Mt. Hood Cabin Trip

Emily and I headed up early on Friday to Mt. Hood Meadows ski area for a day of skiing in the sun on the beautiful slopes of Mt. Hood with the summit towering

above us.  We found some great runs despite the very brown corn snow that was everywhere and I hit up the park a bunch of times including the half pipe.  We even found a trail that had about 20 banked turns in it like a luge run for skiers!  We packed in a full day of skiing before we had to leave around 4pm to head to the cabin to meet up with others.
    I had reserved the same cabin that we had for Thanksgiving but this time
unfortunately it was missing the massage chair.  Karen, Brendan, Eleanor, Chris Holm, Toshi, Emily and I were the crew for the night.  We began drinking around 4pm in the hot tub
and by the time Chris and Toshi showed up by 8pm the rest of us were getting sloshed.  Karen had made jello shots (about 20) out of a full bottle of brandy!  They were unbelievably strong!  Three of those combined with a 12 pack of beer and I was getting hammered…  We played Bullshit Pyramid for a while to get everyone equal and then threw in “Grandma’s Boy” – always a funny movie when drunk.  That’s about the time people (Toshi
and Brendan) began to pass out on the couches around us.  That was also the time we took down the antelope again and got pictures of it harassing them both!  Haha.  It was a pretty chill night of drinking and hanging out with friends.  I finally was able to give Eleanor her Pabst Blue Ribbon belt buckle, which she loved as well. 
    After the movie Chris broke out his guitar and played us a few songs including a remixed version of “Natty Fuckin’ Ice” which was a first for Eleanor to hear because she was blacked out by the time he was singing it at Beer Olympics… haha.  We woke up the next morning to pouring rain and Eleanor whipped up some homemade coffee cake for us all before cleaning up the cabin and bustin’ out at around 11:30am.  It was a great cabin trip as usual and I really appreciate all my friends who came along to join Emily for a night of hot tubbin’ drinking, movies and music in the mountains! 

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Town and Dan's Trail

On Wednesday I took my truck in for a much needed oil change and Emily and I walked around town and campus in the afternoon sun.  I introduced her to a bunch of faculty and showed her some cool places on campus.  We then picked up my truck in the afternoon and headed over to Michael’s Landing on the suggestion of Linda LaFleur, the COAS secretary.  I had a big porterhouse steak with mushrooms, which was fantastic.  The food was great and the ambiance of the old train station that had been converted was great!  After dinner we took it easy back at my place and watched a movie.

On Thursday we got up and went to Jan Bauer’s masters thesis defense on campus.  I’m sure it was a neat experience for Emily to see what I’m going to be subjected to in a few years as well.  I think it went great and I know Jan is definitely happy to be finished and is looking forward to his big move to New Zealand to continue his research towards his PhD. 

We then borrowed Anna’s mountain bike and headed over to Dan’s trail for some mountain biking.  It was beautiful out and it was Emily’s first time mountain biking ever.  I think she had a great time.  We decided to come down Horse Trail and after riding it I definitely plan on doing it again soon.  We got back to the
house by 6pm in time for me to whip up a batch of my family’s homemade meaty spaghetti sauce for the cabin trip before heading out to meet up with Anna, Robyn, Cosmo, Eleanor, Brendan, and Karen for Pan’s Labyrinth at the Darkside Theater.  I thought the movie was horrible and it was Spanish with subtitles to boot.  Others thought it was creative and cool.  For a fairy tale it didn’t have many mystical creatures in it and it was pretty damn bloody and gory.  Oh well, Emily and I went back to my place and watched Lucky # Slevin instead which redeemed the night.  Emily pretty much got to see all of Corvallis and I think she really liked it.

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First Annual Beer Olympics

After Emily and I got back from our grand tour of Oregon we threw the 1st Annual Beer Olympics at my place.  Jason and I have a giant (5x8 foot) white board in our kitchen visible from outside through our large living room window which made our place a perfect place for score keeping.  Jason was gone to a conference in San Diego and McKenzie was in the kennel for a few days so it worked out perfectly. 

