I finally attended orientation

I've been married for almost five years, have lived in this particular apartment for almost a year and a half, and I finally just went through "organization orientation". I am sure everyone is familiar with the common piling up of stuff. At one point the apartment (or house for that matter) starts off clean but as life goes on things will get put in random places as opposed to where they are supposed to go. One area will get cleaned off, stuff put off to the side with the best intentions of putting it away later. As time moves forward more and more stuff starts piling up and more and more good intentions are made.

Today Jessi did a big organization and put away of all these little piles of stuff. All of the "I'll put that away in a little while" stuff was put away. I will admit I was guilty of much of the stuff. When I got home from work the place looked great. I told Jessi she was amazing and how grateful I was for her organizing (I also felt a little guilty for not having helped or done it myself). To this she replied "thanks and now it's time for orientation".

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"See the bookshelf by the bed? Church books go on the top shelf. 'Current reading list' books on the second shelf, not on the floor. The bottom shelf is up for grabs, but it is not a place to stack magazines, nor is the floor next to the shelf a place to stack magazines." To this I replied "well what goes on top of the dresser then?" Jessi's reply "nothing!" I suppose this might be a good time to state that I am notorious for stacking magazines I am reading/read and my many book reading projects on top of the dresser next to the bed or on the floor next to the bed.

"When you are done with something put it back in its right place, just don't set it somewhere random." I think this is something that is taught to small children, but for some reason I will have bouts of amnesia and completely forget this concept.

There were a couple more great quotes but I didn't write them down. Perhaps my sweet wife will provide a couple more in the comments?

I'm really not a slob, I am typically a very tidy person. It just seems that on occasion things tend to get a little out of hand. Jessi and I certainly had a very good laugh after going through "orientation". I think it is awesome that we can give each other a hard time without offending and we know that the other person is just joking around. I love my wife!

What kind of ice cream is that?

My Saturday started off running a little late. My friend Matt and I had planned on running to Desolation Lake this morning. We were supposed to meet at 7:00, jump into one car, and then drive to the trailhead. The alarm was set for 6:25 to give me ample time to hit the snooze a couple of times and still have plenty of time to dress, eat breakfast, and drive to meet Matt. Well the couple of snoozes turned into a couple of couple snoozes and it was 6:49. I was only about 10 minutes late meeting Matt.

We headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Mill D trailhead. Right before we arrived at the trailhead I saw that the car thermometer was reading 45 degrees! I haven't felt air that cold in many, many months. It was quite refreshing to say the least. As we got out of the car to stretch we both wished we would have brought long-sleeves to run in. We both quickly abandoned that wish a couple of minutes into the run.

The trail starts steep right from the beginning. We didn't warm up at all and we paid the price. It took all of about five minutes of running to completely cook the back of our legs. We felt it for the rest of the run.

I don't know if it was the lack of warm up, but something today just felt off. My legs felt heavy today, striding wasn't smooth, every movement felt labored. All of those things combined, it was probably the hardest seven miles I've ran in quite some time. Although it was rough going it definitely went better than the last time I tried running to Desolation Lake.

This evening Jessi, Penelope, and I attended a "fall social" that Jessi's boss has every year at the start of fall semester. It was fun to get out and be social with a bunch of people I had only met once or twice. It was a potluck and there were many interesting and good foods to eat. When the time came for dessert I got some for both Jessi and I. Jess told me "get me a scoop of the green ice cream. I was told I had to try it and they wouldn't tell me what kind it is." I got her a scoop of the green ice cream. Come to find out it was fresh basil ice cream. I'm all about the fresh herbs and spices. They are delicious and all but I don't really think basil belongs in ice cream. It was in the wrong context. When I think of fresh basil I think of bruschetta or margarita pizza, not ice cream. When I took a bite, it felt cool and refreshing, but once the taste hit the refreshment was canceled out. Needless to say, I am glad I tried it. The runaway new dessert was "Strawberry Something". It was sliced strawberries that you dipped in balsamic vinegar, powdered sugar, black pepper, or any combination of the three. Oddly enough strawberries and black pepper go together quite well. My favorite was dipping in all three.

