With Jasmine away...

Here is a view from the top of one of our climbs. Looks like a great time to hike Half Dome doesn't it?

With Jasmine back on the east cost for the past three weeks I started getting super lonely. I decided to try to remedy this problem by keeping my self busy going on trips. I started by heading to Yosemite valley for some climbing and to climatize for my next weekend which was in Alta, UT (I will get to that in a bit). The weather in Yosemite was gorgeous with t-shirt worthy afternoons on the wall and downy worthy evenings in the tent. I learned I still have a long way to go when it comes to crack climbing but it was tons of fun anyway.

Me, leading the second pitch of Bishop's Terrace. Beautiful climb and one of the most popular in the Valley and thanks to climbing in february, no waiting.

So my next stop was Alta, UT where I thought I was meeting up with my brother and sister for a nice ski weekend. As it turns out I was surprised with a bachelor party weekend and about a dozen of my college friends, most of which I am sure that you know, and we proceded to ski awesome snow, poach hot tubs, enjoy quality libations, play plenty of cards, and not get enough sleep. It was awesome. My brother did a fantastic job of putting it all together and I was syched that everyone made the trip. All told I think we represented 6 different states and two countries (Lane finally flew in after 3 years in central and south america). I love my friends.

Here is most of the crew that showed up.

Some of you may be wondering where Jasmine has been for all of this. She has been in Massachusetes studying under a Prof. back there who developed a process to analyze fish bones for age and growth studies. Some of you may wonder what on earth that has to do with Jasmine. Her thesis happens to be an age and growth study on some fish that live in the north pacific. Jasmine is back there learning the process and processing her samples. I will be glad to pick her up at the airport sunday...

but I wonder what else I can find to do while she is away.

Snow, Snow, Snow!

Can you see the Jetta? This weekend we took a break from the dress shopping and wedding event planning that has consumed all of our time for the past few weekends and got back in touch with our outdoor selves. We drove up to Lake Tahoe with the full intention of getting in many hours of skiing only to have our well laid plans buried by the 6 feet of snow that fell while we were there. We did get some back country turns in on Saturday in an attempt to avoid the crowds and it totally rocked! Come Sunday though so much snow had fallen that there was not a single resort that even opened! So instead we...shoveled. The better part of the day was spent digging out our friends driveway and cars and then our car and then our neighbors cars. The inspiration for the weekend was to visit our good friend Jane Snelling for her birthday celebration. So while we did not ski very much we did eat copious amounts of good food and enjoy lots of good company. Happy birthday Jane.