We started the party at about 3:30 with Eleanor, Emily, I, Kaleb, Chris Somes, and Robyn.  By the time people started showing up we had drank a bit so we gave ourselves a point for each beer we drank!  Games played were
1. Flip Cup 2. Flip Pong 3. Flip Cup Survivor (Emily’s idea and awesome) 4. Hurdles 5. Quarters 6.
Buddy Game 7. Moose 8. Boat Race 9. Shot gunning 10. Beer Hunter 11. Dizzy Relay Race and 12. Can Stand.  Throughout the night we were also joined by Brendan, Karen, Anna, Isaac, Kristen Splinter, Jed, Chris Holm, Tawn, Aaron, and Toshi brought Lindsey, Julie and Lisa from Bombs.   Brendan dominated everyone at hurdles, Chris Holm dominated at shotgunning as usual, and my girl Emily kicked everyone’s ass at flip cup survivor where she took out 3 well known party animals all by herself despite having been drinking since 3pm! 

At certain points throughout the evening crazy shit started to happen such as friends climbing all over the roof of our garage (still can’t believe they didn’t fall
through the roof), liter cola bottle tossing and random game of crotch tag was instigated by Anna I believe and by the end of the night nobody could soberly walk a line in the kitchen.  Eleanor had brought over some coal so we bbq’d outback with a lot of burgers, sausages, and nasty veggie-mushroom burgers for Anna.  Eleanor had also brought over prizes (the electronic bellowing
Hippo was
the favorite of all) but everyone got so damn drunk and the white board was so messed with that none of them got
taken home.   Chris Holm was going to play downtown at the wine bar but nobody was there so he came back with his guitar and put on a little show for us all in the living room.  The song of the night about Anna, Shilo, and Paul (the renaissance man) was definitely “Natty Ice” – A Chris Holm original that had us all rolling on the floor. 

By the time 10pm rolled around Eleanor was passing out in the living room on the
pull out bed we pulled out – with her laying on it… hehe, but it

felt like it was 2am cause we were so damn drunk.  People were playing flip cup on the kitchen table in the middle of the kitchen and others were eating out of a bowl of mixed condiments that looked like pickle juice, ketchup and mustard stirred together…. Yuck.  Tawn was on our couch puking on himself next to Emily so I had to drag him by his feet upside down into the bathroom where I dumped him for Kaleb to take care of…. Emily and I headed to bed at around midnight and everyone seemed to disappear from the house around that point.   

In the morning I assessed the damage… not bad.. just a ton of empty cans and
bottles, a sticky kitchen floor, messy board of quotes/points/names/etc, and a loan hippo on the table.   So I
decided to pick up the hippo and leave hippo groaning noises on several people’s cell phones whom I’m sure were still passed out in their bed.  I got a text back from Brendan asking what his score was and ironically the only name on the board without a score was his, but it did say “wanker” haha.   Emily and I cleaned up for 30 minutes and then Eleanor showed up on her bike to help but we had finished and were relaxing.   The 1st Annual Beer Olympics was a huge Success thanks to Eleanor!

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Tour of Oregon with Emily

After shopping for groceries in the morning we took off down the coast of Oregon for a trip to show Emily the Pacific, the redwoods, Crater Lake, Bend, the high desert of eastern Oregon and Santiam Pass.  When we got to Newport we took a walk down to the beach near Yaquina Bay Light House.  It was the first time
Emily had seen the Pacific.  After strolling the beach for a while and playing with some long kelp we continued our drive down the coast towards Coos Bay, stopping in many locations for Emily to take pictures. 

We stopped at the Sea Lion cave on the coast to take a 20 dollar elevator into a giant cave in the cliff filled with hundreds of stinky and loud
sea lions.  Signs
said to be quiet and not to take flash photos because it would disturb the animals but they were so damn rowdy I highly doubt they would have even noticed.  We were grateful to get out of the stench quickly to the hillside above were we spotted some whales off in the distance migrating north. 

I got to finally check out the Dunes State Park where there were tons of guys on
four-wheelers tearing up the sand and one very unlucky dude stuck in the sand in his Jeep Wrangler.  The sand was too loose to get my truck all the way to the beach but it was cool to see that it is completely legal to drive up and down the beach there!  We ended up making it to Sunset Bay State Park next to Coos Bay.  We made it just as the sun was setting and ate a picnic dinner
at a
picnic table on the beach looking out over some volcanic
stacks at the sun setting into the water which Emily had never seen before.  We packed up our stuff and made a quick walk through the woods to a ledge overlooking a bay with breaking waves where we set up camp for the night and chatted under a perfectly clear night of stars. 