When did back to school get so complicated?

I recently read a research report on the top preteen wish list items for this years back to school. Topping the list are gaming systems, iPods, cell phones (the iPhone specifically listed), and new computers. When did the shift happen from shoes, backpacks, and clothes to wicked expensive electronics?

Who needs a gaming system for back to school? It isn't a Christmas list, it is a list of things you need for the new school year. I have yet to ever find a time that I need a cell phone, gaming system, or iPod to attend school or do school work. Is it just me or does this seem absolutely ridiculous to anyone else? I can somewhat understand the computer on the list, but preteens don't need their own computer, let alone new computer, for school. Last time I checked the family computer will suffice for 7th grade school projects.

I remember the days of "I need to get a protractor for math this year". Apparently those days are gone and apparently I am just waxing nostalgic.

Jupiter Steeplechase

This past Saturday was the Jupiter Steeplechase at Park City Mountain Resort. The Steeplechase is essentially and out and back course (with a small, short loop at the mid point). It is 16 miles round trip and features 3000 vertical feet of gain & loss (Read: 8 miles in with 3000 feet gain, 8 miles out with 3000 feet loss).

I decided to run the Steeplechase after the Wasatch Back Relay. Even though I've known for almost a month that I was going to be running the race I didn't train as much as I probably should have. I continued to run once or twice a week, but never really put in vert training. I did one training run that focused on vert, but that was all. Needless to say, I was a little nervous on race day because I thought I was going to get thoroughly worked during the race.

The race began at 8:00 am on Saturday. There was a small contingent a runners from Backcountry (there was 4 of us). As the race started I was determined to not make the same mistake as I made during the Mid-Mountain Marathon last year. I started out at a good pace for myself and did my best to ignore the people around me and just focus on how I was feeling. I didn't care if anyone passed me. There were a couple times that I thought to myself "let them pass, you'll catch them later when they are dead from pushing it too early".

The CEO at Backcountry had run the Steeplechase last year and his one piece of advice to me when I asked him about it was "don't be afraid to stop running and just powerhike". It was sage advice. I used a nice combination of running and powerhiking when things got really steep. It was quite useful because I would actually be moving faster hiking and using less energy then trying to propel myself running up the steep sections.

The pinnacle (no pun intended), and crux, of the race is when you have to ascend Jupiter Peak. It is so steep that you literally have to scramble to the top. I didn't hear of anyone during the race that was able to run up it. Reading the description of the race it says "...Once reaching the peak tag the flag pole and begin your decent on to Jupiter Peak Road merging on to Pioneer Ridge Road." The description makes it sound like you hit the top, tag the pole, and then it's all downhill from there. Alas, it is not so. You start running down the backside of Jupiter Peak, only to realize there is another peak to ascend. After reaching the top of the second peak you see a third. A small string of obscenities did run through my mind after reaching the top each time only to see that you have to go down and back up.

Fortunately, after the third peak it literally was downhill the rest of the way back to the finish. After reaching the halfway point, the adrenaline started pumping again at the thought of being halfway done and not feeling completely depleted of energy. I did restrain myself to a slower pace than the adrenaline was telling me to go. As the race continued I was very glad that kept my slower pace. Eight miles of downhill is still very tiring to run. There were a couple of small rolling uphill sections that were extremely difficult to get through after having ran over half the race and ascending over 3000 feet. The most difficult section came at the very end. I was running down the lower switchbacks of the Spiro Trail, keeping pace with a lady in front of me, when I realized I almost done. I picked up the pace through the lower switchbacks. Right before you come out of the switchbacks and into the final open run to the finish line, there were a couple more rolling uphills. These uphill sections almost stopped me. They hurt...a lot! I knew I was so close to the finish that I made myself push on.

