a rather nasty head cold pretty much the day before we left and continued to feel miserable during the whole event. you can see my very red nose in the pictures from all the nose-blowing i had to do. :( We still had a great time. Joshua Tree is only 1 1/2 hours from where Nelson lives in victorville, CA. it was his and krissy's first climbing trip or experience ever and they did great. Eric took lots of great pictures for us. I've been checking the weather in Joshua Tree since december and it's been about 70 degrees. so the day we got there brought a cold front and we faced temps in the 50s and clouds with some sun while we were there. boo. and it was a bit windy. it's always a bit windy there though. nelson got to do his first lead climb ever, krissy developed sick rock climbing skills, and jamie- my friend who mostly boulders- got better on the roped end of things. Joshua Tree is about 10 hours from Salt Lake, so it's no small drive. the quality of climbing and the beauty of the area make it worth it though. i'd like to return again when i feel myself and climb more routes there. having a cold puts a pretty big damper on my motivation, energy, and spirits. i received the "complainer of the day" award for making sure everyone there knew just how bad my cold was. what, me complaining? never! :) i'm excited that my brother is getting into climbing and interested in doing more trips with us.






me on 'fun stuff'



a scenic view



Jamie pulling down



me pulling down



me looking unreasonably worried on a 5.7 climb :)



belaying with plastic smile



approaching a climb



sunset



nelson's first lead!



Jamie concentrating very hard on chopping those peppers!



fireside chats



me thinking "it's a long way down and more slab climbing ahead!"



krissy, jamie, and i



jamie and i being silly. wait, when aren't we silly?



krissy, nelson, me and eric. someone didn't tell me they were taking a picture...



little climber on lots of granite rock!

Backcountry Touring and Such

A couple weeks ago a few friends went ski touring to Monitor Bowl in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was a snowy day, and the powder turns were awesome. Unfortunately, at the farthest away point at the bottom of the bowl our friend Brian's ski broke in half. The ski was already on its death bed, but the powder overwhelmed the fix job. That was a long tour back out on a broken ski.

Yesterday Eric and I toured up Circle All Peak in perrrrfect weather. I mostly enjoy ski touring on bluebird days when I don't have to deal with wearing goretex and trying to stay warm and dry. We enjoyed a beautiful view of the surrounding peaks from Circle All Peak. I've never stood on that summit before and it was a pleasure to look at the various mountain tops i've heard of and finally identify them for myself.




Monitor Bowl Telemark Turns



Powder!!


The Summit of Circle All Peak



Skinning towards the Aspens in Circle All Trees



Removing the skins on the summit Circle All

Millcreek Yurt and Tour

This past week Eric and I and two of my friends from work, Jamie and Dennis, toured up Millcreek Canyon. Millcreek is an extremely close canyon to the city and eric was able to even work half days both thursday and friday. the yurt is located 4.5 miles up a groomed cross country track, so the going was easy. we stoked the awesome pot belly stove with tons of wood and had the yurt piping hot by the time we all went to bed. the next morning we woke up and toured up a small hill by the yurt. it was a beautiful blue bird day with light, fluffy snow. eric and i had to get back down into the valley for work, etc but dennis and jamie stayed up in the hills skiing the rest of the day. yurts are fantastic. they are basically a wood latice structure coverd with a heavy canvas. a huge tent big enough for 12 people, a picnic table, a wood pile, and wood burning stove and all our skis and gear. the forest service maintains this particular yurt and provides dry wood for the stove and a portapotty bathroom right outside. we melted snow for our drinking and cooking water. i felt like we had real 'back in the day' experience with keeping the fire going and continually melting snow for just the basic needs of water. it was great to wake up that morning and step outside to glistening snow and total solitude. all just right outside out backdoor.





Touring up Millcreek canyon to the yurt.



Inside the yurt



the yurt



preparing for the morning powder turns



up the hill!




Eric and I on a mini summit. That's Dennis' dog.



Coming down through the trees.



Yay for aspen groves!

meaningless blog post

I've been enjoying my homemade lattes recently. they take me about 5 minutes total to make, including the warm up of my machine and clean up afterwards. and so i get out of the routine of taking the 5 minutes to make them. but recently i've taken the time and i think the quality of my mornings has improved. my little 8 oz mug only holds one shot of espresso and 7 oz of milk. i like my lattes plain- no flavoring, no sugar. just skim milk and a shot of espresso. so i don't actually get addicted. i just enjoy the taste. Eric and i bought this Starbucks home espresso maker over a year ago, and it's well worth the money!

Hope you enjoy this pretty meaningless blog post. it's 1 am and i'm on a night shift. i can blog about what i want to.



the 8 oz line marked so i get the correct amount of milk. you can see the steamer straw in the picture too.


my sweet mug

Avalanche Safety Course

a snow saw!!!!


