I Love Free Food

This post is a few days late but I am posting it anyway. During the day Thursday Jessica went to go do some "crafty" things with our friend Lisa. Lisa tells Jessica about some new restaurant by Target that is supposedly giving away free food.

When I got home from work we were trying to decide what to eat for dinner when Jessica tells me about this place. We decided to go and see what we could find. It wasn't too difficult to find, it was the only place in the area that had a line of people around the building. Turns out it is a newly opened franchise of Chipotle (who by the way have the worst website so check out the information here).

Since we had the good fortune of learning about the free food from Adam and Lisa we gave them a call and said "free food is on, get down here." The only caveat was it was 6:40 and the Chipotle staff were cutting the line off at 7:00. Unfortunately they arrived shortly after 7 and were denied access. They then came up in line with us to chat and the chubby, crabby owner approached us and said "if you weren't here by 7 you can't get food". We told him that was fine. The best part was Adam and Lisa hung out with us a bit and the employees kept eagle eying us to make sure they weren't going to get any food.

Jessica and I were able to partake of the food and it was delicious. It was completely free (well we did have to stand in line for an hour but it was worth the $20 in food we got). The burritos were fantastic and we even got a taco "for Penelope".

After we got the food we met Adam and Lisa on the grass by the parking lot. They had gone across the street to get Cafe Rio. We gave them the taco so they could have some free food too.

The free food tactic worked. It got a lot of people to the restaurant (I bet the restaurant gave out a few thousand dollars worth of free food), it got noticed by a lot of people, and they made plenty of people happy with free food. I think that we'll be heading back there again and will, of course, pay.

What I think will be interesting to watch is to see if the the quality of the food decreases or if they reduce portion sizes. The burritos we got were humongous. If portions stay the same it will be well worth the money. Unfortunately I've seen it happen too many times in the past. A new restaurant opens, the food is great, portion sizes are generous, and customers are happy. Once the restaurant gets rolling along, the excitement of the new restaurant wears off, things get a little tight, and the restaurant does one of two things: they either cut portion sizes or get lower quality ingredients. I can't think of a worse thing the restaurant can do. I worked for a restaurant that did exactly those two things (instead of other, better money saving tactics). It ultimately led to their demise. Luckily for me I left the restaurant a few months before they went out of business.

I like them thar cracks

Tonight I was able to get out and do a little trad climbing with my friend Matt. We went up Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Storm Mountain picnic area to go and sample of couple of 5.5s we haven't ever climbed. Yeah 5.5 is a really easy grade for us to climb but we didn't care. The routes looked fun and even though it didn't push our limits climbing it was fun and nice to get in practice placing gear.

The crux of the climbs was the approach. You had to traverse on this 3 foot ledge, about 15 feet above the river. It was a little crazy because neither of us had done it before and we weren't quite sure where to go. Then we had to do some easy fourth class climbing for about 30 feet to get to the base of the climbs.

Once at the base we had our choice of two 5.5 climbs. Both ascended crack systems. Matt took the first lead on the climb in the corner. The climb was about 50 long. I was to snap one pic of Matt on lead.



I lead the second route. It was about 50 feet of broken crack climbing. The climb was super fun. There were some nice jams and pro sunk really well.

While we were climbing the alpenglow on the mountains up the canyon was amazing. I was planning on snapping some pics after rappelling the first route but I forgot.

Who listens to what?

Typically I'm not one to post random pictures that are found on the internet. Nor am I really one to pass them around. I had to make an exception for this one though. My friend Mike from work sent me the link to this one and I almost fell off my chair I was laughing so hard. I showed it to Jessi, but she didn't think it was funny. Walt, another friend from work, thought it was great. I still think it's great.

This Week in Words

The past week was an interesting one. It started with our Labor Day weekend stay up at Louis Lake. We had gone up their with our friends whom we do our yearly "Crab 'n Climb" with. It was an okay time. We didn't get out climbing like we wanted but we definitely had a good time hanging out in the mountains. On Monday we were treated with a high altitude thunder/hail storm. It was great to just be up in the mountains away from cell reception, the internet, technology, and the busy-ness of life.