In the morning we woke up to a little bit of dew and some barking seals in the cove.  The sun was beautiful on the sea stacks just off shore.  We made it back to
the truck in about 15 minutes and again headed south down the coast as a rainstorm moved onto land from the ocean.  It was great that Emily got to see the coast on a beautiful day
and on a rainy foggy day because in both situations it is absolutely stunning.  When we got to the Redwoods we stopped and got out so Emily could see the height of the tallest living organisms on earth.  We snapped a few pictures of us in front of some of the
behemoths before continuing on to stop at a cool river overlook a few miles up the road which turned out to be a major mistake because it led us to be stopped by a work crew repairing a large slide in the road.  If we hadn’t stopped for the pics we would have made it through but a state trooper pulled past us and decided to close the entire road and turn everyone around.  This is a HUGE  problem on the coast of Oregon because there are pretty much no roads going through the coastal mountains to the cascades!  We literally had to backtrack an hour and a half up the coast to find the nearest road to cross over.  This is where we made the 2nd mistake of the day and decided to follow my GPS which took us over a forest service road over 4,000 feet that hadn’t been cleared from the winter yet.  After driving 30 minutes deep into the coastal range we found ourselves in 4x4 driving over downed branches and small trees in a couple inches of snow miles from anyone… I decided it was going to be a bad idea to continue on and I didn’t feel like us becoming another Kim family lost in the woods so we turned around and backtracked all the way to the coast where we had to continue northward, just
20 miles south of where we had camped that morning to find rte 42 over to I-5 through the coastal range.  At this point I was driving about 80mph so we could reach Crater Lake by nightfall.  We did but we also encountered snow above 5,000 feet again and had to throw it into 4x4.  Earlier in the day my truck got the hiccups from all the rain and was running funny so at 5,000 feet, only having seen one car in the past 45 minutes in snow on roads that were not salted I was a little nervous….   The actual rim road around the lake was closed for the winter still with about 5 feet of snow still on it so we couldn’t see much but I think Emily got the idea of how massive the area was and I gave her a little bit of geological background (about 100x the explosive power of Mt. St. Helens when it blew up).  We continued down the very straight road to the high desert of eastern Oregon towards Bend. 

It was around 9pm so we decided to get a hotel room at the Best Western in LaPine, OR just a few miles outside of Bend so I could watch 24 and rest my eyes from driving all day.  In the morning we woke up, drove through Bend and then
drove over Santiam Pass back to Corvallis.  We had wonderful views of the Sisters, and Washington from the East but when we got into the mountains we hit clouds on the western side, snow, and then rain as we continued down to the valley and back to town.   

In 3 days we had driven through blue skies down the coast, camped overnight at the edge of the ocean on a cliff above seals, checked out expansive sand dunes stretching over 30 miles down the coast, driven through a pacific storm, temperate rainforests, the Redwoods, gotten lost high in the coastal range in snow and downed trees, driven over an ancient volcano, through the high dry desert of eastern Oregon and then back over the Cascade volcanic range through rainforest again to a wine valley.  Oregon is often compared to New Zealand when it comes to having so many different climate zones and environments in such a small area and I believe it to be true.  Emily was amazed at how beautiful the varied landscapes were and how greenish blue the rivers were due to the copper (thanks Chris for explaining it to us) in the rocks being weathered.  It was an unbelievable trip with my girl that I won’t forget anytime soon and I can’t wait to get the pictures from her camera to add to this entry!

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Suds on the Slopes 2007

Emily got into the Portland Airport around 12:45 so we took off quickly from there on a 45 minute drive to the base of Mt. Hood and stayed overnight in a skeevy motel called Mountain Air. There were antlers on the wall for a coat
rack and the room smelled like a retirement home. The smoke alarm made a hissing noise so I
promptly took the batteries out for the night and climbed into bed. It was really great to cuddle up with Emily
again after such a long time apart. 

In the morning we woke up to Aaron Hartz calling me to say
that everyone, including him, was bailing on the pond skim at SkiBowl because
it was pouring out. I decided to sleep
for another hour or so and then determine if I was going to bail as well after
checking it out. When we got to SkiBowl
we found out that only 6 people had signed up so far and that there were lots
of prizes to be won so I said “what the hell” and signed up as well for $10
bucks but decided not to buy lift tickets for the day because the weather was
drizzly. Emily and instead drove to
Government Camp and got some breakfast before taking a drive up Timberline to
check out the hotel there made famous by the movie “The Shining” by Stephen
King. The inside looked nothing like the
movie btw.

