Taos, NM

I'm leaving after lunch today to go to Taos, NM. I won't be doing any skiing - I don't think they have any snow down there yet anyway. Instead, I'll be pointing a laser gun at a pile of rocks and pulling the trigger for a couple of days. The end result is to be a survey of a rockfall area that can't seem to get along with the adjacent highway. Should be much more fun than office work.

Mt. Sherman

Yesterday Dane and I hiked up and skied down Mt. Sherman. Mt. Sherman is known as being the easiest 14er in Colorado, however, the conditions yesterday made it a bit of a challenge nonetheless.

The day started out with me realizing I forgot my climbing skins, which meant I would have to hike up, carrying my skis instead of skiing up, unless I could improvise some skins. The photo below shows my attempt, which worked well on lower angle slopes. I was able to complete the approach using this setup.



Much of the hike up was over rocks anyway, so the climbing skin issue turned out to not be too problematic. The only problem it really presented was the fact that the skis on my back acted as a parachute during the entire hike up. When we neared the summit ridge we were both nearly blown off the mountain, so we ditched our skis and snowboard for the final summit push. The following video is of Dane leaning into the wind shortly after we gained the summit ridge.



This was the most brutal weather for a bluebird day I have ever witnessed. Much of the climb was into this wind, making the ascent much more strenuous than it needed to be. We took a few photos at the summit before beginning our rapid retreat back to a more sane weather scenario.



We were able to ski about 2/3 of the way back to the car by linking up the most continuous patches of snow we could find. The video below shows the beginning of Dane's run.



. . . and a good shot of me throwing some snow



The car-to-car trip took a total of about 6 hours. Overall it was a fantastic trip with some exciting weather.

On the drive out from the trailhead, we passed several people out cutting Christmas trees. Dane and I thought this looked like a good idea, but we didn't have a saw. However, we did have a towstrap. We were both aware from past experiences that alpine trees are surprisingly stout. Knowing this, we picked a nice, small 5' tree near the edge of the road. Shifting the 4-Runner into 4-low and slowly driving away, the tree held its ground with an impressive resolve.



As a final effort, I put some slack in the towstrap and drove away, more quickly this time. As the strap became taught, the 4-Runner came to an abrupt stop. Upon questioning Dane, who was outside the vehicle watching, I found out that the tree didn't even budge. Not wanting to damage my truck, we left the tree and drove home with Dane saying something to the affect that in the future, he'll feel much more comfortable using small trees as climbing anchors.

Costa Rica

My friend, Antonio, is graduating in a few days from the same engineering program that I did about a year ago. He plans to spend a couple months lying low and traveling before beginning work at a firm that competes with mine. One of his planned excursions is to visit his dad, who conveniently lives in Costa Rica. As luck would have it, he invited me to go with him! His dad ownes a small hotel in a medium touristy mountain town, where we will stay for free. I believe the food is covered too, so all I really have to pay for is my plane ticket and any recreating we choose to do while we are there. I hear there are monkeys all over the place, so this brings the excitement to a whole new level! I simply couldn't pass up the opportunity.

I've informed Keith and Melanie of my planned trip (January 20 - 28), and they think they'll be able to find me and hang out since they'll still be on their tour of Central America. This all means that I'll have to return to work for 2.5 weeks after my holiday trip to Oregon before leaving for another week - vacation time courtesy of the North Dakota field work and compensation time earned there.

Backcountry Weekend

On Friday after work, Ashley and I drove into the mountains to visit our friend, Dane, who is staying at his parents' vacation home in Frisco, CO. The three of us went skiing on the slopes of Mt. Baldy on Saturday, and Vail Pass on Sunday.

The primary task during the Mt. Baldy trip for all three of us was to stay warm. I'm pretty sure the temperature where we were skiing never rose above 0 degrees F, but I'm not sure how cold it actually got. After the short approach to the skiable slopes, we found ourselves at an old mining structure. Dane combined his climbing skills (to ascend the structure) with his riding skills to create the entertaining video below.



After that point, it started snowing and we never saw the sun again. It became too cold to take pictures, but Ashley and I did pose for one shot, managing to smile and pretend that we were not experiencing the initial signs of frostbite.



The snow was deep and plentiful, but after two runs we called it a day and thawed our frozen lips out in a glass of beer at the Breckenridge Brewery. Still frozen, we returned to Dane's place for a hot tub.

On Sunday Dane and I went back out in search of more powder, this time at Vail Pass. Ashley stayed back to grade papers and study - that Ph.D. thing is always getting in the way. The sun was out all day, so the frigid temperatures didn't play as much of a role. We explored a new area, and found a bowl that appeared to have good snow and a good pitch. Upon dropping in, I found the snow to be deep, light, and consistent for several hundred vertical feet. On each turn I sank between 12 and 18 inches, my cheesy grin getting bigger with each turn. The run was amazing, and the next run that we did in the trees right next to it was just as good.