Tuesday started the work week. I woke in the morning feeling a little off but chalked it up to being hungry and a little tired. I went to work but after a couple of hours I was feeling worse. I was able to talk Ben from the carpool into bringing me home. My stomach hurt, my joints were starting to ache and my skin was all tingly. When I got in my car to drive home it was about 100 degrees inside the car. While driving home I had a couple of shivers and thought to myself "that isn't good". I got home about 2:00 and almost immediately crashed for two and a half hours. When I woke up I felt worse than I did before. I full on had the shivers, stomach cramps, tingly skin, my kidneys hurt, my joints ached, and other stuff. I'm not sure it if it was food related or if it was a bug.

Wednesday I was still sick and worked from home. I incrementally felt better as the day went on but still felt fairly awful. It was nice because I was able to watch Penelope a little before the nanny came to pick her up. Since I was sick we had the nanny take Penelope to her house to watch her.

I woke up Thursday feeling somewhat better, the only thing really ailing me was stomach cramps. I went to work and was able to stay all day, which was good.

Friday was a little better than Thursday, only mild discomfort. I hadn't exercised all week and was feeling good enough to go for a short session at the climbing gym. It felt good to get moving again. Jessi and I were able to hang out after that, which is always good!

Saturday was supposed to the Mid Mountain Marathon but after being sick all week I decided it was probably better to not run 26 miles. Instead I went climbing with Matt. We went and climbed Pentapitch up Little Cottonwood Canyon. It was a great morning for climbing and I got in my first full 5.8 trad lead! It was awesome! On our rappel down we decided to drop in and climb Sasquatch, this great .9+ finger crack.

While I was out climbing Jessi got together with Lisa for a little sewing project action (I'm going to let Jessi talk about it :) ). That night Jessi's sister and brother-in-law, Lisa (different than the previous Lisa) and Chris, were in town from New York. We went to eat at Tepanyaki, this great Japanese steakhouse where the cook in front of you, flip shrimp in your mouth, and cook incredible food. We had a great time catching up and spending time with them. They crashed out our place and then had to catch a 6:30, which Jessi was amazing about and took them to the airport. :)

Today we took my brother and sister-in-law, Zach and Alisa, some food since they had their baby a week and a half ago. It was fun to go and see little Aidan. It blows my mind to think that Penelope was ever that small. It was fun to hold such a little baby again and it did make me miss Penelope being that small. We had a good time "talking parent" with them. For once in my life I was able to impart some wisdom to my older brother!

After we came home we had a good evening together as a family before the week begins. We did the dished, played with Penelope, and gave her a bath. To end the post here are a couple of great videos of Penelope in the bath laughing her head off! The first is of her cracking up to me playing peek-a-boo with her rubber ducky and making it dance. The second is of her almost falling over whenever I would put one of her little piggy toys on the edge of the tub and flick it into the tub with my finger (you also get the bonus of hearing one of her growls). It was the best bath-time I've had with her so far!

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.

Pottery Class

Ever since we've lived in Holladay we'll get a course catalog for adult education classes everytime a new term is about to begin. This past time we received the catalog I decided to peruse it to see what they offered. They have some really cool classes available. I decided to sign up for a pottery class. I took pottery in high school and continued to throw occasionally for a year after high school but haven't sat at a wheel since then.

The class is 8 sessions and was only $45. The fee includes all the glazing, firing, and a half bag of clay. My first class is tomorrow night. I am wicked excited to throw again. I've already started a list of pots I'd like to make. I just hope I can pick it up fairly quickly so I can make what I want.

Feed Update

So I put the wrong feed address in my previous post. This is the correct one. If you happened to get it (I think only one person did) please use the new address.

Springtime is HERE!

I know I have posted about it previously, but spring is here. I played ultimate frisbee for the first time this year today. Every week at work a group of people spend their lunch time playing basketball, frisbee, or something else. Today happened to be the first outside ultimate game. It was a beautiful day, pleasant temperatures, and sunny!

Another group of people at work are running for lunch two days a week to train for the Wasatch Back Relay. The WBR is a 2 day relay race that starts in Logan and ends in Park City. Backcountry.com (work) sponsors a couple of teams made up of employees every year. Last year I didn't get to participate because of Jess and I's trip to Lake Tahoe. I am wicked excited about it, it will be a good time.