 When we got back to SkiBowl there was a band setting up
inside for live music and everyone got door prize raffle tickets and Hawaiian
lays. I got a pint with
Emily to psych
myself up for a very cold plunge into river water they were pumping into the 50
foot long pond skim pool. At 2pm the
suds on the slopes kicked off and there ended up being about 30 competitors
after all, mostly snowboarders. The rain
had stopped and the sun was even starting to poke out from the clouds. They had put out salt so that the slope
would be slippery and fast for people to possibly make it all the way across
which definitely looked unlikely. I was
wrong. The snowboarders easily cruised
across the water with all the surface area of their boards using them as
wakeboards pretty much. I decided to let
one of the few skiers go down ahead of me to see what could be possible…. Yup,
skiers couldn’t make it. We were judged
on attitude, style, crashes, and distance. Since distance was out I thought my first run I would go for style so I
took the whole
hill switch (backwards) and tried to get as far as I could
backwards… didn’t make it very far and crashed really hard, but I was the only
one all day who tried it switch…. The water was freezing and when I got out I
immediately put on my gore-tex jacket and pants to hold in the heat that was
quickly escaping me.

Right before my 2^nd run a kid on skis when down
and through a backflip off one of the side jumps… I knew I would have to step
it up a notch. So, on the urging of a
bunch of girls in wet beaters on top, I took the hill switch… witch my swim
trunks pulled down mooning the crowd and waving! Hahaha. Halfway
down I turned around, pulled my shorts up and through a huge
backflip into the pool rotating very slow as to make a huge crash…. Which definitely
happened! The crowd thought it was
awesome and I actually got 3^rd place for best crash for the day and
got a cool hat and some
snowboard gear that I just left because I have no use
for it. After getting another beer and
listening to the band (think the drummer had a crush on the lead singer) we
waited to see if won the door prize and when we didn’t we took off back to Corvallis.

What a great way to kick off
Spring Break and my week with Emily! for the
night.

Finals

Well, this week was finals for my 2^nd term here
at Oregon State University.   My classes this winter term were Sedimentary
Processes in the Ocean Basins and Igneous & Tectonic Processes in the Ocean
Basins. I also took a course called
Success in the Classroom which was ungraded but taught me a lot about how to
effectively educate as a TA or a college professor. I wasn’t as nervous for finals as I was last
semester because I realize now that if you put in a lot of effort and the
professors can see that they will give you a passing grade as a graduate
student. I’m still torn over which
direction I’m going to go with my research. Right now I technically have about 3 advisors. With Anne Trehu I’m working on seismic
profiles off the coast of Oregon to better understand the tectonic structure of the subduction zone there and
the possibility of a major earthquake that could trigger a tsunami. With Rob Harris I’m traveling around the
state to various bore holes (deep holes in the ground) to measure electrical resistivity
which can then be converted to heat measurements to look at heat flow within
the earth in tectonic regions. I’m also
working with Adam Schultz here to measure magnetotellurics within the earth
(basically measuring electrical currents within the earth). The good thing is that those three topics are
3 out of the 4 fields being measured in the massive Earthscope project, the other being
geodetic satellite data. In this way
I’ll have exposure to the major aspects of the largest geological/geophysical
survey ever taken of the United States and will be a prime candidate for
working in the National Parks with ranges to disseminate the information
gathered from the project to the public (building my professional development
resume in education as well as research). Anyway, that’s just a little update as to what I’m doing here lately if
anyone is interested. Finals were ok and
I think I did pretty well this semester.

Emily comes tomorrow! Yeah!!!

Update: Got an A and B this semester keeping my GPA at a
3.47. And apparently after hitting up
Squirrels last night there are quotes from me up on Facebook such as “If I had
a belt full of kangaroo nutsacks I’d fill them full of grape sweedish
fish”. Honestly… where do I pull this
shit out of?