Judging from my lack of training and how I performed at the Mid-Mountain last year, I thought it was take me between 3 and 3.5 hours to finish. Jess didn't want to come to the finish line and have to wait forever (I don't blame her) so I told her to get there a few minutes before 11. As it turns out I ran the race in 2:41:55! I was completely surprised by my time! I did surprisingly better than I thought I would. Unfortunately Jess showed up about 10 minutes after I finished. I wish I would have told her I would finish sooner. I love it when she is there to cheer my on! Since I finished the race before she got there, there aren't any pictures. :(

Overall the race was killer and wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I faired better than I could have imagined. Since the race went so well I decided to sign up for the Mid-Mountain again this year!

I love weekends!

This past weekend we had a family campout with my sister, her family, and my brother and his wife. We went up Blacksmith Fork Canyon to a place where my sister's family usually goes.

It was a good time. It was super warm so we played in the river a lot. We even busted out the inner tubes that we bought last year in Tahoe and went floating down the river.

Woah look at that farmer tan!

We tried to go climbing up Left Hand Fork. We drove to the crag, put Penelope in the backpack, got our packs on, and then we heard about a 10 second long clap of thunder. We look towards the mountains to the east and see some dark clouds coming. We thought perhaps it'd miss us so we started up the trail anyway. It was fruitless and we had to turn around after about 5 minutes. So much for climbing for the week.

It was all right though, we got back to camp just in time to eat some killer dutch oven food. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out by the fire.

Me, of course with my eyes closed, and Penelope hanging out by the fire.

The next day we got up, ate food, played in the river some more and then came home.

It was a great weekend. We got to spend plenty of time in the outside in the mountains and playing in water.

Busy Saturday, Lots of Miles

Today was one of the busiest Saturdays I have had in quite some time. The day started at 7:00 am with Penelope waking up (it was good since I had snoozed the alarm a couple of times). It was perfect timing since I needed to get out of bed anyway. I started the day with a run up Grandeur Peak in Millcreek Canyon. I've wanted to run Grandeur every since we moved to Salt Lake but for some reason I just never have. I've been needing to get in some vert training so this run fit the bill perfectly. From trailhead to summit the trail is 3.4 miles long and ascends 2299 feet. It is by far the most vert I've done in a single run. It took me 53 minutes to make it to the summit. I had to use a combination of running and power hiking to make it up. I was rewarded with great views of the Salt Lake Valley and the surrounding Wasatch mountains.

The run down took me 30 quad burning minutes. I was surprised it took me that long to get down, however, the trail is quite rocky in some spots (read slower going) and in other spots the plant life would hang over the trail so you couldn't see if there were any obstacles. My quads have never been so tired! Once I made it back to the trailhead I walked to the car. As soon as I stopped running and started walking my legs seriously felt like noodles. A couple times I thought I was going to fall right over! Overall I was quite please with the run.

After coming home, showering, and eating breakfast, Jess, Penelope, and I went up Big Cottonwood Canyon to hike to Lake Blanche. I had read good things about this lake, it came recommended, and we had previously hiked past the Lake Blanche trail. With all those things we decided to give it a whirl.

The Lake Blanche trail is 7.4 miles round trip and ascends 2560 vertical feet. It heads up a side canyon in BCC. It starts by following a small stream for the first mile or so. Then it splits away from the river and the trails cuts through fairly dense growth for almost the whole way. We had started off at 11:20 am and were quite surprised by the number of people we passed who were on their way down. We thought it seemed a little early for so many people to be coming down.

Penelope did great on the way up. It had been awhile since we had hiked with her in our Kelty kid carrier because: 1-she didn't like it before and 2-our kid carrier isn't the greatest. The suspension system isn't comfy and it doesn't fit either of us very well.

Penelope babbled, yelled quite loudly, and slept the way up to the lake. I was relieved that she didn't scream bloody murder like she did in Southern Utah.