Feeds for Thought

I set up an RSS feed for my blog. I am curious to see if it actually gets adopted by anyone. It is super simple right now. You can either click the link in the side bar or just click here. Copy the URL and paste it into your favorite reader or use the drop-down.

I like feeds.

Climbing Day

Today was the first big outing of the year. I went up Little Cottonwood Canyon with a co-worker to get in some long trad-mileage. We met at the mouth of LCC just before 8 am. We went up to the Gate Buttress and started in on the fun. We put in 4 routes and a total of 6 pitches. That was a very long trad day for me. It was awesome because it was a great way to work on crack technique. In all of those climbs I did get my first trad lead in of the year. Other firsts from the day were: first time seeing a cam used as a stopper and first time climbing a flaring crack. It was awesome. I got home about 2:00 and had lunch with Jess and Penelope. While we were eating Jess said "I want to get outside". So what did we do? We went bouldering. Back up LCC to boulder. We met up with Matt and Bri shortly after we got there. We got in some good climbs.

Jess, Penelope, and I enjoying the afternoon in the mountains.

Warming up

Jess is excited, can you tell?

Jess working the start of Mud

Overhanging mantle problem that defeated me this time.

It was a very good day. Penelope LOVES being outside. We had her in the front carrier most of the time. She was constantly looking around to see what was around. She would just look up and marvel at the tall lodgepole pines.

On our way home I was talking to Jess and I realzed that between 7:30 am and 8:00 pm I spent a total of an hour and a half inside today. It was awesome.

First Hike of the Year

Yesterday was an extremely active day for us. The weather has been absolutely beautiful as of late. It was in the low 70s yesterday so we decided to go for a hike.

We cruised up to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail just behind the UofU for a short hike. Penelope went in the front carrier with a big sun hat and away we went. We were only out for about an hour, but it was perfect for the first outing of the season.

It didn't take long for Penelope to fall asleep.

The usual Miller self-portrait.

I am eagerly awaiting the baby backpack so we can head out on longer hikes.

We came home for lunch and quickly tired of being inside. We packed up the car and went up to Ogden to do some bouldering at the 27th Street boulders. We completely forgot to take pictures. It was a good time. Penelople hung out in her carseat, she slept for little bit, but when she woke up she had a good time watching us climb. She would actually laugh at us a little bit when we were on the rock. Jess did really well for her first time bouldering outside since being pregnant last year.

Site Counter

I finally got a site counter. I have been curious for awhile now how many people come to my blog. I don't think it is very many but I am curious anyway. This should prove to be very interesting.

Why can't we be like this?

This is one of the best stories I've seen/read in a long time. It's about the island of Samso off the coast of Denmark, it is virtually energy self-sufficient. Not only do they produce all of their own fuel and power, they do it without carbon emissions and they do it sustainably. The residents of this island are extremely resourceful. Why are we as a nation so far behind? Why is there no push or support from the government to pursue such activities?(avoiding small political rant...). The Danish goverment and the citizens of Samso are excellent examples of people and government working together to find alternative methods for energy and fuel. They definitely deserve kudos for the strides they've made and will continue to make.

I recommend watching the video.

By Popular Demand...

I'll be honest there was only one request for the canvas grocery bag pattern. I did some google searches thinking there would be lots of patterns to choose from, I was wrong. I mostly ended up with results of people selling bags. I did find one pattern that we use. You can find it here.

It is an all right pattern, the bags seem sturdy enough (so far they've worked), but the part about adding the gussets wasn't explained very well (that is mine and Jessi's opinion, perhaps we aren't very smart). It took doing it wrong once, being mad about it, Jess making her own bag and figuring it out, then me unpicking mine, and resewing it to figure out what the instructions meant. Good luck and if you want tips on the gussets just let me know.

Am I a Hippy? - Part Two

The previous post was about making our own canvas grocery bags (hippy?). This post is about an environmental viral marketing campaign.