CMRU Ropes Practice

This month's excercise for CMRU was ropes training in Santiam Pass across from the Hoodoo ski area.  It was tough to get up at 6:30am after 4 hours of sleep to drive the
hour and a half up to the pass alone for the training but I'm determined to learn as much about mountaineering as possible from every resource.  I quickly packed in the morning and had a quick breakfast while slamming gatorade to cure the hangover buzz (didn't help cause I forgot gatorade gives me horrible heart burn!).
At the training was Aaron, Chris, Jonathan, Todd, Drew, and I.  I brought my snowshoes so Todd was nice enough to go with me on his as well.  This worked out perfectly because the distance we had to cover was nothing compared to the workout the guys on skis got.  Jason Wood and Bob showed up briefly as we were gearing up to say hi as they were on Hoodoo cross country ski patrol for the day.  Bob even
asked us to radio in to dispatch at Hoodoo our coordinates to catch them off guard and to keep them on their toes (Bob is the God of mountaineering and training in my mind... everyone respects his authority on any matter in the outdoors).  Todd and I headed through the woods to our first GPS coordinate - an avy beacon buried in the snow earlier by Chris.  We made great time to it with me navigating in the lead and dug up the beacon quickly to find a note saying, "Hi, I'm Tim.. I'm dead,
take me home".. haha.  We radioed in CMRU's code for deceased body (I'm not going to say what it is) and headed back towards our fake "SAR base".  This entailed traversing around a large hill with
great views of Three Fingered Jack to the North and Mt. Washington to the South.  When we got back to the trucks we dumped all our extra stuff to gear up with CMRU rescue gear such as the litter, ropes, harnesses, medical kits, etc as Chris went off into the woods to play a lost hiker with two broken legs at the top of a steep slope we would have to lower him down with a complicated rope setup.  This turned out to be really fun and I learned a lot about setting up anchors and lowering an injured climber.  Plus where we were would be a sick place to build a ski jump next year in some powder... stay tuned for that one.  We got Chris down safe and sound,
packed up and headed home.  When I walked into my apartment Jason looked at me and said, "oh my God, you're fried"... oooohhh yeah... I was burned ridiculous from being in the sun all day and not really thinking about it.  And to top it off I had a long sleeve shirt on pulled up to my elbows so my tan looks ridiculous!  And... I'm off to bed... covered in aloe and in pain looking like a lobster!  hehe.

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Pisces Right - Price is Right Party

Well, tonight was Levi's birthday party combined with Logan's Graduation Party.  The
theme of the party was "The Price is Right" which they turned into the Pisces is Right as in it being March... yeah... I know.   It was a pretty cool party although I didn't know most of the people there for some reason.  I was glad to see Hartz and Holm there when Anna and I showed up.  That always means it will be a good time.  Levi
had made a plinko board with "drink a beer, take a piece of clothing off, drink twice, and $10,000" as the bottom brackets that the plinko chip could bounce into.  Unfortunately he had nailed off the $10,000 bracket with nails.... unfortunately for him I took some pliers from Holm and proceeded to pull out those nails... hehe.... he was going to owe some people some money... that's for sure.  Everyone at the party had name tags on as if they were contestants on the show and Levi himself was dressed up as young Bob Barker in a suit.  Logan's little sis was even at the party but she didn't drink.   As the night progressed and people got drunker Toshi donned a cap with a propeller on it, people began to dance (as soon as the rustic folk band finally left), and a pretty intense
challenge of bobbing for apples took place out back.  At first Toshi (Kamikaze Kimura the Samarai Shredder) was dominating but then Levi stepped it up and won.  Basically, it was two of the skinniest bodies I'd ever seen plunging their heads into a bucket full of cold water for half bitten apples... pretty funny looking.  As Anna continued to drink she decided it was time to start shotgunning beers... which of course Holm and I were happy to oblige.   This was the first time I had really drank all month (infact, I bet including that last night I haven't had more than 10 beers the whole month).  Hartz ended up throwing a beer on Anna in a drunken state, Holm and I caught a glimpse of chewbacca and I stole an avacado before the night was over.  Fun times... it's gonna suck that Logan is leaving.  He's a great guy.

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Black Rock

Today was sunny and 70 degrees so I just went on an afternoon trip to Black Rock with Holm and Tiffany.  We rode all the way to the top and on the way down took a few pics
of two kids from Colorado who were exploring the
apparently famous trails there.   They were jumping off a bridge with a 6 foot drop that looked terrifying!  We took two runs for the day and on the 2nd run down I crashed into a tree and flew off my bike to the amuzement of Holm who was directly behind me and almost ran me over!  It was a great day to go riding and the trails were actually very dry.  Can't wait until I get some body protection to start trying the big features there. 

