First stab at snow camping, Dec 9 - 10

On a completely random night in November I was able to snag the Marmot Thor 3-person, 4-season tent for 42% off from Sierra Trading Post. Although likely a lot of tent for one person, it was too great of a deal to pass up! :-D

Ever since that day, I've been eager to put the tent to use. I soon discovered the opportunity to take a Friday off of work, so I meticulously prepped a last minute snow camping trip up in the Arizona high country. Ignoring the ways of the minimalist, I took everything I could have possibly needed, including a (stretchable) 2-3 days worth of food. My pack weight without water came in at over 63 pounds, weighed the night before -- most of that weight was the tent of course. In the future, I think I may try and rig a pulk to pull behind me and throw the heavy supplies into. For this trip, however, there was definitely not enough snow to cover the many downed trees on the forest floor, which would have limited the functionality of the sled.

My complete route (including off-trail exploration) during the 26 hour trip.

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Snowshoeing backcountry to the peaks, Nov 26th

Arggghhh, it's been awhile since I've had a chance to update this.

Updates, updates, updates...

Well, for one, I am fully recovered from my Oct/Nov bout with mononucle-lameness. I lost almost ten pounds and about three good weeks of marathon training. Getting back into the swing of things has been nothing short of painful. In spite of all the set backs I set a new personal best a couple weeks back, running 12.6+ continuous miles. That's over two hours of continuous, repetitive, painful beating on my calves, knees, and IT band... without stopping or slowing in pace, mind you. Arrrgghhh! My right IT band has been the bane of my marathon existence. Every week, at least one of my runs is met with an immediate triggering of that sensitive strip of not-so-stretchy uselessness. During Thanksgiving week I was only able to complete six miles for the week. So I deemed it necessary to take a vacation...

Mt. Humphreys (12,633') among the San Fransisco Peaks, nestled in the Kachina Wilderness..

Ah Memories... (Now with 80% more pictures!)

I promised / foreshadowed / presupposed earlier that I would post an entry with the story behind the background image. The shot is a nice perspective of the slope on the Flying Dutchman avalanche path on the west side of the San Fransisco Peaks, here in Flagstaff, AZ. Yes, you heard correct, there are in fact avalanches in the peaks that nestle the AZ Snowbowl ski resort -- I know, weird for Arizona, right? In the photo, I'm looking up towards my Honeywell cubemate Jon. I couldn't have asked for a better engineering cubemate by the way; the fella practically eats and breathes the outdoors. After a few tosses of the idea of climbing Humphreys in the snow, he finally decided to bite and we set off for the northern AZ country.

Mt. Humphreys sat image - Dutchman Glade route

Now if I were to ask anyone what time of year this trip was taken, I doubt any answers would be May. Indeed, what a wonderful wet winter we had! Snowbowl was open for skiing far beyond the typical spring break cramming of final runs on the withering slopes. This past winter we had winter storms through April and the Peaks received record amounts of snow. When the ski lifts finally closed for the season, Jon and I waxed poetic on the fact that there was still so much snow and ice sitting up there... unused. Well, I knew better -- there's actually a small sect of backcountry folk that get their jollies strictly out of bounds in the thick woods and avalanche clearings up in the Kachina Wilderness. At some point, our jealousy boiled over from reading enough about all the latest runs down the various avi paths, skinning up the ridges, split-boarding down the upper bowl, that we decided to head up on our own.

Friday night, May 7, Jon and I meet on a parking garage roof at the university around midnight (a place where I had elected would be a better spot to catch some z's for a couple hours since my new roommate at the time was being himself: half-naked, tearing through the house, slurring random phrases with two bottles of Hennessy in his hands -- another story for another time... maybe). Even though downtown Tempe is a lil' quieter than the house, with all the police sirens and all, I still don't sleep a wink. Jon finally calls at midnight-ish and is ready to go (I don't think he slept at all either). Once he arrives, we make a shady exchange of gear from my trunk to his. Now before we can speed off, [sure enough] an unmarked homeland security agent rolls up in his black crown vic with black tint and inquires about our "dealings". We explain to him that we're not drug dealers, but instead we are going to hike in the snow up north. We show him our ice axes and snow shoes and he rolls his eyes at our strange story, half confused. With a good luck from him we set off on our drive into the dark of night...
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