When we got to Lake Blanche there were only 7 other people around. Most of whom were close to the trail so we walked to the other side of the lake to find some solitude. We lunched on one of our favorite hiking lunches: tuna fish, cheese and crackers, and Tang to drink. We had great views of the lake and the surrounding peaks.





I did get a great picture of Jess and Penelope with one of the more stunning peaks in the area.



Penelope had fun sitting on the big flat rocks playing with little rocks and banging them together.



The hike down was good. We came across very few people on our way out. One of my favorite things about taking Penelope in the backpack is she loves to stick her head out the side to look around. What I love even more than her sticking her head out is she will fall asleep that way.



When I say fall asleep I mean fall asleep.



The hike was great. It took us 2 hours to get in to the lake and about an hour and half to get out. We were very hungry, tired, sweaty, and ready for some cold drinks.

All in all it was a great day. I got to go running, hike with my two favorite people in the world (and the best hiking partners ever), go to some places I haven't ever been before, see some beautiful scenery, spend the entire day outside (in nature), log 14.2 miles for the day, and ascend 4,859 vertical feet (probably my largest vert day ever).

What's a Squidoo?

I've ventured into the land of Squidoo. I finished my first lens tonight. It is a lens on Louis Lake Lodge and you can find it here.

I also blogged about the lens on the Louis Lake Lodge blog. The funny thing is you can see the most recent blog post on the lens. So when you are on the lens you can see the post about the lens. I find it to be somewhat amusing. It will only be that way until another post is written. If you go to the lens please rank it and help us move it up the rankings! Also if you think Louis Lake Lodge looks like a rad place to go and stay, please pass it along to your family and friends.

Backpacking to Tomahawk Lake

This past weekend we went backpacking for the first time with Penelope. Friday after work we headed up to Louis Lake for a small family reunion. We knew the family reunion was coming up and decided to take Monday off work and planned this overnight trip.

We planned on going up to Tomahawk Lake up in the Wind Rivers. It was 3.5 miles in to the lake. It was the perfect distance for a first over night trip with Penelope. We left Sunday morning around 10:45. Jess was going to carry Penelope so that meant I was going to carry everything else. Jess' parents, little sister, and older sister and her family were all going along the trip as well.

My plan was to take off and get to the lake cutoff as quick as I could and then come back to help carry other packs. I made the 3.5 miles in an hour. A short 15 minute run got me a couple miles down the trail to the rest of the group. I then took Penelope so Jess could take her mom's pack. Another hour or so and we were all at Tomahawk. In total it took everyone three hours to get in.

We had the place all to ourselves. The lake was small and was surround by trees on all sides. We had great views of not-so-distant peaks.

Jess and Penelope at Tomahawk

That night we dined on dried soup with ramen and chicken and homemade s'mores bars. The beginning of the night went well. About 2 AM Penelope started fussing a bit which woke us up. It took a few minutes to calm her down and back to sleep. Jess eventually put Penelope in her sleeping bag to cuddle with her. After that Penelope slept great. It took us a long while to get back to sleep.

Morning time came a little too fast but we didn't mind. We had breakfast and were packed and ready to go by 10:30. We knew Penelope would be tired so we picked up the pace to get back to the Lodge as fast as we could. We made it out in an hour and a half. After getting back to the Lodge I took a quick paddle out into the middle of Louis to go for swim. It felt good to be in the cold water after a warm hike out.

Penelope & Jess snoozin' on the way out.

All in all the first backpacking trip with Penelope went awesome! We won't be ready for the next one until probably next year. We are thinking about sticking with day hikes and car camping until then.

The best part about the trip was finding out that Penelope now likes the kid carrier backpack. When we went hiking in Natural Bridges she was good in the pack for about 20 minutes before the wailing would ensue.

Penelope Crawls

About two weeks ago Penelope started crawling! It started out as a couple of steps but about a week ago she actually crawled where she linked together many steps. We got a short video of her going!