Over the past few months I've spent a lot of time thinking about living a more environmentally conscious and sustainable life. One of my recent topics of thought has been waste. I've been paying additional attention to the amount of junk mail we receive, the amount of papers I print at work, the amount of paper towels people use in the restroom, the amount of napkins used at restaurants, etc. I had thought of ways that I could reduce my personal consumption but I hadn't thought of any effective ways to get the word out. I was more than excite when I found a blog titled These Come From Trees. It is " An experiment in environmentalism, viral marketing, and user interface design with the goal of reducing consumer waste paper!" (from their blog header).

The "These Come From Trees" (TCFT) solution is exactly what I was looking for. It is an easy way to remind people that those 23 napkins they took (of which they will only use two and throw away the rest) came from trees or that they don't need six paper towels to dry their hands. They are reminded by a carefully placed sticker on the paper dispenser.

I can fully get behind TCFT and support what they are doing. The thing I like the most about this is it is subtle. It isn't chaining yourself to a tree or fire-bombing the paper plants. I think it will be more effective because it is speaking to the consumer, not the producer or anyone in the supply chain. If the consumer reduces their use then the producer will manufacture less and then less trees will be cut down. That is a very simplistic view and it may be viewed as naive, however, a small change in consumer usage will effect a large change higher up.

I am signing up for some stickers and will enjoy putting them up.

Am I a Hippy?

So this may be a multi-part post. I don't really think I am a hippy but a few posts may make it seem like I am.

For Christmas we received a sewing machine from Jessi's mom. My first project with the sewing machine was making canvas grocery bags. It was a fun project. I found a short how-to on the internet, bought some on-sale canvas, and away I went.

I made the first bag which was a definite learning experience for me. It had been awhile since I had sewn anything (probably since home-ec class in the 7th grade) and needless to say I was very rusty. The bag turned out far from professional but it will serve our needs.

Jess made the second bag and it is by far the best one we have. I made the third bag. This one turned out better than the first, but still isn't as good as the one Jess made.

The result, three canvas bags, all slightly different sizes. I am excited because it will significantly reduce the number of plastic grocery bags we use. I like the idea of the canvas bag because it is reuseable and will reduce waste.

Apparently I'm Spammy

It has been awhile since I have written a blog and I am glad that I logged in today. Apparently Google has bots crawling blogs now and they are flagging some that have "spam" characteristics. Mine was one of those. I had fill out a quick verification and should up and running in a couple of days.

I am curious though what part of blog resembles spam. There was a quick summary of what a "spam blog" is but I didn't read it.

More to come in about "two business days" once my blog has been reviewed.

Famous? Not Quite.

At work we feature a monthly newsletter for our email subscribers. Periodically we conduct gear tests on various types of gear. We most recently conducted a test on wool baselayers vs. synthetic baselayers. The results were pretty interesting.

I was able to participate in this test and am featured in the article (not really tooting my own horn). The article is well written and I recommend that you check it out here.

My First Whoompf-ing Experience

I went ski touring yesterday morning for the first time in probably a month. Winter here hasn't really been winter and the snowpack was just faceted crystals the whole way through. We've recently had a few, small systems come through and give us more of the good stuff.

Matt and I headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon at about 6 am. Since the avalanche danger was rated "considerable" in most areas we decided to hit up some low-angle, sheltered aspects. We started touring up Mill D to a small slope that is covered in aspens. We'd skied here before and it is a relatively safe slope. Our first run went off without a hitch. The turns were smooth and nice. The new snow was dense and provided some buttery turns.

After reaching the bottom we decided to make another lap. We skinned back up to the top of the short shot we previously hit. From there we wanted more vert so we started up an adjacent peak. Being concerned about safe travel, we quickly made our way to a ridgeline and made our way up. About halfway up the ridge become choked off by trees and deadfall. This forces us just off to the side of the ridge. We hugged the trees as close as we could and continued towards the top.

At one point the trees ended and we started making our way back up to the ridge. We were close together and in a somewhat open area when we heard a loud "Whoompf". We stopped dead in our tracks, listened intently, and looked around. The "whoompf" sound is made when one layer of snow collapses onto another layer. This is a sure sign of instabilities in the snowpack. With my heart now racing I scanned the snow to find a few small fractures that had propagated a few feet.

Avalanches can occur when a strong layer is sitting on top of a weak layer. The weak layer then fails and the strong layer comes ripping down the mountainside. When that weak layer fails, the strong layer then collapses through the weak layer and the sound you hear is "whoompf".

