Lost Maples Pond

This is also from our camping trip to Lost Maples State Natural Area in February. Unfortunatly, the clouds were pretty low all weekend, so the sky and trees are a bit washed out in all my pictures. And since it was February, all the maple trees are bare instead of colorful. It's really hard to get a site in Lost Maples in the fall, though. We keep thinking that some year we'll go out there in November with the backpacks so that we can stay in some of the many primitive sites. We scoped out most of the primitive areas this fall, and I think the most scenic ones to stay at would be the one that is just to the left of this picture, Site C, or either site B or Site F which are on two of the ridges. You still may have to reserve early, though, because there were boyscouts at two of the three sites when we were there.

Natural Bridges State Park

It was pretty cold and wet (and very, very windy) the day that we went to the beach near San Francisco at Christmas. The surf was pretty cool, however. I actually enjoyed the pounding surf. Over where Gavin is standing in this picture, the spray from the surf was pretty strong. The place we went was called Natural Bridges State Park (California). There used to be three natural bridges, back in the '50s (I think that's the right date), but now there's just one. There's also a Monarch butterfly sanctuary there.

Steamboat Springs

Last year we went to Steamboat Springs, Colorado for our ski trip. This was the view from the upper part of the mountain. This is one of the highest feeling mountains I'd ever been on. It probably helped that we were on a black run at the time. Still, when I stopped and looked out over the valley, I got a breathtaking sense of height. Becca said she was trying not to look because it felt so high. The only other place I've ever been that I felt a similar feeling of being on the edge of the Earth was on our attempt to climb Long's Peak when I sat on a ledge in the Trough to wait for everyone. Maybe I'll post that next. :)

College Fijord

I'm going to take a break from Whistler pictures today to share an old one. This is College Fijord in Alaska. It is part of the Princess Cruise Line's 7-day Vancouver to Alaska cruise. We, of course, went for our honeymoon. This picture is particularly nice because there is blue sky. That only happened one day. The cruise starts in Vancouver, and you spend the first day at sea. Then you have port calls at Ketchukan, Skagaway, and Juneau on the next three days. The final two days at sea are spent cruising first through College Fijord and then Glacier Bay. The day after Glacier Bay you make port in Seaward. It was a great time - I highly recommend the trip to anyone!

Extreme Danger

Sunday afternoon, we decided to take a hike since there wasn't much snow in Whistler. This is Nairn Falls, just outside Pemberton, Brittish Colombia. The waterfall is very powerfull. It was very impressive. I hope the picture Cari took just before I took this came out well, because the perch she had here made the rest of us a bit nervous. Of course, this was after we all went past the sign that said "Area Closed: Extreme Danger".

Whiteout

On Friday, the cloud level was well below the mountain for the entire morning and most of the afternoon. It was like skiing in whiteout. The visibility in this picture is actually better than it was most of the time. A lot of the afternoon we had to ski from trail marker to trail marker because you couldn't see the edge of the trail. In case you're having trouble telling with all the ski cloths, from the left that's Becca, Gavin, Cari, Diane, and Nancy. This was taken before Diane went off the edge somewhere accidentally not to be seen by the rest of us for a couple hours. :o

Symphony Bowl

This is the second Whistler installment. We're on the back side of Whistler Mountain on the Burnt Stew Trail. This is a green groomed run that goes through Symphony Bowl. Off the trail, it is intermediate to expert skiing. We were looking forward to getting off the trail into the bowl a bit. Unfortunately, the snow in the bowl was pretty much frozen solid which made it not so fun to ski on. It was still beautiful, though.

Whistler

Since I just got back last night, you of course get a Whistler picture today. Actually, this is a mountain north of Pemberton. The water wasn't quite still, but it was still a pretty great reflection. I have a bunch of good shots from this trip, so you'll be seeing a lot of them. We went up to Pemberton to take a hike to Nairn Falls and also to see the Coyote Crafts store. The falls were excellent, but the craft store was closed it being Sunday. Nobody complained, though. If you'd have told me I'd be hiking on my ski trip in Brittish Columbia in March, I'd have said you were crazy. You can see the snow level was a bit unseasonably high, though.

Glacial Cirque

This beautiful glacial cirque is in Rocky Mountain National Park. We saw this on the drive through the park as we were headed back to Denver. I immediately thought I WANT TO GO UP THERE. It looks like a great place for alpine lakes. Next time! :)

Breckenridge

In tribute to our fast approaching ski trip, here's a great picture Gavin took in Breckenridge, CO in 2003. We went the first weekend in April and got really, really lucky. There was four inches of fresh powed the second day of skiing. It was incredible. Plus, there were great end-of-season sales and we both got great new ski jackets. That's some of the best skiing I've ever experienced - it was just enough to soften everything without requiring good powder skiing skills. And it was gorgeous. I really liked Breckenridge. The town is pretty charming, and the mountains are gorgeous. I think I liked the resort at Steamboat better, but the village was best at Breckenridge.

Snowmobiling

Here's Gavin and I all bundled up for snowmobiling in the Wind River mountains in Wyoming. We had a great time. I had a slight tendency to get stuck in the powder. I almost ended up in a creek bed once, but I decided to cut my losses and stopped just before I went down there. Part of my problem was that I kept forgeting where the brake was. The other part was that I kept getting off the trail by accident because it was hard to see in the flat light.

Casper Falls

The first time I took Gavin to Casper to meet my family we took a walk up to Casper Falls. This is a popular picnic spot at the base of Casper Mountain. We used to go there a lot when I was little for day trips. The house my parents are living in now is only about 3/4 mile from "The Falls". If you look at the picture I posted on Feb. 25, the waterfall is at the bottom of the canyon just off the left side of the picture.

Marinos

I didn't take this one, obviously since I'm in it. This is something that my drumline in college did once a year. For one quarter of a football game, we turned into cheerleaders and did a routine we called "Marinos". If I do say so, we were pretty good for only practicing this for about an hour. Trust a bunch of drummers to have enough rhythm to keep "The Sprinkler" synched up! :)