More WBR Pics

As promised here are some more pictures from the Wasatch Back Relay. I mostly just pulled ones of me and some of team and our van. There were way too many pictures to post all of them. You can find the slideshow here. (I couldn't figure out how to post the slideshow in my blog. If anyone knows how, let me know. I'm blaming it on being tired.)

Enjoy!

Wasatch Back Relay

Last weekend was the Wasatch Back Relay. The WBR is a 178 mile relay race that begins in Logan, UT and ends in Park City, UT. It runs mostly on backroads through the Wasatch Range. Every year work sponsors a team of employees, this year they sponsored three. Each team is comprised of 12 runners (2 vans of 6) and each runner runs 3 different legs. The race started at 7:30 AM on Friday and it goes through the night and finishes Saturday morning/early afternoon. I was wicked stoked to be able to run this year. Last year the race was the same weekend that we were going to Lake Tahoe.

As I said, each team was split between two vans. As part of the fun, everyone decorates their van, usually with some sort of theme. Ours, of course, was a winter/gear theme. We had a dummy dressed up as a skier on top of the van (his name was Bill), snowflakes taped to the outside, and plenty of Goat stickers (as a side note, our van won the "Best Decorated Van" award). We pretty much lived in van for the next day and half. One of my favorite parts was driving the van. We would drive a little bit ahead of the runner and provide support (giving water or Gatorade when needed). Then take off down the road a mile or so and wait for the runner. The best part was that we had a megaphone. I love megaphones! The megaphone had a siren that we would sound when we were getting close to the runner so they'd know we were coming. It actually provided energy boosts as you knew your team is coming to cheer you on.

To change things up a bit this year, Jim, our CEO, decided that we would stick to our company motto, "We use the gear the we sell." Each person on the first team would have the opportunity to wear and run with gear. I will admit that at first I thought it was going to be lame but it turned out to be a really good time. We had a ton of gear for everyone to use. Being the first runner I had lucky opportunity to run with a kayak! I also took a paddle and wore a PFD. My first leg curved through central Logan to the south for about 5 miles. My van got lost so they missed the exchange, I kept running with the kayak and went for another mile, for 6 miles total pulling the kayak. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. On the flats and downhills the momentum of the kayak kept it up with me. It was on the uphills where the going got tough. Fortunately the first leg only had a couple hundred feet of elevation gain.

Pulling the kayak through the streets of Logan

My second leg was at about 4:30 pm Friday afternoon. It was BLAZING hot! I'm not sure, but the temps were definitely in the upper 90s! My leg started at the lower lot of Snowbasin and basically ran down, to the south, towards I-84. The leg was 7.8 miles long, had total loss of 2000 vertical feet with vertical gain of about 400 ft. The leg was completely on asphalt (read ridiculously hot because it baked in the hot sun all day). There wasn't a single inch a shade, the sun was beating down, and it was hot! My team was wicked supportive. After the first two miles they started stopping about every half mile to one mile to give me refills. It was a good thing since my bottle was empty every single time. I would use the whole thing between drinking and squirting on myself! This was by far my toughest leg. You can see the map of the course here. Be sure to look at the elevation chart at the bottom of the page. For this leg I wore a climbing harness complete with quickdraws, belay device, and a rope. I also wore my climbing helmet.

Getting gear ready for the next leg.

My third leg started at about 1:30 AM Saturday morning. This leg provided a bit of relief as the temps were cool (about 60 or so) and it was relatively flat. For this leg I ran with a backpack. This leg was super rad. It started just outside Rockport Recreation Area (outside Kamas) and ran for 5.6 miles to Marion (almost to Kamas). It was just Kendall and I since everyone else was at Kendall's houose sleeping. There was no one else on the road except for Kendall (in the van), me, and a couple of cars. This was my first time running at night. It took some getting used to as all I could see was this five foot orb of light around me.

