Portland/Boise

Mallory came out to see me in Portland one weekend and I was in Boise later that month. It's hard to do a lot in a weekend, but we usually have fun.

While Mallory was in Portland, we met up with friends for drinks at a Peruvian restaurant and I had my first Pisco sour. I hope to have another in country sometime. The next day we went to McMenamins at Edgefield, and enjoyed walking around the grounds and the neat Grateful Dead room in the old basement. They were playing constant Dead videos.


In Portland, Mallory took on the challenge of making a chocolate meringue pie and it was delicious. The next day I challenged her to make fried chicken after I had some amazing chicken at a food cart in Portland. We went on a little snow shoeing adventure. I was also able to get a lot of work done on my trip planning.





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Final Countdown

This summer I am heading off to hike the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). I'll be starting April 15, 60 days from today. I've been planning and preparing for the trip for the past couple of years and now it's time to get the last details in place. The countdown has begun.



After I graduated college I hiked the Appalachian Trail and loved it. I've always wanted to take on the CDT, and with my job coming to an end, it seemed like a perfect time to take off a couple months. The CDT is a little different then other trails. It isn't completely defined, and there are a couple of alternates that are more popular then the official route. So I took a lot of liberties when planning where I wanted to go. Below is a map.


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A few large variations I made include hiking: the length of the Sangre de Christo range in New Mexico; the Great Divide Trail to Jasper, Alberta; and part of the Idaho Centennial Trail. The plan is to start at the southern end at the border of Mexico and head north (green). When I get to Rocky Mountain NP, I'll bounce up to Helena and continue hiking north (yellow). In Jasper, I'll flip around to Spokane and hike south through Idaho (purple). I finish up there in Mountain Home where I'll get a bus to West Yellowstone (blue) and finish on top of a mountain in Rocky Mountain NP. All said it's about 3300 miles.

At least that's the plan. My schedule currently has me finishing by the beginning of October. During the trip I am going to be carrying a SPOT gps that will send out my location daily and update the map on the right side of the blog as well as facebook. I hope to occasionally blog from the trail. Should be a fun summer!

Reno Visit

I made a quick trip down from portland to take care of a few things before I had a tenant move in.Mallory came to meet up with me and the major project was tiling the counter. Mallory took the lead while I worked on other issues. By the end it looked great, and I was impressed with all we got done.






Halfway through we took a ski break. It's been a pretty bad snow year, but we had fun. We took off early and drove the scenic route back past tahoe.

Whistler!

January it was time for a ski trip. This year the destination was Whistler! Fortunately for us, it was the only place in North America that has been getting good snow. For most of us, it was our first turns of the season. We were painfully sore afterward, but had a great time.




The first stop we made was Vancouver. It is one of the last major North American cities I've wanted to visit, and it lived up to they hype. I was amazed at how many people lived on the island. It seemed like most of the high rises were residential. And as everyone always says, it's really clean for that many people. We made the trip through Stanley park and learned it was named for the same Lord Stanley as the Cup. It is certainly a town I need to visit again. My two favorite things I heard were "A deck of smokes" from a kid wanting a pack of cigarettes; "Harmonized Sales Tax" to explain the combined Provincial and National sales tax.



But the snow was calling. The sea to summit highway is amazing. As Aaron says, it's like driving along a fjord of Norway. Along the way Mallory and I stopped off at the Shannon Waterfall, one of several in the glaciated valleys. There were some awesome locals there and the falls were more impressive then expected.


There were 7 of us sharing a house. The best part of which was the hot tub. Nothing better then soaking in hot water after a hard day on the slopes. Well other then a shot-ski. A shot-ski is simply shot glasses drilled into a ski that encourages group cohesion. 1, 2, 3 Shot ski!




The skiing was awesome. The first day we were out it snowed 4 inches the night before and kept snowing through the day. The top of the mountain didn't open for awhile so there were some long liftlines to start. Once they opened the top, the snow was gorgeous. We had a few amazing runs on soft powder that skis would just glide through. It was like floating on a cloud. The next day was clearer so we had better views of what was around us. Our first run of the day was a 6.5 mile 2000 foot loss down a glacier. Pretty sure that's the first time I can say that.




Later in the day we took the famous Peak2Peak gondola between the mountains. There were some great views. Then we stopped by the village and saw the olympic rings. I could hardly walk the next day, but couldn't take the smile off my face.

New Years Day

For New Years Eve I headed down to Austin. My friend Jeff was throwing a great New Years Eve Party. Again, it's all pictures with a phone, so quality is lacking the the emotion is there.




Then I made it to the annual New Years Day movie marathon. This year the theme was the movies that made them and the movies that the sold out with. There's always one, and this year I slept through Australia. http://instagr.am/p/dsuM1/ When I woke up I couldn't believe it was still on. It's a great tradition and always fun to see good people.