Back to the norm

This blog was originally started to discuss my life living in a national park and sharing the experience with all those who wanted to read.. Since I left NCI in August, my life has been kind of rough, but ultimately I returned to a city of 65,000 people where I can use a cell-phone whenever I want and visit a grocery store a few minutes from my house.  i can have take-out at my leisure and encounter a lot of people every single day.  At times it is still a little overwhelming, and I miss the simplicity of living in the mountains...at other times, it's really nice to be engaged in society and everything that's going on in the world.

But that's not what today's post is about.  Starting right now (at this very second), im going to go back to documenting my life outside, and really focus on getting outside again.  So, to start it off... Biking on the beach in Florida.

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I arrived in Florida on the 7th in order to start my annual east coast christmas pilgrimage and birthday tour.  Upon arrival, dad shared his dream of biking from St. Augustine Beach to Mantanzas Inlet on the beach.  We chose the 8th as our day and checked the tide tables and got rolling at noon.  The day was beautiful with the wind at our back and we started the 12 mile ride to Mantazas. 

Enjoy the photos

Start!

Dad cruising on the beach

Seagull attack!

No Hands!

Great Horned Owl Kicking it in the trees

 Made it to the end - Marineland.

i think it's time...

...to finally sign up for a 50k trail race...

i'm looking at a few in the early spring, with the ultimate goal in mind to run 50+ miles again this summer.  It's up for debate if i want to run competitively this summer.. and by competitively, i mean pay a crap load of money to run on trails with 100+ other people, when i could just go to the same spot the weekend before for free and by myself. 

i'm not ready for that kind of race yet... but i think i can buy into a 50k.  actually, i'd like to buy into a 50k.

A few events are catching my eye:



Chuckanut 50k - March 17th.  I think i'd rather run then graduate that day. im being honest.

Sun Mountain 50 K - May.  I've wanted to run this for the past 3 mays... and always find a good excuse not too (i.e. the pass just opened, and i'd rather go splitboarding... or the pass is still closed and im not driving 8 hours).  This year is the year.... unless I don't live here anymore.



anyway,  a lot to think about... and a lot to start running for.

Wyatt! Table Mountain Circumnavigation

As Frankie explained in an email to a friend today: "...in case you were wondering, Wyatt! is always written out with an exclamation point.   Steph feels that this is the best way to communicate how his name is pronounced."

This is true.  Even his dog collar has WYATT! on it. 

Back to Wyatt!  Sunday was his first ski tour... and what was supposed to be a mellow down in the back-country turned into a 7 mile 3000' foot day... not too shabby for a first timer.  He had an amazing day and just automatically picked up on how to be the best back-country dog ever.  Here are some photos from the day

 Wyatt! and Frankie talking about where to go next

 Traversing across Iceberg Lake

Wyatt coming to understand the concept of the skin track

Wyatt!

Okay.  If you follow my tracks up, you'll see a black dot near the top of the ridge.  That's Wyatt chasing me downhill

Snow Dog!

HeliOOOOOOOOOOOtrope

I'm not much for traditions, but I felt like visiting Baker on Halloween weekend for the 2nd year in the row as not a bad tradition to upkeep.  I left Bellingham kind of late and got to the trailhead around 11:45ish.  Last year when Frankie & I made the hike, i remember it being kind of a slog, so I had it in my head it would be around a 2 hour walk to snowline and then an additional hour of skinning.  However, this year, there were a few changes: 1.) I was in way better shape 2.) I wore my running shoes for the approach instead of my shitty snowboard boots. 

I made it up to Snowline in under an hour and started seeing the terminus of glacier extending off of Baker.

At around 5500'ish feet i could put my skis on and start the trek upwards.  Thankfully, i was not alone up there, and there were quite a few skin tracks already set and I could choose any direction I wanted.  I chose up, and away from the masses and was definitely not disappointed.  Heliotrope is pretty mellow terrain, so I was pretty happy when I found one little steep section lasting for maybe 100'.    Clouds kept rolling in and out, so visibility was pretty crappy, but it was fun just hanging out on top, listening to music and just being alone in such an amazing place.  I took one lap and then was back at the car by 3pm.  Not a bad day at all!

 Snowline!

That way please!

Cloud layer looking toward Canada

Volcano!

Good day!

Thanks Heliotrope! I'll see you next year!

jeeze

just applied to my first job since 2009.  I had a brief stint with trying to work at REI. 

Anyway, just weird trying to re-enter the workforce while also trying to do something completely different then I've ever done before.  So... resume 1... done and sent.  Now, i just need to fill out some stuff for the park service, apply for a curriculum writers position in Seattle and a program manager job out in Yellowstone.  To put it simply... i have a lot of options that take me a lot of places.  Hopefully, they allow dogs.

Wyatt

So, if you haven't heard by now... Frankie & I are the proud owner of a 80 pound chocolate lab named Wyatt. He's amazing. I have a lot of pictures on my iphone, which i display to anyone that wants to look. I'll put together a Wyatt photo shoot on this blog shortly. But I wanted to capture this thing that Frankie sent to when we were corresponding to the folks that put him up for adoption:

"We believe he is a purebred, but don't have any papers for him. We got him to train for drug detection work, but he prefers getting petted to searching. He is a very sweet dog and just wants to be with people. He is current on shots and was recently neutered - no behaviour or medical issues that we know of."


after 3 days with Wyatt... it's safe to say that he prefers petting immensely over any other activity.

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!!

Saturday night Steph Abegg will be speaking up at the institute and sharing some of her amazing photos taken at night, and also taken on some of her climbs. So, if you're looking for something to do, come on up!




Also, in other news... grad school is kicking my ass... so i don't have much to report on my life here except that I read a lot. I will get some photos up from my Baker adventure last weekend. That was a good one!