Our team finished around 11:00 AM Saturday morning. Keeping consistent with what we'd done all race, we all crossed the finish line with gear.

Crossing the finish line with gear.

It was one of the funnest races I've ran. I will definitely be signing up again next year. In total I ran about 19.4 miles! I was ridiculously sore for the next couple days but it was totally worth it! We still have a ton of pictures being compiled. Once I have all of them I will post again with a mini slide show of pictures of me, the team, the van, etc.

The whole team after the finish!

The Power of Superglue

I have recently learned, first-hand, the power of superglue. In the past I've heard a lot of stories about people using super glue for first aid. Whether it's for cuts, scraps, etc. The most recently was from a co-worker. He uses superglue on the cracks that he gets on the backs of his heels.

I consistently get cracks in my heels all summer long. They are persistent and they can get to be very large and painful. Most of this could be prevented, I'm sure, by wearing shoes and socks every once in awhile. But hey, it's summer time, who needs shoes and socks?

Last week I got a pretty big crack in the back of my left heel (it happened to be right next to another crack that had just healed). I was sick of the stinging and the pain that I decided to give the superglue a whirl. To my surprise it worked wonders! It sealed up the crack so it didn't split more. Since it was sealed it didn't hurt and it healed super fast!

I was so impressed that I decided to try it out on another wound. Same foot, different end. After a run I noticed that the tip of the toe next to my pinky toe was hurting. I check it out and part of the nail had broken off (apparently I needed to cut my toenails) and the skin had pulled back a little from underneath my toenail. As we all know this hurts wicked bad. I thought it'd heal, but after about two weeks it still hurt and the "cut" was getting bigger and a little infected. I soaked my foot in the tub and scrubbed it with soap and a stiff bristled brush to clean it out (very painful yet very good for getting the infection out). After it had dried I dropped a bunch of superglue into and around the cut. It has now been about 5 days and it seems to be healing quite nicely! It doesn't hurt anymore, it isn't infected, and it seems to be getting better!

Needless to say, I am extremely happy and excited about my personal discovery of superglue for first aid. I will definitely be keeping a couple of small tubes around and handy. I fully recommend it!

Am I a Hippy? - Part Three

Zach (my intern at work) seems to think so. We've had numerous discussions at work about what we do at night, music, dress, etc. I've given Zach a hard time on numerous occasions because he doesn't ever climb because he's "trying out the social scene" (to use his words). Apparently he's been trying out the social scene for awhile because another co-worker gives him a hard time for not skiing much last winter because "he was being social". He gives me a hard time about being a hippy because how I dress. It really isn't "hippy-ish" at all, just compared to how he dresses it is. He's more into the hip snow/skate scene.

The other day Zach said "I'm going to listen to a little 50 Cent". To which I replied "Yano, I don't think I've ever heard 50 Cent". His mouth opened a little and he stared at me for a second. I continue to say, "You see, you have mainstream music right here" while circling with my left hand off to the left, "and you have me" while circling with my right hand off to right. "I don't really listen to most of it because I think it sucks" (as most of you know I'm very opinionated about music). Zach's reply was "let me draw you something". He then proceeded to draw a diagram on his whiteboard. Here's a rendition of exactly what he drew:



After he drew the picture he then proceeded to explain it to me. "You see here on the left you 'society' or 'being social', you also have 'good dress', and 'good music'. Oh, what's that in the middle of all of those? That's right, it's 'Zach'. If you look way over here to the right you have 'Eric'. What's he surrounded by? Oh that's right, 'Hippie'". I laughed a lot.

I then took the whiteboard from him and made a slight alteration. I commented to Zach "If you look over here by 'Eric' you'll also see 'climbing'. Please notice the large disconnect between 'Zach' and 'climbing'". Zach laughed a little then grabbed the whiteboard back. He then drew the fourth circle and labeled it "Athletic". He proceeded to comment "would you look at that last circle? Look at those four circles and who's in the middle? Oh yeah, that's Zach". We had a good laugh.

