So I was all gung-ho to go camping and hiking friday night and saturday, but then it snowed... I got to Empire and decided there was way too much snow above tree-line to make it really worthwhile (as I was planning to camp around 11,000 ft and hike to over 13,000). So I went home and played Spore.

So instead, I rode my bike to the downtown REI. It was about 42 miles round trip. The great thing about riding a bike to REI is that only have to carry everything back on the bike, so it keeps you from going crazy. In all seriousness though, it is pretty ride. Almost exclusively on bike trails off the road. REI itself is parked right by the river -- it’s really quite scenic. You’d almost forget you are in the middle of the urban jungle.

I like to ride to work. I like to think it solves all of my problems. Namely:

• Cheap on gas
• No traffic
• Parking is awesome
• Gets my lazy hide some exercise
• Takes loads of stress off
• I can fix a broken bike (a broken car... not so much)
• I’m in a better mood that day
• I’m outside, yay!!

So, in honor of that, I present my bike commute. I’ve spent the better part of the last two years perfecting this route. I still think there is work to do, but we’re getting there.

I never thought I would see a kicker on the list of potential Heisman candidates... GO UTES!!



via ESPN

So sailing is pretty fun. Sailing with GPS, somehow even more fun!

Here is our sailing course for the day. Luckily Google earth shows the car as on dry land, but unfortunately looks like we beached the boat a few times, doh!

Just kidding, the water must have been really low when they took the sat photos for Google Earth.

I went hiking with some friends at church Friday night and Saturday. We hiked Missouri Mountain, Mt Oxford and Mt. Belford. That was as many unique 14ers in one day as I have done my whole life so far.

Here is the trip overview courtesy of my GPS and Google Earth (seriously, what a match made in heaven)

Higher res copies of all these photos are on my MobileMe gallery

We hiked about 3 miles up friday night and camped at about 11,600 ft. There was a great lightning show in the distance that was quite spectacular (and luckily moving away from us). After that it was perfectly clear all night. Man the stars were something else that night.


Here we are cooking dinner

Here is our camp

Started hiking about 7:30 the next morning. First bit of the hike was great - a nice walk through a beautiful alpine meadow. The we started lugging up to the ridge on Missouri. Not too bad, but certainly a lot of work.





When you get to the saddle, the view sucked, something like this:


The view from the summit wasn’t any better:


Then we hiked back down the ridge, then up to Elkhead Pass


From the top of Elkhead Pass, we can see our next objective, Mt. Oxford. I will admit I wanted to cry it looked so far away. This was taken about 200 yards from the summit of Mt. Belford.


But or good friend Mr Marmot was waiting for us at the top.


From Mt Oxford, we then had to back track to the top of Mt. Belford.


And from the top of Mt. Belford, we head down... and down...and down.


It was a great time. And man am I sore!