Wild Turkey Wednesday (and Thanksgiving too)

Ashley and I spent Thanksgiving with some of her friends and coworkers. These people strongly believe that the day before Thanksgiving is a holiday in itself, slightly more important than Thanksgiving itself. Being as Thanksgiving always falls on a Thursday, and people eat turkey on Thanksgiving, these guys invented Wild Turkey Wednesday. It just makes sense. The day before Thanksgiving you gather up the crowd that would traditionally eat dinner together, and you take shots of Wild Turkey 101. Don't worry if you take too many shots, because the next day (Thanksgiving) you don't have to be conscious until some time in the mid afternoon - and even then, you don't have to be fully functional to eat Turkey! See, it's all so logical. At about 2:00 am, we managed to squeeze 6 drunk people into a taxi to get home from downtown.

The next day, we deep-fried two turkeys and had a feast equal to any I've ever seen - topped off with 5 pies. The deep fryer thing is pretty nifty. It cooks a medium-sized turkey in 45 minutes, keeps it juicy, and somehow doesn't make very greasy.

And the last logical benefit to Wild Turkey Wednesday - on Thanksgiving you can be thankful that you don't have to drink any more if it.

El Beardarino

I haven't done a post for a while - not a whole lot to talk about - but here's a quick recap. Last Friday Ashley and I went to the premier of Pull (Matchstick Productions counterpart to Push, which premiered earlier this year). The movie was shown on the 5th floor outdoor patio of one of the buildings on campus and was free. I felt real bad for all the other oysters that were duped into paying big bucks for the Warren Miller movie that played that same night in Boulder Theater. They had to go watch people fall of the chairlift, meanwhile Ashley and I got to watch people ski sick lines at various locations around the world. Saturday we hiked up to a bat cave above our house in the Flatirons. Access to the cave is usually blocked because they don't want you disturbing the bats while they do whatever it is that bats do. It wasn't spectacular, but still quite unique for the area.



On Sunday, it snowed in the mountains so we went back up to Vail Pass to revisit the good times we had two weeks prior. The snow was not nearly as good, but the coverage was adequate and crashing face first into the two inches of powder that covered the crunchy crust made for excellent beardage insulation.



Last night, Monday, a friend of Ashley's was able to get a few extra tickets to a Colorado Avalanche game. As I recently found out, this is a professional hockey team. They suck. The Edmonton Oilers beat them 2 to 1, but they dominated more than the score shows. There were two fights, but neither of them were very good.

No More North Dakota!

Truth be told, the field work in North Dakota really wasn't that bad. The worst part about it being that I had to live away from home for 25 days all together. On the up side, I earned a bunch of comp time, so I can take paid time off over Christmas and on powder days. Another perk is the roughly $10,000 I put on my credit card, including 3 round-trip flights - all of which I have been reimbursed for and contributed to my flight miles.

As a welcome home celebration after arriving at the Denver airport an hour late on October 30th, I went straight to the Boulder Theater to watch a Ziggy Marley concert to promote his new album, "Love is my Religion". Fantastic show only a few miles from our house. I love living in Boulder.

Pumpkins and Jello Shots

Saturday night we attended a pumpkin carving extravaganza. A vast variety of beers and wine were consumed as well as roughly 200 jello shots. After reading the above list, one might come to the conclusion that the evening was very unproductive. On the contrary, nearly 25 pumpkins were cleaned and carved with an awards ceremony culminating the event. Ashley won the best "cheater" pumpkin award for her snowflake. Apparently she broke the rules by bringing a stencil of the snowflake she created earlier in the day while sober. I took home the grand prize for my rendition of "paranoid". I attribute this honor to both the unique shape of my pumpkin (very tall and slender - I suppose you could use the word 'gangly' as far as pumpkins go), and the fact that I was around at the end of the party to accept my prize - a mixture of the drinks remaining at the end of the night.

Yahooie! It's Ski Season!

Today Ashley and I drove up to Vail Pass in hopes that we would find enough snow to ski on. As it turned out, the snow cover was much better than expected and the 1 foot of powder was just bonus. Yes, that was 1 foot (12 inches) of pow pow, Colorado backcountry style.

North Dakota - Shift 2

I've been pretty busy this shift, until today that is. We're having the equivilent of a snow day in grade school. The drillers decided not to work, so we are stuck here without much to do. Below is a picture of our field office - a bit snowier than last shift. It's starting to look a little more like that Fargo movie now.