Phelps

Two weekends ago, I decided it was time to give Phelps Mountain in the Adirondack High Peaks another go. I last attempted this climb last May and failed to reach the summit... instead we tromped onwards to Mt. Marcy the highest peak in New York state (this is commonly known as the jump-forward plan, not the fall-back plan).

This time we wouldn't be thwarted by the draw of additional miles and big views and decided to stick with Phelps. A crew of six including myself, Thomas, Jeff, Andrew, Sarah, and Another Sarah headed out early. Andrew Calcutt took all the pictures:



Pretty soon we got to Marcy Dam. Those slides look deliciously ski-able with more snow but I know my avalanche knowledge isn't good enough to mess-around... but still....

Much of the path is the same as the way to Marcy, so it was all farmiliar and pretty fun. Eventually, we ran into some pretty steep ice and stopped to put crampons on. I love getting to use crampons because it makes everything feel adventurey. Eventually we reached the summit which was kind of clouded in, but still good.



Here we're showing off our crampon steeze while trying not to fall off the cliff.

We huddled off in the woods a bit to avoid the wind and ate some lunch before an uneventful and chill hike out. Jeff and I brought along surprise thermoses of hot chocolate. Much to my dismay, my hot chocolate was more resemblant of barely luke-warm chocolaty water. Still better than water? Probably.

It was a good day in the mountains! Now let's have some snow.... commmmon weather!

Hocking Hills Sweetness

Earlier during break, James, Grace, Rachel, Laura and I headed to Hocking Hills for a couple of days of hiking and hanging out (that'd be H&H which is distinct from R&R).

Grace, James, and I headed up first and did two quick hikes to Old Man's Cave and in Conkle's Hollow. We were all surprised at how much ice was hanging around in the ravines. Eventually, we got to a waterfall:



Which was pretty rad. The hiking was pretty cool and I thought the ice bubbly things were really neat:



We all headed back to the cabin and met up with Rachel and Laura for a couple more hikes. First we went to Cedar Falls which was pretty neat:



And we may, or may not, have gotten slightly lost at the end of this one... but eventually we made it to the big sand dune-ish radness of Cedar Cave. The acoustics there were pretty cool, but the light was getting low so we rolled back to the cabin pretty quickly.

Laura cooked a pretty stellar lasagna meal and we hung out and watched a movie... which I can't remember... The Promise? The Secret? For a chick flick it wasn't real bad. The board games came out and despite past failings, I ruled school at Apples to Apples (yes, I'm still proud of this). After a late night stroll (where we weren't attacked by axe murderers) we all headed to sleep.

In the morning, we ate a late breakfast and decided it was time to roll back to the Nati. The trip was pretty stellar and it was great to hang out with everybody!



We rock! Woot.

Whistler, eh?

This needs to be updated pretty badly huh?

Winter break was very good. Lots of good times seeing friends and family. Towards the end of break, my Dad and I flew out to Whistler, Canada for some stellar skiing. Whistler is the largest resort in North America and truly dwarfs other places. A lot of this has to do with the ridiculously huge, open alpine at the top of both Whistler and Blackcomb mountains:



All that terrain and you can go anywhere you want?!?! YES! You can see little skiers on a groomed path kind of in the center descending from the big notch known as the saddle. Dad and I skied through the saddle in the other direction. Our first day was spent cruising around the high alpine at Whistler.

Later that night it started snowing and would not stop until the end of the trip. Overall, we saw 113 cms (bout 44") of snow in four days... JEA!

With all the snow, the high alpine was closed for most of the rest of the trip (avalanche issues) so we skiied a lot of sweet tree runs like this:



That's Dad laying it down. We're skiing on Blackcomb mountain looking over at Whistler.

Mid-way through the trip, we took the plunge and signed up for a day of Cat-Skiing (riding in a snow-cat and skiing in the backcountry). With all the snow, it was deep, untracked and delicious.



Conversation probably went something like this:

Dad: "Is it up over your knees over there too?!"
Scott: "BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH"
Dad: "Do you have any idea where our guides went"
Scott: "NAH HAHAHAHAHAHAH"
Dad: "BAHAHAHAHAH"

Our last day in town, it was still nukin and woke up to 15" of fresh. Dad and I got up early and earned first turns on a lot of the stuff:



You can deduce a couple things from this:

1. It's still snowing hard.
2. I'm very, very happy.
3. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I hope everyone is having a good first couple weeks of school! I plan to update this thing more regularly... no seriously...