Zach proceeded to show the drawing to whomever walked by for the rest of the day. Everyone had a good laugh. I, of course, had to make my case every time. A few people did give him a hard time for being "social" and not recreating anymore.

Am I a hippy?

Mini-Epic

I went trad climbing yesterday for the second time this season. I went with Walt from work. We went up Big Cottonwood Canyon to climb the moderate classic Steort's Ridge. I have climbed this route once before. It is a really fun climb. The difference between yesterday and the previous time was the wind. Storms were blowing in and it was wicked windy. Wind advisories had been issued (we didn't really know this). We decided to climb anyway. The wind was blowing constantly with very few breaks. At the beginning the gusts were somewhat strong. Walt led the first pitch without incident. As I arrived to the first belay ledge the wind started picking up a little more. It might not have actually picked up, it may have been my perception of being exposed on the cliff as opposed to being sheltered in the trees.

As I began to lead the second pitch I could really feel the wind. As wind hits a cliff face it is forced upwards. About a third of the way up the pitch, in one of the more difficult sections, I was hit with a very strong gust that lifted a sling up off my shoulder, over my head, and up my right arm as I was reaching for a hold. I happened to catch the sling just before it went over my right hand and blew away. I tried a couple times to put the sling back over my head and arm, but to no avail. I had climb about 4 moves with the sling in my hand before the wind died and I was able to put the sling back on.

While climbing the gusts became stronger. When they would first hit it felt like I was going to be lifted up and off the cliff. I knew it would take a lot stronger gust to actually do that, but it was a little unnerving the first few times it happened.

After reaching the belay ledge at the top of the second pitch I belayed Walt up. The third pitch is by far the best pitch of the climb. You can move up and onto the arete to get some fun, exposed climbing. That wasn't going to happen today. The wind was blowing so hard up and over the arete it sounded like someone was ripping very thick canvas. About fifteen feet above the belay ledge is the one bolt on the entire climb. Walt was leading the third pitch and had the joys of clipping the bolt. The bolt sits about one foot in from the arete. Everytime Walt tried to clip the rope into the draw, the wind would catch the rope and yank it around. It took him about five tries to get the rope in. The fun didn't end there. After Walt started moving away from the bolt the wind would catch the rope between me and bolt and violently whip it back and forth and eventually it would move into a circular pattern. Everytime I'd pay out slack when Walt would move, the wind would just whip it around and Walt would have to pull extra hard on the rope to get the slack up while he was moving. This was the theme of the third pitch for him.

As Walt put me on belay to bring me up the third pitch, and as I called out "climbing", the wind picked up considerably! It literally felt like I was going to be blown off the wall. I unclipped the bolt and thankfully moved away from the arete. About two moves past the bolt, the wind caught the sling on the next piece of gear that was about fifteen feet above me, and lifted it out of the rock. I looked up just in time to see the biner, sling, and stopper sliding down the rope. It was pretty crazy. I gratefully pulled over the top of the cliff to Walt saying "Woah, that was crazy".

The fun wasn't over yet. We definitely weren't going to rappel down the climb. The route is already notorious for having loose blocks that fall when throwing the rappel rope. Also the wind would swing the ropes around and it would be an extremely difficult rappel. We decided to do the walk off. The interesting thing about this walk off is it puts you semi-close to the cliff edge and you have to half-downclimb (it isn't really down climbing, it's fourth class down scrambling). We thought the wind would make it fairly difficult but it wasn't too bad. The combination of the two definitely made the walk-off the sketchiest part of the whole adventure.

We were extremely grateful to be back on the ground and in the shelter of the trees. Overall it was a good time. We weren't ever in any kind of serious danger. The wind definitely upped the danger factor but it didn't put us in any dire situations.

All in all we had a good time and it was quite an adventure!

