Out of the States

I've been less than a mile away from Canada, running the Jay Peak Mountain Marathon. I've been about 20 miles away from Mexico when seeing the White Sands park in NM. Never once have I stepped outside the country until now. I just got back from a fishing trip to Panama, where I was a camera man off shore of the Darien Jungle.
Staying in Panama City for the first night, I didn't feel that far from home. Just another city with shitty drivers but filled with crappy cars.

Then we took a bush plane into Pinas Bay. About 20 miles from the Columbia border on the Pacific Side of things. I think I still felt further away from home when I was in Alaska. However, seeing how some of the natives live there is interesting. A society becoming more and more western.

The fishing was all time. We caught a big sail fish, had a few Marlin bites (one was a 500lb+), caught a 100lb+ tuna, and countless Dorados, saw dolphins, and got unclose with some sea turtles. I was lucky enough to capture most of the moments on film and hope to interpret what I saw when I go back to edit it all.

The whole area had a Jurassic Park feel to it. The entire Peninsula that we were on was made up of 100% basalt, (volcanic rock). I brought some home and gave it as a Christmas presents... Santa delivering some coal.

Winter 2010-2011

I finally have finished editing a season edit. I enjoy the creativity in this piece, trying to show a fraction of the amount of fun we had throughout the winter days. It truly was one of the deepest snow years Utah has seen in a while. All of this is backcountry skiing in Central and Southern Wasatch. Next year I'll be mostly skiing in the Uintas. I look forward to the new scenery, new snowpack (more of a continental one), and also helping out with the Utah Avalanche Center (Uinta division) as much as I can.
Enjoy the video!

New Chapter

I was going to write a big long winded piece about my new job but upon reflection I'll keep it short. Live your dream, each day. This video has been the past year of my life doing exactly what I want, which eventually led me to a professional job. I'm excited to have this new life where everyday is not a Saturday, however each day I'll still be living my dream: Editing/Filming/Climbing/Skiing

This past year...


By the way, this winter has been absolutely absurd which copious amounts of snow. Utah is pretty sweet. So sweet that I'm finally planting roots in this great state.

Lisa Falls

"At least once a year, the mountains deal me a healthy dose of humility. When I found myself repelling knee deep in a water fall while it filled my ski boots, I realized today was one of those days" - Shelby

The plan was hatched two days ago. Lisa Falls or Pfief...maybe South face of Superior? At any rate, Shelby (my ski buddy) wanted a big time adventure. Reading about Lisa Falls has always sparked my interest. It would be an enormous day. Sitting at work up at Brighton I was just contemplating if this would actually happen. Two co-workers were intrigued and wanted to come along as well. Joe (who always seems like he's up for a big adventure) and Corey (who's just looney tunes crazy sometimes) wanted in. Perfect!

The day started out leaving a car over in Little. We wanted to go via Broads Fork and not up Tanners. This added a little bit of mileage/vertical and time but that was alright with me. It would be less time with the skis on my back and booting up something. The idea of booting up a slide path never really excites me.

Heading up to the north side of Sunrise, gaining the saddle on the lookers right. We would gain the East Ridge of the East Twin from there.


On the ridge.. It was a windy one looking down Little Cottonwood Canyon.


The wind was stronger than what I thought it would be. Clouds were rolling in to and I just had an unsettling feeling about 400 ft from the summit. Thank goodness with such a large group, there was no complaining about me pulling the plug on the summit bid. So we did a variation of Lisa Falls, which who knows, could be even steeper than the original from the top!

Shelby skiing down. Right after this little bit, we join the original Lisa Falls run.


A pretty steep, no fall zone section


The rappels at the end. Shelby about to get wet. It was before and after these rappels that really drained me. Lots of tedious down climbing on slick wet granite rock was not reassuring.


Long approach, Steep skiing, narrow chutes, down climbing, anchor building, rappelling, post hole walking... this run had it all. And 3 of the 4 of us were late for work that night up at Brighton. Underestimated the exit greatly.. I am beat up from this type of outing but look forward to more like these.

Before the New Year

I've been real lucky to ski a bunch of new lines so far this year. The snow base is deep and what seems to be above average for the year. Certainly much more than last year. Mineral may be my new favorite spot. Quite a bit of solace, minus the Powder Birds, but that's a-okay. Enough room for all to play in. Here is a quick edit of the past few weeks..



