At the end of January my Dad and I headed north to British Columbia for four days of heli skiing with CMH. We caught the tail end of a week-long cloudy pattern which yielded three days of great powder skiing below treeline and one day in the high alpine. All of it was new for me so I did my best to soak in every aspect of the experience. Heli skiing, though expensive and probably even a tad ridiculous, sure is a wild ride. Keep reading…
Anna-Lisa and I spent eleven days in Maui with my Dad and his girlfriend Susan at the beginning of November. It made for a relaxing reprieve and a nice way to mix things up after spending all summer hiking peaks and running trails in Colorado. Truth be told we spent most of our days playing tourist on the beach, kayaking, snorkeling, scuba diving, and indulging in local fare. But on a couple of days we decided to head inland to explore a few trails, as well as Maui’s prominent mountain volcano, Haleakala. Read more…
This trip kind of came together at the spur of the moment so I had my concerns of diving into the relative unknown. I needed one more round trip on Southwest for A-List next year and when my plans to visit an old friend in Kansas City fell through I needed to find an inexpensive alternative. I intend to take the family down to the Grand Canyon as soon as the little legs are strong enough to get them out of it so I thought a recon trip would be appropriate. Southwest was nearly giving away flights to Phoenix so the balls were in motion. Read more…
This trip was 5 years in the making. Last time I tried for the Grand, my friend Glen and I headed up with 50% chance of weather, and what we got was 4 straight days of constant rain and thunder storms. There was maybe 1 or 2 solid hours of reprieve for 96 hours straight. To top it off, we had a bear encounter in the national forest around Shadow Mountain. We heard an agitated growl outside the tent in a thunder storm – Glen had his Glock 40 cal locked and loaded, myself a measely bottle of spray. We exited the tent, guns blazing and heard/saw the silhouette of a massive figure run in to the woods, followed by the crunching of trees. We took an uncollapsed tent, tied to roof and drove back to Denver dejected. We never even made it to Lupine Meadows TH. Keep reading…