We quickly made the decision to spread out and get off the aspect we were on. Since Matt was breaking trail he continued while I moved back to a couple of small trees. Once Matt was on safer ground I moved up to meet him. We then proceeded, one at a time, up the ridge some more to dig a pit. We dug a quick pit and did some simple shear tests.

From here we were less then a minute from the ridgeline so we prepared to move up to it. As Matt started moving, we once again heard a loud "whoompf'. This time, however, I dropped a couple of inches. It could have been because I was standing right where we dug the pit, it could have been that I was standing on snow that was on top of bushes. Whatever the specific cause, it once again made my heart start pounding. I moved over to a large aspen, just in case, while Matt skinned to the ridge. I then quickly and very carefully joined him.

We decided our best bet for a safe ski down was to make a quick traverse over to an aspect similar to the one we had previously skied. The decision was sound and we enjoyed some very smooth, fun turns through an aspen grove back to the skin track. We skied one at a time from island of safety to island of safety. Within a couple of these short skis I had some of my best turns of the year. The last section was the longest and the best. I just happened to pick an awesome line.

After a very short and fast descent down the skin track we were back at the parking lot. It was a fun, extremely eventful, and educational morning.

Changes at Work

My associate at work that I have worked with since moving up to the corporate office just quit his job to take a 6 month climbing road trip. We were both working on varying aspects of email marketing. What does this mean for me? Well we don't have a replacement for him, yet. So for the time being my work load is going to drastically increase. In a situation like this many people would complain. I am actually looking forward to it. It is going to challenge my organizational, prioritization, and time management skills. There are going to be many good opportunities that will present themselves.

One really great benefit of this change is that I am going to learn vast amounts of information. I am diving into projects that have been rolling for awhile and taking on projects that I haven't had anything to do with.

I will admit when I first heard about my co-worker leaving my initial reaction was negative and I wasn't looking forward to the changes. Now that I have had time to think it through I am embracing the change. It will be a great opportunity for me to excel and really prove my worth.

Blog Aversion?

I thought for awhile that perhaps I was allergic to blogging. As it turns out I am just plain lazy.

It isn't that I don't have anything to write about. I have plenty that I could write about. The issue is when I get home from work I find myself doing other things that I would rather be doing at that time with the intention of blogging later. Once later comes I am tired and just go to bed. I almost didn't write this post but I decided to postpone bed for 2 minutes while I eeked this out.

Avalanche Clinic

Two Saturdays ago I attended an avalanche clinic. Work worked it with the Utah Avalanche Center to provide a two-day avalanche clinic for employees of Backcountry.com. Thursday night was the classroom session where we spent 3 hours learning some basics on avalanches. Our instructor was incredibly enthusiastic. He is one person that you can tell is very passionate and loves his job. I have been to a few classroom discussions that covered the same material but this guy made it extremely enjoyable.

Saturday was field day at The Canyons. The entire group of us, about 40 or so plus 8 guides (most of whom are all avalanche educators), met just before 8:00 and caught a pre-opening gondola ride up to mid-mountain. From there we split into four predetermined groups. The day was going to be made up of four mini-clinics with each group rotating through each clinic.

The day started off for my group with a rescue scenario. We ducked out-of-bounds and skinned partway up a ridge to catch a few turns to where the rescue scenario would begin. The rescue scenario was this: "We had just skied into an area where an avalanche just happened. There were some bystanders who saw the slide. They said there were two people buried. One with a beacon and one without." We took stock of the situation and broke into two groups. One group doing a beacon search and the rest of use forming a probe line to find the victim who didn't have a beacon. We were a little rusty getting started, but it was most of our first time doing any kind of rescue scenarios. All in all it wasn't too bad. It took the beacon searchers about 5 minutes to find the first victim and it took us about 20 minutes to find the second victim (without a beacon). All in all it wasn't too bad for our first time. We then regrouped at the top of the "slide path" and recapped what happened. We discussed what went well, what could have been improved, and what didn't go well. It was very informative and helpful to finally put some knowledge to the test.