After travelling in the backcountry around the Wasatch and tempting my fate with avalanches, i decided to get myself educated. i took an Avalanche 1 safety course this weekend (there are 3 levels of saviness). we spent 2 days and one evening in lectures, field work, and a tour into the mountains. we had a "lovely" weekend here- with 30 inches of new snow predicted to fall in the mountains over the 2 days, and not a bit of sunshine, and wet snow falling every second we were outdoors. i came home sopping wet each night. boo. i hate being wet and cold. however, the class was invaluable. priceless. and i feel like a totally different back country skier now. i am so glad i took the class, as now i feel i can travel more safely through avalanche terrain, and do my best and make sure my partners do their best to avoid avalanches. i think this class is MANDATORY for those wanting to backcountry tour. i took it through Utah Mountain Adventures. I'd highly recommend them- the guides were fantastic and the curriculum well planned. okay, enough of my new soap box of avalanche safety. but seriously, consider it.

Hooray for Ouray

This should be a picture of me ice climbing in Ouray, colorado but.... eric's camera promptly died upon arrival so we have no recorded pictures. boo!

Ouray, colorado might be one of my new favorite places. it is a very quaint mountain village(not even a town) nesteled in one of the tightest canyons i've ever seen a village in! at the end of the canyon there is an 'ice farm'. people have rigged a system up to drip water down the very narrow canyon walls to create large waterfalls of ice. then, ice climbers from all over the world make the journey to climb up the sheets of ice. it's fascinating! there is an ice fest there every year with serious competitions and serious ice climbers. i am not a serious ice climber. what is nice about the ouray ice park is you can top rope everything. meaning you can drop a rope down from an anchor on top of the canyon and rappell down into the canyon. then you can climb back out, all the while being kept safe by the rope. as opposed to leading things where you have big fall potential, top roping is extremely safe. well safe if you consider that you are holding two ice tools and strapped to your feet are crampons with 12 pointy things. ice climbing is pretty different from rock climbing, although the gear knowledge and anchoring systems translate quite nicely. still, i was scared of the climbing, scared of the equipment, scared of the ice.... just like it was to first rock climb i guess. it's been a while since i've felt that way about rock climbing, so it was interesting to be back in that 'total novice' category with climbing again.

eric and i stayed at a bed and breakfast and let me just tell you they are fantastic!!! i've decided when we retire i'd like to move to ouray and run a bed and breakfast. ouray is mostly a summer tourism town, so we got a killer deal for the winter rates. we were the only guests there on friday night. they opened a bottle of wine for us each evening, and we had the outdoors jacuzzi to ourselves the first night. and the breakfast each morning was amazing- so much food that we skipped lunch each day.

i would highly recommend a vacation to ouray. in the winter you can snow shoe, cross country ski, back country ski, ice climb, or ice skate. in the summer you can hike, mountain bike, road bike, and camp. the winter rates are much more reasonable though it is cold. but it is beautiful!! and you should stay at the Black Bear Lodge. :)

holidays!

hurray for the break in snowy weather that allowed us to make it to boise for my family's christmas get together! Eric and I braved the closed highway, swirling snow storms, and blowing snow to make it to Boise to see my sister, brother in law, mom, dad and the kiddos. the weather actually wasn't so frightful. my brother chose to avoid the travel hustle and stay in california (where he got engaged on christmas day!) it was a great time of eating, eating, and more eating. some sledding. and gifts. advent. reading. playing with toy cars, more cars....and cars. some leggos too. it was a great time and i'm so happy to have spent the time with my family! for once i was off of work and the weather permitted travel. this is the first christmas we have actually spent with family on christmas day. all is as it should be! :)





sweet baby esther



elliot peeking in his stocking



darin and adrian sledding



Elliot and I



Eric and Elliot walking to the sled hill



Miranda, Esther, and I



Mom and Esther staying warm by the sledding hill



The Fam on Christmas

salt lake city fire department fun

for work i spent a day riding with the fire department. it was super fun getting to put the head set on and ride around down town with the lights and sirens on (with reason of course). people do some really dumb things when an emergency vehicle puts on lights and sirens. just pull right people. we had people making their left hand turns through the intersection right in front of us instead of pulling over or just waiting. i'm suprised more engines and ambulances don't hit more cars. at the end of the day they needed to test their truck after maintenance so i got to ride to the top of the basket's reach- 10 stories! it was a fun day and the firemen were great. no serious emergency calls though.



i'm way up there in the basket. we were 10 stories high at the basket's max.

Merry christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Kiddos and Dinos

Miranda, Darin, Adrian, Elliot, and Esther came for a visit! We spent saturday in the 'world's largest dinosaur museum' down at Thanksgiving Point, and Darin and Eric went to a Coldplay concert that night. Miranda and I made the 'world's best apple pie' and a fantastic pizza for dinner. They are the first family to come and stay at our house with us, and it was great! Eric was impressed at the amount of energy that is required for young kids. He'll warm up to it one of these days..or years. :)Here are some pics from the dinosaur musuem.





Never tell a climber not to climb the rocks...



Shenanigans with my great brother in law, Darin.


Elliot. What a cutie.



The great hands on part of the museum- the water erosion table!



Can't tell if he's having a good time or not..



Adrian LOVES dinosaurs!