I haven’t posted much recently, because I haven’t done much lately. If I had to blame something I would say the blame rests with my grandpa’s passing and exercise physiology (horrible damn class).

          When I decided to pursue Outdoor Education my parents supported me, enthusiastically. I suspect mostly because it meant I would make it out of college with some kind of degree. Now that’s changed and they see the value of it as a career. My grandpa on the other hand had no idea what I was doing. When I got my associates degree he asked me if I would then be going to college for a degree. He had no idea that I was working towards a degree. What strikes me about that is that he never said anything. He was under the impression that I had left college to go to trade school but he encouraged me and never said what I surely would have said, if I was similarly misinformed “What the hell are you doing? Go back to college”. Instead he asked me about classes and my trips. I would call him after every trip and tell him about it, and without fail he would say “20 years ago I would have been right there with ya”. We talked about what kind of jobs I could get when I was done with school and he was enthusiastic about me going in to outdoor education, not because he thought it was the only way I could get a degree but because he thought I would enjoy it. Having someone I admired so much approve of what I was doing motivated me to get out more. I remember once, when I was probably ten, I asked my grandpa what hang gliders were made of. He answered “ripstop nylon” like it was something everyone should know. Right then and there I thought he knew everything, any question I had, he had the answer. I decided then that I wanted to be the same way. He could engage in educated discussion about any topic that I ever saw brought up to him. As I got older I realized that he knew all these things because he read, so I started reading. I read anything and every thing I could and I still do. He also had the most amazing stories I have ever heard. Liyah said he’s the only person she has ever seen me just sit and listen to. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I saw the value of his stories was not the stories themselves, but the life that they were evidence to, a life full of experiences, good, bad and some that defy categorization. What I took from that is that life should be lived with no stone of adventure left unturned, and so that is how I started to live. Unfortunately that attitude landed me in a ton of shit, but even grandpa landed in ton of shit from time to time and he made it though fine, as did I. That attitude lead me to a series of very bad decisions, that then lead me to a series of amazing opportunities, including meeting Liyah, so thanks grandpa! The difference between us is, that for me it was a contrived premise, and for him it wasn’t a decision to live like that, he just did. Whether he was a product of that life or that life was a product of him, I don’t think I will ever know. I do know that I have wanted to be exactly like him ever since I could remember, so obviously loosing him has played a part in my inactivity this fall.

          But the lion’s share of the blame is with my terrible classes. They are horrible, I hate them all except motor learning and I cant wait to be done. That’s all I can say about class.  

          But fear not I did get out this fall and it is a story worth telling! (meaning I made and ass out of myself of course) I flew to Illinois and went black powder hunting with my dad in Indiana.

          It was opening day, I crept though the bushes with my can of deer piss. MMM the scent of doe in estrus! I sprayed everything around my stand, scent strips, trees, bushes, the stand, everything. Basically my stand was the deer equivalent of a frat house floor the day after Halloween (minus the smell of shame). OK so I climb up in the stand, I was under a lot of pressure to deliver since I flew out and every thing. I scanned the forest with my binoculars. Scanning side to side, HOLY SH*T WHAT IS THAT!!! I swung my rifle around, just a bunch of does. I needed to chill out, I decided that I was not going to hold out for a trophy and since the weather was supposed to get bad I was going to shoot the first thing I saw with a rack, and that took some of the pressure off. Well the first thing I saw had such a tiny rack I debated in my head about whether I should actually shoot it. It looked at me with its cute little antlers and its big eyes as if to say “don’t shoot me, you will be ashamed”. Well I shot him anyway. I rushed down the stand and started looking for a blood trail but I found none. What did find was the little bastard staring at me from the middle of a thicket! I missed. I was so embarrassed, but there was no time for that, I was throwing two more powder charges down the barrel and packing the charge, because I was going to kill him one way or another. By the time I had the bullet seated on the powder he had moved deeper into the thicket so I ran back to my stand and started grunting. Of course he came back, I mean seriously who can blame him, he could smell and hear a deer sex party somewhere and he was NOT going to miss out. I waited as he got closer, and closer, and closer until he was about 25 yards away and I then I whistled at him. He stopped and turned, presenting the perfect shot. He dropped less than 30 yards from where I shot him. It was a great shot, right across the top of the heart. I realized that it was only 730 and I had like 5 hours until they came to get me. So I pulled him out of the reeds and onto the trail, and then I laid down next to the trail and took a nap. Best nap I have ever had. I could tell no one was impressed with the tiny rack but I was the only one that got a deer that weekend so I didn’t really care. I can't wait to eat some deer slims.

