December 18, 2016

And we're back - December Powder Skiing!


Andrea and I were out skiing today and we ran into a couple who said they recognized us from our blog. Our immediate reaction was - oh jeez, we haven't updated the blog in months! Time to get going again...

Ski season is off to a GREAT start. I think it had snowed about two inches by Thanksgiving, but the hose finally turned on, storms started rolling in, and the mid/high elevation snowpacks built up fairly quick. A couple atmospheric rivers later, and this has been the best December we can remember. Fortunately for weekend warriors, the storms have lined up nicely for three straight weeks of Saturday/Sunday powder skiing. It doesn't get much better than that!

Early-season photos from the past couple weekends...














September 15, 2016

So. Many. Wedding. Photos.


This post is short and to the point, because you have a lot of photos to scroll through...

Our wedding photographer was Logan Walker. She is amazing!

Our full wedding album is roughly 1500 pictures... we narrowed it down to around 300 here:


If that isn't enough, you can go here and use the password "2016" to see them all.








September 8, 2016

Labor Day Weekend at Zion National Park - Part 2 (Virgin River Narrows)


This hike has been on our bucket list for a long time. We go down to Zion National Park almost every year, but this is the first time we had the logistics in place (permits and daylight hours) to walk the narrows. Its a fairly easy walk - around 16 miles from Chamberlain's Ranch to Temple of Sinawava. You are in the water for roughly 14 of the 16 miles, although with normal water levels (40 cfs) at this time of the year, you are never in much deeper than your knees.

Its truly a spectacular walk and we were just in awe almost the entire time. Our photos don't come close to doing the narrows justice.

A couple tips if you are planning to do this...

1. Use two trekking poles. Then you can look around constantly and not have to worry about your footing and slipping.
2. Neoprene socks are a MUST have! Rent them from any outfitter in Springdale.
3. Prepare for a range of temperatures. We were COLD in the morning - wearing gloves and hats until the afternoon... and the daytime high temperature ended up being ~90 degrees. It was hot and you didn't want to get out of the water by the end.


Labor Day Weekend at Zion National Park - Part 1 (Zion Canyon and Kolob Terrace)


Back in early July I threw my name in the lottery for a top-down Virgin River narrows dayhike permit. Our names were picked for Monday of Labor Day weekend, so that made deciding what to do over the long weekend a no-brainer (assuming we found somewhere to stay, which didn't happen until a week before the trip).

We LOVE Zion National Park. I don't want to play favorites, but it might be our favorite. I think we've made 5 trips there since we have lived in Utah.

We drove down on Friday afternoon and went for a nice run out to the Grafton ghost town. Our Saturday we did some hiking in the main section of the park (Observation Point). With crowds building due to the holiday weekend, we headed up to the Kolob Terrace after a longer run on Sunday and had the place pretty much to ourselves. Then on Monday we took a shuttle up to Chamberlain's Ranch and hiked along/in the Virgin River back to Zion. 

I'll save the Monday photos for another post - here's some from the first couple days of the weekend...