From one adventure to the next... Hello Washington!

Busy!

Last weekend was my "quinzhee or die" field trip for my wilderness class. We went up to the Michigan Ditch road near Cameron Pass and, with Nokhu Crags in the background, mounded up our piles of snow. For hours. I mean, probably like 5 hours with 3 people. It was ridiculous. Our quinzhee started at a good size (10 foot radius) but somehow in all the shovelling it became a beast of snow. Other groups called it the "spirit turtle" because well, it looked like a turtle.

Next time I build a snow hut, there will NOT be a long tunnel entrance. Waste of time and a pain to dig!

I don't have time to write more about it but I ended up mostly not freezing my butt off all weekend. Sleeping with my wet clothes/frozen water bottle (to thaw it) didn't feel all that great but only my feet were cold. The quinzhee was significantly warmer than outside (maybe 0-5 degrees F outside, 20-30 degrees F inside??) but I didn't sleep very well - my sleeping bag was on a slope and I kept rolling, and I just couldn't get my neck comfortable!

We spent Sunday learning avalanche rescue and snow pit stuff. There's a pretty funny video of my 3 person group practicing with a transceiver...

I had a bunch of tests/papers due this week, and leave for Washington tomorrow for my Park Break thing. Woo hoo! In the midst of being busy I decided to waste more time and buy a new laptop. My old one has been on the fritz for a while (screen doesn't feel like working all the time) so what the heck, went to Best Buy and bought a new one last night. It takes SO much time to get rid of all the pre-loaded crap and customize it properly, when I really should be getting my apartment straightened and packing for my 5 am drive to the airport tomorrow morning.

Speaking of the apartment, I did finally move! I now live DOWNTOWN Estes. Yeah, crazy huh, I'm in the middle of all the tourist drama now! It's small but it's cute and coming together pretty nicely. And the best part is I was able to pull my delightful mattress out of storage for the first time since last May... no more sleeping on government beds or my futon! Wooo!

Been on a bit of a fitness craze lately, it will be nice when I'm in a little better shape and can run from my new place, around the lake, and back.... perhaps a 5 mile run?? Not quite there yet... plus the damn wind is just unrelenting lately. Ahhh, spring in Estes.

So tomorrow I fly to Seattle and then will be picked up by the Park Break folks and whisked away to Mt Rainier National Park to study dam removal and volcano stuff. I believe on Monday I will then go to Olympic National Park and study glaciers and the fact that the park is pretty screwed; many of the rivers now sit higher than their roads/infrastructure. Flooding left the park pretty nasty in 2006 and it will probably just keep happening. I'm so excited! I think there's about 6-7 people so it's a small, intensive field study and looks like it goes all day until the evening (some programs at 7:30 pm). I have so many friends between Portland and Seattle that I really wanted to see, but looks like I'm on a short lease and a full schedule. Oh well, they can come out here. ;)

Actually Kim flies in on Wednesday from Portland, the same day I get back! I'm not sure what her schedule is; Tim was planning a backcountry cabin ski trip to the North Fork NEXT weekend (no rest!) but I'm not sure if I'm going or not. Kim may be going to Telluride, and maybe we'll do some skiing and goofing off. Karaoke too, and make total asses of ourselves. ;)

Oh and we went to the Red Wings - Avs game on Wednesday and of course they didn't let me down. GO WINGS! I was worried considering the Wings had not won against Colorado yet this year (hey, the Wings killed them EVERY GAME last year so don't rub it in) but we wallowed in victory in the posh club level again. We had some rowdy good natured Avs fans behind us, and Univ. of Michigan Alumni all to my right (we got our tickets through the Alumni Association), it was a good mix. I still can't get over how many Wings fans live in Colorado though! It's enough that we get a good stadium-wide cheer going. When the Avs would say, "Red Wings Suck!" we'd start up with, "Who's Got the CUP?!" ha ha ha!!!

Ok back to being semi-productive. Will take a lot more photos in Washington than on my snow cave trip... should be rainy but hopefully a bit warmer (though it's looking like 40 degrees the whole time).