Seth Godin

On Thursday I had the opportunity to hear Seth Godin speak. Seth Godin is a marketing guru. He writes on marketing, spreading ideas, and various other topics. He has been travelling around promoting his new book The Dip.

I really like Seth. I have been an avid reader of his blog for about a year now. I've a few of his books with plans to read the rest. Seth's book tour wasn't like your typical book tour where the author goes to predetermined stores and sits waiting for people to approach him. Seth only went to places where there was demand. Fans in various cities would host pledge drives. Once x number of people pledged to buy The Dip, Seth would come and give a presentation. When you pledged to buy the book, you pledged to buy five copies of the book. One for yourself and four to give away. It really is a brilliant way to promote your book and gain readership.

I like the way Seth thinks and I like reading his thoughts on his blog. The presentation was awesome. Seth is very good at what he does. Normally it costs a lot more to hear Seth speak (and for good reason). This was especially nice since the VP of Marketing at work is a big Seth fan as well and got the company to pay for all of us to go!

Finally a First!

Well I finally was able to witness a first. So far Penelope has had lots of firsts but I've never seen any of them. Well today I finally saw one! Today Penelope rolled from her stomach to her back! She has been rolling from her back to her stomach for months but she finally rolled the other way. She's been close for quite some time but this afternoon she made it all the way over.

I'm most excited that I actually saw her do something for the first time.

Can I Have a Spoon?

The spoon is an amazing eating instrument. You can eat everything, EVERYTHING with a spoon. You don't need anything else. You don't need a knife and you especially don't need a fork. People say to me all the time "you can't eat that with a spoon" but they are wrong. You can eat everything with a spoon. You can't eat everything with a fork. There are things you can eat with a spoon that you can't eat with a fork, but there aren't things you can eat with a fork that you can't eat with a spoon. I issue a challenge: I defy you to find something you can eat with a fork that you can't eat with a spoon. If you think you know something, post a comment.

Climbing Outing

Yesterday was a good day. Yesterday was a great day. Jessi's parents were in town so we took advantage of having other people to help watch Penelope. We headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon to do a little climbing and have a picnic. We chose a crag that was right outside a picnic area. There was a junk show of people at the crag so we didn't get in too many climbs but we still managed to have a good time. We were only able to toprope a couple of routes since there was a line for the few accessible bolted routes.

Jessi looking good.

Penelope decided to give climbing a whirl.

Penelope's first outing in the kid carrier

After climbing for a couple hours we had a nice picnic in the shade. It felt good to hang out up the canyon, outside, in nature. It has been an extremely warm weekend (record high temperatures for this time of year) so it was good to get up the canyon and out of the hot valley.

Blogging?

There has been so much going on as of late but there really hasn't been much worthy of blogging about. Work is busy as usual, Penelope is cute as usual, Jess is amazing as usual.

One thing the I recently ran across again is iFitiStObeiTisUptOmE. This blog is written by a guy named hIrSch. Last year he rode his bike from Canada to the southern tip of South America. He is now in Morrocco. From what I've read he is an interesting guy and has an a different (different as in different than what I've come across as of late) take on life. I enjoy reading about his adventure. I recommend checking it out. Oh yeah, that is a Backcountry.com Goat sticker on the bottom of the stop sign.

One Last Ski Day

Two Saturdays ago Jess, Penelope, and I went for a short hike up Big Cottonwood Canyon. After the hike we decided to drive the rest of the way up BCC. It was a beautiful, bluebird, spring day. We decided that we needed on last ski day. I got a couple Gold Passes from work for the following Saturday, we scheduled the nanny, and got excited for a day of spring skiing.

We got up to Solitude about 10:00. It was once again a beautiful bluebird day. The snow was a little hard on the first run, but it wasn't long until the snow soften to great corn. We skied a bunch of runs all over the mountain. We left at about 1:00, right when the snow started to turn to slush. It was a perfect last day for the season. It was a great spring day, I got to ride with Jess, the snow was good, and we had a good time.