Fall With Ingrid

It ended just like this. With me literally going head over heels for Ingrid.

Capped it all off with a lot of good skiing/boarding

Even dressed up

Watched a lot of quality Boise State Football

Built forts

Floated the river

Wakeboarding

We biked/danced???

These Pictures show a briefe overview of this past fall and some of the good times that I have spent with Ingrid.

Went on a road trip.... Literally we were on the road for days pedaling our bikes. It was awesome. This was the sunset the first night, and the scenery only got better from there.The trip started in Burley with Ingrid Hansen and Brittany Gunderson. After two days the rest of the crowd showed up just outside of Stanley. Salomon, Jared, Stephanie, and Bridgette. Oh and I can't forget Ingrid's sweet mother and her sister Greta. They drove a support vehicle for the three days and carried all of our gear. I would highly recommend this trip to anyone who loves biking. The scenery was amazing the entire way. The ride had a little of everything, big uphills, long downhills, long flats, and everything in between. Part of the road even seemed like a slalom course. After about 270 miles the trip came to an end in Idaho City, just a short ways out of Boise. Everyone survived and we only saw a few small scrapes and bruises. Oh I almost forgot to add, we did see a black bear. In fact I wasn't to far from hitting it with my bike!
Hopefully this can become an annual trip now that we have a better idea of how it will go. Thanks to everyone that made this happen, the support vehicles were a huge blessing and the extra food was more than I ever could have asked for.

Table Rock

 Day hiking table rock was awesome. I had never done it. Now I can join the ranks of..... well everyone else. It Seemed like everyone I have talked to has done it it before except for me till now. It was a great hike and only took about five hours round-trip.

Watersport Fun

This summer has gone by so fast I have barely had time to update my blog. I am proud to say that looking back on the last two months I have done a number of fun things with the free time I had available. The following pictures were all taken on Island Park Reservoir. This was my first time attempting wake surfing and it was a blast.

Biking With A Snorkel?

The Rainey Creek trail in Swan Valley is usually pretty dry this time of year apart from a few small stream crossings.  But as the late snow has kept the stream much larger late into the year, the trail is still pretty mucky. The first two miles or so of the trail show little to no dry ground at all. I think we could have ridden it more like a slip 'n' slide for most of the way out. It sure did make for a fun ride though.  Just don't wear clothes you want to keep clean if you go to ride this trail.

These are a few pictures from the summer summit backpacking trip. The trip was amazing! We hiked for eleven days through the Boulder White Cloud Mountains. I had never really spent any measurable amount of time there prior to this trip. Peak after jagged granite peak surrounded us throughout the entire hike. This mountain range really reminded me of the Wind Rivers in Wyoming, partially because of the peaks but also because of the immense number of crystal clear mountain lakes. Around every corner lakes seemed to pop out of thin air. The only down side to this was that all the standing water provided a perfect breeding ground for hoards of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. I used an entire bottle of repellent myself by the end of the trip. Most of the lakes were full of fish as well, the average being about five inches long. We caught several every time we stopped to fish. In some places we would catch fish four or even five casts in a row.

A few lakes such as quiet lake and Cove Lake provided fish large enough to make a descent meal. But we had at least a couple fish to supplement our Mountain House dinners every night. In Cove lake we caught some fish by noodling (with our hands).  Sadly I don't have pictures of this yet but hopefully I will soon. The fish there were beautiful Cutthroat trout with bright red bellies.  By the end of the trip I had caught 130 fish in total and Bret had caught just a few less, which won me a free cheeseburger I might add. 

It was almost sad to leave when we finally got back to the van, though I was eager to use a warm shower and some soap. Life was so simple camping. Each day we just had to accomplish our hike and after that there was nothing to worry about past cooking our dinner. There were no deadlines, no to-do lists, no people to impress, no curfews, or even the need to look at our watches. My only timeline for the trip was when the sun came up and went down. Sometimes I wish life at home could be the same. Stress levels around the world would be so much lower, sadly not as much would get done, but maybe we spend to much time worrying about getting things done that really aren't worth doing. I think we could all do with a little simplification in our lives.

Crack Climbing at the Teton Dam. This route is really a 20' V2 bouldering problem, but since I only had one crash pad and the crux was near the top we decided to just use a cam and a rope as a safety backup. Heidi and Cammi both destroyed the route (which is a good thing). There was a lot of stinging nettle growing at the bottom. I chopped a bunch of it out, but I think it grows pretty fast so be aware if you are bouldering there.