There are still many days left in the snow calender year. I'm really looking forward for the next few weeks. Another storm system is brewing up mid week this week. There's no such thing as too much snow.

Cold Days

The forecast called for lots of snow. That's what happened. And what came with such a big storm, meaning... measuring the the snowfall in feet, was wind. Penetrating wind. Wind drifts everywhere. Pockets of danger everywhere. It's almost hard to keep your head together when venturing out in such conditions. Which way do I go, am I going the easiest way, when is this wind going to die down, where is the steep stuff I want to avoid!! This talk may seem like something from mid-February, but no, it's still before Thanksgiving. The Wasatch is playing a little trick and pretending to be the middle of the winter. The ski run delivered but by the end of it my bones where cold to the core. I wanted no more. I wanted inside. A hot shower and a pb&j after this outing made me feel like I was in a four star resort. I need to continue going out in these adverse conditions to help me for bigger things, but today, I just felt shot.

Me at the end of the day. Frozen.


This day will keep me hungry for more when I get back. Leaving to NY for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Washington

About a month ago my friend Andrea has surgery on her ankle. I decided with only having a short window of opportunity, to go see her. She gave me a quick and dirty run down of the Seattle & Ferndale/Bellingham area. There is a big difference coming from Utah. Everything is green in WA. After being on sensory overload of how lush everything was I took some pictures, and realized I missed this part of the outdoors.
Here are some pictures to show you what I mean.








By spring time, I hope to be back. This time to ski & hopefully, all contingent on the recovery of the ankle, with Andrea!

And a short video edit I made about the trip:

Times are a changing..

And just like turning on a light switch, winter is here. Last week the Wasatch received over 30 inches of snow! Amazing!! Early this month, I went out on some solo ski tours. It was exciting as I checked out a couple of new areas that I've never been to before. Going solo is quite enjoyable. No indecisiveness whether or not you want to go here or there. You just go.

Early November... North Face of Patsy Marly

The next day... Skied a bowl Near Sunset Peak (Backside of Alta)

The view down LCC. Superior is looking mean!


Today, I went with Shelby, my BC Ski partner. We went back to Patsy Marly's north facing shot to ski it...this time in powder.
Video of Shelby here:


So much fun. Hope the season continues like this!

Moab-->Wasatch-->Bed

I've been really fortunate to have some great mentors in the mountains. My buddy Zach just got back to the states from guiding over in Switzerland and we met down in Moab. Out of the five days, we climbed 4 of them. Either burning up in the heat on single pitch stuff off of Wallstreet or waiting for things to cool off for some longer things. The catch with that is you better bring your head lamp!!
Ancient Art goes up that corkscrew looking thing on the left!


The view out towards Castleton Valley. Still going up at this point. Getting dark!


Me at the base of the corkscrew part of the climb. You can see it in the background


We were always trying to find the window to climb. Heat, wind, storms all played a factor. We got to climb The Owl in Arches right before a huge storm cell hit!
This is a picture of The Owl, minutes after we got off it, with the storm coming right at us.


Parting shot at Arches NP


After that little get-a-way I headed back to SLC and Zach followed suite a couple days later. We did a lot of climbing in Little Cottonwood. We got to do a lot of classics. Crack in the Woods --> Hand Jive, Becky's Wall, Pentapitch (Sasquatch Variation), Satan's Corner (getting rained on!)
Here is Zach on Hand Jive.

Fall colors looking up LCC with the final pitch of Pentapitch in view. It's a small cryptic friction traverse to the thin crack that goes up!


After a bit of climbing, my shoulder started to act up. Its sore, so I'm taking a few days off as I do not want to aggravate it too much before winter comes. And winter is knocking at our doors with whispers of La Nina talk drifting about the internet forums. During this downtime I've been building a website! Check it out @ www.glacierview-alaska.com I've also been building a bed frame! Check THAT out! I can make my own bed!

Running

Running dominated my time during high school and college. I don't think a single coach truly appreciated my dedication, as I normally took winters off to go skiing. However, when I was running competitively I gave it my all. Fractions of a second mattered to me over a race that was 5 miles long. With that kind of mentality, you can see how one can become obsessed to an extent. It wasn't healthy. College summers consisted of working on a tree farm for 50 hours a week and then running 80 miles a week. All to put your body at a new level (speed) it's never seen before. After college.. well, after Junior year, I never can say I got back in the swing of things with running. I never raced again. Whats the point? I'd never be as fast as I once was nor will I become dedicated that much.