Second up for the day was beacon drills. The instructor took us through the fundamentals of how beacons work. We then did a test to see the effective working range and maximum search range of our individual beacons. Then we went through the basics of doing a beacon search. We then did drills where we had to go find beacons that were buried. We did single burials and multiple burials. Once again this was extremely informative. I had previously done some drills for single beacon searches, but never anything for multiple burials.

Third was snowpits. We ducked out-of-bounds again and made a short skin up a ridge. We reconvened at the top and discussed various things that can affect snow. We also talked about some basic steps in determining if you are in dangerous terrain. We then ducked off the ridge and started digging pits. The instructor for this portion was Bruce Tremper. Bruce is the head of the Utah Avalanche Center and is one of the foremost avalanche educators in the country. We went through the basics of how to dig an effective snow pit. Once we had our pits dug Bruce explained various tests to check snow stability. There was a test that I learned that is relatively new and is very effective. I also was able to participate in a ruschtblock test. I had read about this test previously but I haven't ever done one.

Yours truly in green and Bruce in red.

Fourth was safe travel through avalanche terrain. This was also informative but it was very hard to pay attention. It was the end of the day and I was tired. The weather had also changed from sunny and quite pleasant to cloudy, windy, and snowy. I had a hard time paying attention as I was just trying to stay warm.

It was a very informative day. I liked it because it covered many of the basics I had previously learned and also presented some new information that is extremely valuable.

Games Are Fun

We went to Brigham City today to visit my mom, brother, and grandparents. While we were there we played this great game that my aunt gave my grandparents for Christmas. The game is called Blokus. It was a ton of fun. You have a bunch of pieces that are all different shapes. The point of the game is to get as many of your pieces onto the board as you can. When you place a piece it has to be touching the corner of another one of your pieces, but the sides can't touch. It is fun and gets funner once all of the paths begin to cross and you have to start strategizing where your pieces will go. I recommend it.

Right now we are watching Friends. It just so happens that Jess got a haircut yesterday. Just now she asked me "does my hair look like Monica's?" My response was (as a joke) "Do you like her hair?" I figured it would help me answer correctly. I really said it as a joke, although Jess keeps saying "Yeah whatever". It is a true story though, it was a joke.

Skiing is good

I forgot to post last week about my first big tour of the year. It was Saturday morning and my friend Matt and I headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon to go tour up Grizzly Gulch. I was excited for a number of reasons. 1-the first big tour of year 2-to actually be skiing 3-to be outside 4-to test out my wicked nice new softshell jacket. I've read about the benefits of softshells for years and it was my first chance to try it and see what all of the hype was about. The tour started out interestingly enough. We started up the skin track and about 15 minutes into it we realized we were on the wrong skin track as we saw people a couple hundred feet above us on the skin track where we wanted to be. After a few minutes of traversing sun-crusted snow we got on the right track. Our destination was Davenport Hill (10,120). After about two hours we reached a ridge just below Davenport Hill. Our initial plan was to drop off the backside into Days Fork and then back up and down to the parking lot. As we rounded the hill onto the ridge we got blasted with the wind. It was ripping up Days Fork and the snow on the other was wind-ripped. So we modified our plan and headed towards the Honeycomb Cliffs (10,479) just south of where we were. We couldn't actually see the skin track to get over there so Matt started breaking trail and we figured we'd run into the skin track soon enough. Our trailblazing took us across some small questionable slopes of sun-crust that made slight fractures as we crossed. About this time some people had followed our trail for a ways and then started breaking their own up. As we worked our way up the mountain we converged with these other people and found the actual track that went to where we wanted to go. Once on top of the Honeycomb Cliffs we had some great views. It is incredible how close all of the canyons and resorts are. From where we were we could see the backside of Solitude, the backside of Brighton, and the top of the Canyons over in Park City. Everything is very close. There is actually a tour you can do where you ski Snowbird, Alta, Brighton, Solitude, the Canyons, Park City, and Deer Valley in one day. It is a long tour and you have to be in wicked good shape to do it, but it can be done.

We had reached the top after about 3 hours of somewhat leisurely skinning. We didn't waste anytime packing up skins and stepping in for the ride down. It was a great run of about 2400 vertical feet of skiing. We took it in chunks (avalanche safety). Although there were quite a few tracks already we found some great turns and even hit a few small, soft, untracked shots. It made me realize how much I don't miss skiing the resorts. Almost the whole time we were skinning and skiing we could see Alta. The place was completely packed and tracked out. I'll definitely take one powder run that I worked for as opposed to riding a chair all day for tracked out snow.

