Bozeman | Big Sky

Montana is the bee’s knees!  I could definitely move here.  We’ve spent the last week between Big Sky and Bozeman and we have loved every minute of it.  It is gorgeous, and there is so much opportunity for playing outside.  Another bonus aside from all the fishing, climbing, skiing, hiking around, is that all the campgrounds are still technically closed for the season, but most of them are accessible (some you still can’t get to because of closed roads or excessive snow).  That means that there is no trash service or water, but if you pack in your own things and pack our your trash, you can stay there for free!  THE BEST!  We’ve been climbing in Gallatin Canyon and Hyalite Canyon, hiking in Beehive Basin in Big Sky, and fishing along the Gallatin River.  We really don’t know what we are doing when it comes to fly fishing, but we both had bites, which was super encouraging.  Another exciting moment this week was running into my old college roommates, Mike and Kent, and Mike’s wife, Marisa in Big Sky.  We had pizza and talked about the good old days.  We received a big surprise last night, when we went to the climbing gym to see if we could shower, and they let us shower for free!  Then we got a milkshake.  I may stay forever.  Here are some pictures from the last week:  

Jackson

After leaving Salt Lake, we headed north to Logan, UT to meet up with our friend Ryann.  Ryann is in vet school in Logan, and we were fortunate enough to have it snow while we were there!  We set off on a hike and by the time we were back, a nice blanket of fresh white was covering everything.  We hiked up to some awesome wind caves with Titan, Star, and Ryann's Dalmatian, Seth.

Then it was on to Jackson, WY.  Chelsea and I lived in Jackson two winters ago and we were so excited to get back and spend time in the Tetons and visit old friends, especially our old roommate, Josh.

We started off our time with a visit to Julie and her boyfriend, Alex, who live in an amazing cabin in Moose.  We had our coldest night of the trip yet, at -15 degrees and woke up to a jaw-dropping sunrise on the Tetons.  The next week was filled with lots of skate-skiing in GTNP, hiking, eating, and catching up.  We skied one day at JHMR with Josh.  We also started teaching the dogs to skijor, which was entertaining and a blast when they started to pick it up.

After a week, we headed over to the other side of the pass to visit my friend Kaybe.  We had an absolutely stellar weekend.  We went on our longest skate yet (8 miles) in Teton Canyon (and Titan kept up the whole way), went climbing at the new gym in Driggs, saw some live music, made french toast, and had our best day of skiing yet at Grand Targhee.  We took a slow morning and arrived at the mountain in time to see the very finals of the telemark races, which turned out to be way cooler than what we had imagined (we didn't imagine there were be people hucking cliffs!).  Then we hiked up Mary's and got some actual POWDER!  It was AMAZING.  That side of the Tetons has such a wonderful vibe, and we headed back over the pass on Sunday night with huge smiles on our faces.

Our next week in the Tetons featured more skating, a bit of skiing, and hiking.  On our second day of skiing at the resort, we woke up to 5 inches of fresh powder.  We got to the mountain as soon as we could, knowing from experience how fast it gets skied out.  I came out way too psyched and just completely ate it on my third turn of the day.  I lost a ski and let out an audible 'oof' once I stopped rolling and sliding down the mountain.  I definitely didn't feel quite right and after testing out a few easy groomers I decided I shouldn't ski any more and headed to the van to rest my knee.  On Friday, March 6, we got to celebrate Star's 6th birthday, which was awesome!  We went on a really long hike, which featured birthday hats, mud and snow, and lots of treats!

The Tetons are so insanely beautiful, and it felt incredibly nice to spend time there.  It was so different than when we lived there and worked so much that we didn't have very much time to actually enjoy where we were.  Our time there definitely has us thinking about moving back in the near future.  

Alta | Snowbird

Alta and Snowbird were the next resorts on our Mountain Collective pass.  We arrived in Salt Lake to find no snow on the ground and stories about how dry it had been.  Nevertheless, we also heard that the coverage was still good on the mountain, which was good enough for us!  We drove way up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Alta to find it rather cold.  We had acclimated to skiing in 45 degree weather and kind of forgot how to handle temperatures in the teens.  Unfortunately, our boots slept under the bed in the van and were pretty frozen when we went to put them on.  The frozenness of our feet made it's way up our bodies until we were pretty popsicley and sad by the end of the second run.  We went into a lodge and warmed our boots under the hand dryer, which helped for a run or two, but then it was back to being cold.  We went back to the van to regroup.  I put on as many layers at possible, warmed my feet in my down booties, and had a hot chocolate.  After that, we felt rejuvenated and skiied the rest of the day.  The groomers were really awesome, and the coverage was really good, despite not having received snow in a while.  It was interesting skiing at a resort with only skiers- no snowboarders allowed.  Alta is a stellar mountain and I am excited to go back sometime to get some of that Utah powder (again, about a week after we left they got EPICALLY dumped on.  Dangit!).

Next up was Snowbird, just down the canyon from Alta.  It was back to 45 degree weather on our day there.  We checked out most of the mountain and had a good time exploring.  Alta and Snowbird are both really cool mountains and I'm glad they got a bunch of snow after we left, because I'm sure the rest of the season there will be stellar!