After this ski season I felt like my lungs and legs were in pretty decent shape. So I went for a run. I've continued running all throughout and I finally feel like I am a runner once again. It's great! I love it! I'm even starting to name some runs here in Salt Lake like I use to at Oneonta. See, at college we'd name some runs to do. For example,.. "oh, lets to red barn" or "hey, lets go run east to west" Just naming runs gives it some value in my eyes rather than the boring, lets go for 60 minutes.

So today, I ran "Bypass". This is a 4 mile loop. Starting at Snowbirds tram base, running through the bypass road...all the way up to the end of the LCC road and back down running right underneath Mt. Superior. It's a big circle. After .2 though, your saliva is incredibly thick, your head is pounding and you just want to give up. The run is not only at 9,000 feet, but it has a steady uphill to start! This is the second time I've done this loop. You need enough time to forget about how much the run hurts before going back to it.

I'm excited. Tomorrow I will be flying back to New York. Very old familiar run loops will come into mind. New Paltz Rail Trail, OCP (Orange county park) loop, and some runs up in Albany. It'll be great to judge and see how fit I am from where I once was, since the altitude here hurts your times slightly.

Last week in Indian Creek after a fantastic run.

Tetons

The Grand Teton is such an iconic peak. If you caught a glimpse of it, you'd want to stand on top.
Here it is in all its glory.


When I met up with Sergio, we decided to throw in an extra dinner "just in case". Why not, I was carrying around a 110 liter bag, figure I got the room. It turned out to be a good call. On the approach we hiked to the moraine camp sites, just below the lower saddle. That night, it rained.. i yelled outloud some expletives to mother nature and then all that rain turned to ice with a few inches of snow on top. Dang!!


Next day heaps of people were coming down from the lower saddle, not even giving the mtn any effort because of the ice. Some did, and reported too much ice to even think about it. Sergio and I figured the sun has to melt things off throughout the course of the day. So we got a hold of our loved ones & told them we'd be an extra day; called up the rangers & asked for another day on the mtn (got it) and figured the 3rd day we'd climb the route. By the way, the lower saddle has cell phone service! Or else, we would of had to hiked back down 8 miles, 5k feet....

So, we packed up everything from the moraine and moved ourselves more up the mtn on the lower saddle. Mostly it was for something to do for the day and also a change of scenery.
Sergio on the lower saddle with the Grand behind.


We ate the extra dinner that evening. I had 3 snickers bars for the following day. 1 for breakfast, 1 for the summit, and one for camp before the hike out.
The sunset from the lower saddle did not disappoint.


Most of the climbing was low class 5, so we simu-climbed a lot of the route (upper exum). We ended up doing the route exactly aside from one spot!!! We went up some fantastic looking arete that went about 5.6 instead of hopping in the v-pitch.
Me thinking when is the climbing going to end!?

Sergio following me up.

Last little bit to the summit!

Me at the top!

Me back down at the lower saddle with the grand on my left. The right sky line leading to the summit was the route we did.

A Parting shot. Until next time...

Alaska

I arrived in the lower 48 last night, drove to Jackson, and tomorrow will set off on another adventure to climb the Grand Teton. More on that later. Let me recap Alaska. If there is one place any climber, hiker, skier, or plain vacationest tourist should see, it would have to be Alaska. The peaks are inspiring to see. They can be nice to you and they can also be mean.
I went up there to guide for MICA Guides. You can view the little promo-vid I did for them here:


It was great taking people out and showing them the time of their lives. I appreciated the work much more this go around. I feel as though I have matured a lot since 2007 when I worked for them last and had the opportunity to learn new rescue systems from some of the other senior guides. It's a nice confidence boost going into a job application knowing/understanding these skills.

The fellow guides were a blast to hang out with, climb with, and work with. I will really miss there presence but hopefully our paths will cross again. I have a feeling they will. It seems I always run into old familiar faces somewhere randomly.