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Boreholes

Started my new research with my new PI Rob Harris this week.  We went out to a borehole near Lebanon to take measurements of electrical resistivity in the 200 meter deep hole which can be converted to temperature measurements.  The procedure is
prettty easy and simply involves slowly lowering a sensor from a spool into a large pipe hole that runs vertically into the ground while a computer records measurements taken.   It was a beautiful day and the sun was out keeping it warm.  A cat from the nearby farm also paid us a visit.  Rob is a great guy and we are already getting along great and I feel more comfortable talking with him than I currently do with Anne. 

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Kick Ass ride today

After Search and Rescue training today I went for a ride in MacDunn in the rain.  I started the ride at 1:30pm and didn't get out until 5:15.  I really pushed myself and was able to map a whole bunch of new trails with my GPS.   Slowly but surely I'm making a map of the hidden trails in the forest...  But right now I'm absolutely beat from the ride.  It's a Saturday night and I'm so wiped I don't even want to go out... I must be getting old... haha.

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300

Kick ass movie.  We barely got in tonight for opening night.  Thank you Fandango... one of the few times in life when I feel like a VIP walking past a line 3 blocks long!  Lots of blood, lots of good fighting and really cool filming... if you liked Sin City this is a must see :) Website

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Weekend of Biking

Well, since going to the movie this past wednesday I've been dying to go biking.  There was wonderful weather all weekend.  After my search and rescue class yesterday morning I decided to pack up my gps and head out to MacDonald Dunn to
log some more unmarked trails on the map I'm working on.  I knew it would be really muddy but it was 65 degrees and the trails were calling.  Tiffany stopped by to borrow my Topeka Alien all-in-one bike tool to work on her bike so I was hoping I wouldn't need it.  As I had guessed the trails were really muddy but I had a great time exploring them.  I went further than I had gone before in the research forest and
ended up on some really fun downhill unmarked trails.  I even came across some cool looking newts near a stream gap jump.  I then came across a huge section of the trail that had been wiped out by a massive mud slide.  On the way back I tried to take a trail off into the woods I had noticed before that dumped out into a stream
bed where I had started off the day.  The trail turned out to be a stream and I took a huge endo off my bike (one of several during the day) which flipped me through the air and tore the deraileur cable right out of the handlebar.  Without a tool I had to tie the cable in a knot around my frame.  Luckily I was in a perfect gear and headed down from the mountains anyway. 
    When I got back to my truck around 4:45 I was cached in mud!  I didn't want to get the inside of my truck muddy so I stripped down to just my boxers to drive home... now here's where it gets embarassing.  When I get home I needed to quickly grab my bike, hose it off and bring it to a bike shop downtown to get fixed so I could ride today (sunday).  As I'm pulling it out hte back of my truck in my boxers (picture me just my boxers without a shirt or socks on and the back side of my boxers looking like I drank I drank a bottle of ex-lax.  Then I hear in a soft voice, "hey, can I ask you a question".  I turn around with the bike in the air (deciding whether to show my dirty, ass, my front with the possiblity of the clydesdale outside the barn or just my side profiel) to see my very attractive next door neighbor who I hadn't met yet.  Apparently somebody left a lab on her front lawn and never came back and she was asking me if I knew anything (she's a vet student so somebody must have known).  So there I am in my filthy boxers meeting this girl for the first time... pretty damn embarassing.  What a first impression!?
    I managed to take my bike downtown to get a new cable put in and then stayed in for a relaxing night getting excited to head to Black Rock with Anna and Tiffany this morning to explore the trails! 
    We left around 8:45 this morning in Tiffany's car to Falls City and the trails at Black Rock.  Immediately upon climbing up the hill I began to see jumps, and wooden bridges throughout the woods.  Anna wouldn't allow me to wear my headphones (next time I will regardless) so I wasn't all amped up to do anything stupid, which may have been a good idea actually.  When we got to the top we took an easy (green circle)
route down which still had some pretty decent jumps on it.  I really enjoyed flying off them but I know if I were to do anything bigger
I'd want body protection and a full face helmet.  I also had some energy gel and powdered energy drink with me to keep up with the girls (I'm out of shape a little).  As it turned out I kept up easily and had a blast.  We only took one run because Anna had to get back to help some friends move.  We went over a see-saw and got absolutely covered
in mud on the way down.  Somehow I even managed to cut my leg open.  Maybe I'll make it a tradition to always leave Black Rock bleeding from someplace.  I came away from the freeride terrain amazed and I can't wait to go back there, especially when it dries out a bit more later this spring! 

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