Salt Lake City

After skiing Apsen, we head to Moab and then Indian Creek, which I touched on in the post, Diversions.  After that it was time to head to Salt Lake!  We were really excited to meet up with my friend Drew, who I hadn't seen in years.  Drew and I grew up in the same town and went to highschool together.  We were snowboarding (I used to be a snowboarder!) and climbing buddies before we went our seperate ways to college.  Drew is a super positive, high-energy person and I was excited to see what he was up to in Salt Lake.  Fortunately, our timing was just right, because Drew had just been offered a new job and learned that he would be moving to New York at the end of the week!  I was glad we got the chance to catch up and meet his wonderful girlfriend, Emily before the big move.  Salt Lake is home to many other wonderful things that we wanted to check out as well (including skiing, next post!).

One of those things is Goal Zero, the company that makes the solar panels that we have on top of the van and the generator that we have inside the van that powers our lights and fan, and charges our computer, phones, cameras, etc.  I had emailed Goal Zero before we arrived in Salt Lake to see if we could have a tour of their HQ, and to my delight they said yes!  We met James and Ryan in the foyer of the building, which included a slide and a climbing wall (awesome).  They showed us all around the building and explained where everything happens.  They even hooked us up with one of their new proudcts, the Flip 10, and a bunch of stickers!  Thanks again guys!

Another company we loved that is located in SLC is PROBAR.  We basically live off of PROBARs (we started the trip with a stock of 10 boxes).  They are delicious and nutritious and made with real food and nothing else.  We made the fine folks at PROBAR a valentine out of woven together wrappers from our bars, and headed out to see them.  Unfortunately, we went to their old office first and it was just about the time when they were going to close for the weekend.  We raced over to their new office, and after disappointingly pulling on locked doors, a smiling face appeared and let us in!  We gave them our valentine and they hooked us up with a bunch of bars!  If you haven't tried their bars, I highly recommend you do.  You can find them at REI and a bunch of other spots.  We really like their new snack bars, Bite.  

One last company that has a warehouse in SLC is the company I was working for before this trip, Backroads.  Aaron at Backrods was nice enough to hook us up with a bike box for Drew to ship his bike to NY in, and he also showed up around the warehouse.  So many bikes!  

Before leaving SLC, we met up with our good friends, the Checketts.  As a kid, the Checketts lived next door and we all played together and had the best time running around in the street, jumping on the trampoline, and exploring in the creek and the nearby park.  Their home is so full of love and positive energy, so it was wonderful to stop by and have a delicious waffle breakfast and catch up a bit.  

In addition to all the running around, we went on some really cool hikes with Titan and Star.  We misinterpreted a trail sign and ended up doing a 10 mile hike after a full day of skiing, which was kind of exhuasting, and we also did some fun night hiking, and went on a cool trial system above the city.  Salt Lake is a great place and definitely somewhere I would consider living for a while.  Thanks for the good times!

Aspen | Snowmass

Our next stop was the next resort on our Mountain Collective ski pass, Apsen.  We preceded the trip to Aspen from Breckenridge by breaking down (surprise! not.) and then by stopping in Carbondale to vist our friend Will from college.  It seems that a great deal of our college friends have migrated to Colorado in the recent years.  Carbondale seems like a very cool town from the short time we spent there, and it was great to catch up with Will and meet his girlfriend, Lucy.  After a nice sleep outside of their apartment, we were on the road to Aspen.  We were lucky enough to arrive at Apsen-Highlands on skier appreciation day, which meant free muffins and parking, score!  We skied some nice groomers and then decided to get a workout by hiking up to Highlands bowl.  We felt terribly out of shape as we headed up the bootpack.  Finally, we arrived at the summit, and we were rewarded for our hard work!  There was awesome powder and very few people in the bowl.  We had a great ski down, but unfortunately arrived too late for the free hot dogs at the base of the bowl.  Drat!  We were pretty tired after the hike and skied a few more groomers before calling it a day.
We heard that sleeping in our vehicle in Aspen might be a challange so we headed way out into a canyon to a cool trailhead where we took the dogs on a really pretty snowshoe.  Soon it was dark and we crawled into the van for one of our epic 14 hour sleeping sessions.  The next day was filled with frisbee with the dogs and various different hikes as we searched for some neat trailheads in the area.  We managed to sleep closer to town that night, in the parking lot at one of the bus stops.  The next morning began a little warmly as we headed up to Aspen-Snowmass (there are four different Aspen mountains, it is a bit confusing to figure out at first).  It was a super warm day and we both hit rocks right after getting off the first lift.  The first half of the day was a bit frustrating as we struggled with the conditions, so we headed for lunch.  After lunch, things got a lot better as we explored different parts of the mountain and we ended up skiing until last chair.  All in all, we really enjoyed the mountains, and we were really jealous about all the snow that fell soon after we left.  Our timing seems to be really off on this trip, it keeps snowing after we leave! So if you are looking for good snow, just pay attention to where we are and go there about a week later!