Exciting First Times!!!

Ever since Penelope was born I have looked forward to feeding her with a bottle, especially after seeing how her and Jess bond while Jess is breastfeeding.

The last few days we have been trying to get Penelope to take a bottle. Everytime I'd try Penelope would cry and push the bottle out of her mouth with her tongue and then cry even harder.

Tonight I tried again and Penelope kept pushing the bottle away and crying. I would calm her down and then try to give her the bottle and she still wouldn't take it. Then one time after I had her on her side and calm I held the bottle in her open mouth for awhile and then she finally bit down and started sucking! I am very excited that I finally got to feed her with a bottle! Hopefully she will continue to take bottles. It opens up a whole new set of possibilities. Now we are that much closer to being able to leave Penelope with people (like Grandma) so we can go ski for a couple of hours or go on a date.

Feeding Penelope for the first time.

Fun Stuff With the Baby

It's been awhile since I posted, but that seems to be the norm for blogging around the holidays. We had a good Christmas. We stayed here in Utah and visited my family on Christmas day and then Jessi's family was just down here over this past weekend.

We had a good Christmas as got some fun stuff. One of the best presents we got was a Baby Bjorn Carrier". So what did we do? We took Penelope hiking on the 26th. It was awesome. It was Jess' first time out being active since Penelope was born. We went up Millcreek Canyon. It was a beautiful sunny day and it wasn't very cold. Both Jess and Penelope did really well. I loved being outside with Jess again. I have definitely missed being able to do stuff with her. I am very excited that she isn't pregnant anymore so we can start doing stuff again.

Hiking up Millcreek

Just the other day we went to the climbing gym. It was awesome to watch Jess climb again. She was very excited to get back on the rock. She is amazing and I really have missed recreating with her.

I'm on the week schedule

So lately I've been on the once a week posting schedule. I'll try to change that...

Does anyone know where to find the counter for site visits? I want to say that I recall when I set up my blog there was an option to put the counter on the blog, but now I can't find it. I don't think too many people visit, but I am just curious how many visits I get.

It is almost Christmas time. This year I haven't had a chance to think much about Christmas. All of my time has been occupied with Penelope and Jess and work. It was crazy to think "only 6 days until Christmas". I am excited.

I've been done with Christmas shopping for awhile now. Well with the exception of a few small things. It has been nice to not have to worry about it the week before like I usually do. Well I haven't been that bad in the past, I usually don't start until after December 1st.

I am excited to spend the time with my small family and then visit lots of other family. I love taking Penelope places and letting people see her!

Back to work

The week long "vacation" is over. Luckily I was able to take a week off work after Penelope was born. Typically time off during the fourth quarter of the year isn't allowable for an e-commerce business. It's crunch time. Going back to work yesterday was hard. I missed my girls alot. After spending pretty much everyday together for a week you would like I would be excited at the prospect of getting "away". The exact opposite was true. I wanted to be home more than ever. Such is the way of life. I am very excited that Jess gets to take so much time off work. Thank you US Government for FMLA but no thanks for not even coming close to the benefits other countries offer for maternity leave. According to an article on MSN, in Sweden a mother gets up to 480 days PAID time off work. I know I shouldn't necessarily be complaining (which I'm not really doing) because at least there is something offered now. Not very long ago FMLA didn't exist and mothers were getting shafted even more.

On a happy note, it is winter and storms are predicted for later this week. Should be a good time in the mountains. Only about 5 more weeks before Jess should get cleared and we can get out together! I am very excited.

Baby Time!!!!

Our little baby arrived Sunday (12/3) at 9:35 pm after 17 hours of labor!!! We are now the extremely proud parents of the cutest baby girl! We named her Penelope Jessica Miller. She weighed 7 lbs 1 oz and was 19.5 inches long. Jess and the baby are both doing well. We are getting ready to go home later this afternoon. Here are a couple of pictures for your viewing enjoyment:

It's Coming!!! (And 16 hours later she did)

Little Penelope