The real cherry on top was at the end of my time there. I had 3-4 days to basically climb or do whatever I wanted. Unfortuently this summer was a wet one, and that continued for my last hurray trip. This made me change my plans, so I decided to road trip to Talkeetna. Along the way, and inbetween 2 different low pressures that were burrowing through from Anchorage, I had the chance to see the great one, Denali. Looking at it from the south I could see my future. Forget Europe, forget about South America, Denali has all that I need in my lifetime to cure my needs. Putting things on a time line is arbitrary. But I do want to work my body and increase my hard skills to accomplish clicking into my skis at the top and ski down, along with (a long-term future goal) climbing the Cassin Ridge. I have a feeling yearly pilgrimages to the Alaskan Range are in store for me.

So, sklpping ahead to today. I am at the Climber's Ranch in the Teton National Park, looking at this big hunk of rock called the Grand Teton. I am over the hype of climbing this thing. It's iconic, its looks like a fun climb, but the hole area around here has this weird vibe that I can not stand. I almost want to leave, but will do it just to do it. Maybe my tune will change when I am in the mtns. Or maybe I should just move to AK and be among hundreds of "grand tetons" w/o a single person around.

Drifting around for a bit

June came and went real quick. It started with me rock climbing a lot and ended with a phone call which will place me in Alaska at the end of this week. In between all of that I had the chance to see good friends, family, and also turned 26 in an airport terminal.

Belaying up my roommate Eric on the West Slabs of Mt. Olympus (5.5 Grade 3) Most of the climbing I've done were in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Also, I made a trip out to American Fork & occasionally bouldered in Little Cottonwood when climbing partners were non-existent.


Mini-HaHa on Lake George. This was during my visit back east. Only there for a week.


Me and the parents on Lake George


Me getting ready before one of my best friend's wedding. So much fun, the visit back home was much to short. Perhaps life may drift me back that way. I miss them all.


My friend, Andy, getting ready to tie the knot.


The day after I returned I got a phone call from Don, seeing if I wanted to spend the next month and a half up in Alaska. Why not? I fly back to Utah August 11st, depending on if they still need me or not; or better yet if I want to climb something big while I'm up there.

May Recap

May was an interesting month. It started off snowing 7 feet in 4 days. May 3rd and 4th where some of the deepest days of the year! Who would of thought? My friend Mike swung on through from Ouray at that time and was in for some classic Wasatch Powder. Video of those days here:


Rapid warming after that caused numerous afternoon wet slide avalanches. The following days I got my things in order for a trip to southern Utah. First I did some bouldering to warm up on, and than climbed some sport routes in the Utah Hills (which is Limestone rock! pretty cool!) After that, Garrett and I headed to Zion to do some free climbing in the park. The cragging areas there can not be beat with lack of crowds, quality setting, and aesthetic lines. After that we headed to St. George to climb at Snow Canyon. Video of it all here:


Another storm came through Salt Lake upon my return. Powder day on May 24th! Unbelievable! But believe it!! My roommate Lee and I and one of his friends Aaron skinned up Alta and had one last amazing powder run for the year. Video of that day here:


May 24th!!!!
Aaron

Lee


Not a bad May to remember.

Small World

I came across a new photo editing technique called Tilt/Shift. It's pretty basic and fun to use. Essentially less depth of field (defocusing) everything other than what you want to be in focus will play a trick on your eyes, making the subject look miniature. I played around on it with some old photos. The pictures that hold the best effect are ones that are not zoomed in and hold a lot of subject matter.
Shelby on top of Timp's ridgeline.

Mike down in Ouray, Colorado.

The following two came out awesome! Jaya hiking with some guests on the Bomber Glacier, AK.

Winter Recap

This winter was an endless adventure. The skiing and the climbing made my soul dance. It'll be hard to forget the events that happened the last few months. I worked nights, 8 bucks an hour bumming chairs up at Brighton and lived the dream. I consider myself extremely fortunate to put into action exactly what I want.
This is normally what I looked like about 4 times a week after touring for the day. Pretty exhausted and usually had about 30 minutes to relax before work. Hard to feel sorry for me though. Normally the day was absolutely amazing and usually I learned something about myself or the mountains.

The control panel where I stop the lift after a beater wrecks himself getting on or off the lift.


A view from the top Silver Fork. I had lunch here!!!!!


Down and out! Just got done skiing Box Elder Peak after an unsuccessful bid earlier in the season.


Sweet sweet powder turns. My tracks. Putting the zipper down with the megawatts.


It be hard for me to put up all of the photos. Check out my videos that I made throughout the season here for more goodies..
http://www.vimeo.com/user605148