Colorado Doesn't Trust Truckers

We saw this series of signs come down out of the canyon. Oddly, there was no sign at the end to let truckers know that they were now safe.

Colorado Schralp

Being that Jared's gone to the guard, we now have some heads up notice of when the guard's going to be flying places. So, when we found out that a KC-135 was headed to Denver, Colorado, for a couple of days, Jeff and I had to hop on and catch some spring gnar in CO.

The ride up was pretty sweet. Passengers sit along the walls of the rear of the tanker, so once the jet is at altitude, you can spread sleeping bags on the floor of passenger compartment and sleep. Probably the greatest flight ever.

Colorado is so warm! It was probably 45-50 both days on the mountain. The Coloradans were all wearing their big jackets, but coming from AK the temps were amazing. We spent the first day at Vail (pictured here), and the second day at Keystone.

Jeff the tourist.

Touring the Vail Village, apres ski style.

After a couple of weeks of giving up drinking for Lent, I thought I was seeing things...

Checking out some slide activity in the canyon.

Jeff and I at Keystone.

Breckenridge as seen from the top of Keystone.

Rocking the tele...not nearly as many free heelers were hanging out in Colorado as in the AK.

At Keystone, Shane (who was deployed with me in Saudi Arabia) was able to get the day off to schralp the gnar with us.

360

Keystone does not allow sledding. Bummer.

Jeff's pretty impressed with his rooster tails.

Keystone tourist.

Ditto.

Colorado has 7-11s, and 7-11s have Slurpees, and that is awesome.

On the way back we refueled some F-16s out of Buckley

We got to hang out in the boom pod while they refueled the vehicles. It was pretty awesome. Overall, just two days of schralping, but a sweet couple of days warming up and some awesome spring corn.

Cantwell Tour

For President's Day weekend Jeff and I were looking to do some schralping somewhere in warmer climes (which more or less ruled out the Deltas). A careful examination of the map turned up a place called Petersville Road, just south of Trapper Creek. It looked pretty sweet, with easy access to some nice mountains, so we headed out. When we started traveling down the road, though, we found first, that the road ended 10 miles earlier than the map indicated, and second...snowmachines. Everywhere. Hundreds of them. So we headed north again and ended up touring just south of Cantwell.

The scenery around the Denali area was, as usual, amazing.

Jeff, riding a rail.

Down jackets are awesome in the cold.

The first day was just a ski in to camp. The next day, we woke up and toured around a small plateau just off the train tracks.

This is looking out towards the start of Kesugi Ridge, which we hiked last summer.

This is the site of our second camp. Just below it, we laid some tracks right as sunset was falling.

Jeff had scored some down booties since our last overnight trip. Here he is rocking down jacket and booties. He claimed the booties made him feel like a ninja...

And here he practices his double dragon kick.

Overall, not the schralp we were hoping for, but a pretty decent tour, and a nice re-introduction to winter camping, AK-style.