I haven’t posted anything in a while. If you were keeping up you know that at the end of the summer I drove from Denver to Baton Rouge in a hurry because my Grandpa was sick. You probably also know that after that Liyah and I drove out to attempt Mount Baker with our good friend Dan Hill. The weather turned us around so Liyah and I took stock of the time and money we had left and decided to go see Mount St. Helens. We never made it. My grandpa took a turn for the worse and I flew out of Seattle and a few days later on September Fifth he passed away. I wrote this and read it at his funeral.

            This is a good day.  I can say that because Leonard Woods, my Grandpa, was a believer.  He viewed death, and I quote “as the reward for living”.  He was saved and he did not fear death, and rightly so, as 1 Corinthians 15 says,

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.  Where, O death, is your victory? 
 Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us victory [over death] through our Lord Jesus Christ”.

The apostle Paul goes on to say in 1 Corinthians,

“that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”

Grandpa knew this and not only did he not fear death but he welcomed it, because he knew that he must die to receive his reward. After, his death came judgment, and upon his judgment it was found that his debt had been paid, by the sacrifice and grace of his Savior, Jesus Christ. The reason that this is good day, a day for rejoicing, is that my grandpa has left this earth, he has left his weakened earthly body behind, and he now rejoices in the presence of the Lord with a new and perfect body. Paul writes in Philippians

“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”

            The gospel of Matthew says, “blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted”. Even though I am comforted by the knowledge that he is in paradise I will mourn him. The bible says that there is a time to weep and a time to mourn. I mourn a man who sailed around the world, crossed the equator, sailed the seven ancient seas, and in twenty-three years in the navy advanced from the lowest enlisted man to an officer, which is an incredibly rare achievement. He did that by being an exceptional sailor, he was also an exceptional husband, an exceptional father, an exceptional grandfather, and an exceptional great grandfather. Grandpa encouraged and inspired us to excel. He was a shinning example of what a man should be and what a man can be when he embraces hard work and responsibility. He showed us how much a man can love.

Since then I haven’t been able to post anything because any moment I get alone to think, I think about how much I miss him. I hope to begin posting again soon.

     As I write this, my music is drifting in and out. The sound of the rain on my roof softly drowning it out. The pulsating rhythm is conspiring with the wind to rock me to sleep. They would have been successful hours ago if it weren’t for the echo of thunder, reverberating off of the mountains around me.
     After that stressful rescue/shenanigan I headed to the hostel for a shower and a good nights sleep. I ended up talking to a middle aged couple that were hiking the Colorado trail. Then a girl who was obviously high hijacked the conversation and started talking about coyotes and spirits, so I slipped away and headed off the silver dollar to play shuffleboard before bed. I lost. The next day I just wandered around Vail and saw a sweet double rainbow. While I was sitting in my truck hating the fact I was going to have to run out in the rain and set the back up for sleeping I got a text from Daphne. She said her, Steven and Andrew’s roommate were making pizza and watching a movie did I want to come over. YES! So I headed over and we watched the Fountain. It was pretty trippy but I really liked it.

     Busted out and headed to work. Steven, John and Myself were supposed to work a climbing day at Roof Rock. But as Steven and I headed out there in the truck the weather turned sour. We called it and headed back to town and took the kids climbing inside. It was ok; some kid started crying about something, I just handed him off to his chaperone.
     Some kids tried to break into my truck while I was sleeping in the back. Unfortunately for them, the door was locked and my gun was right next to me. I scared the living shit out of those poor kids, jumping out of the truck in my boxers yelling and holding my rifle above my head. Priceless.
     Oh my God the 4th of July party in Vail was insane. John said to show up about three pm but I thought “What kind of party starts at three?” So we hit Finnegan’s Wake for a bit and headed to the party about nine. We should have got there at three. The party was already well into its 2nd or 3rd wind. We missed the couple fistfights, the Vail PD’s first visit, and the DJ’s first bitch fit about everyone being too drunk to dance. I knew things were going to get out of hand because we rolled up blaring Gimme Three Steps, with an 18er of bush light and some 40’s of Sol to donate to the party cooler. We walked in and it was a bunch of hipsters and bros drinking expensive micro brews and dancing to some sort of crap music that hurt my head. We were looking for the only person we knew at the party, John, and we saw him across the party just hammered drunk with his American flag pearl snap unbuttoned and a look on his face that said “screw it”. So to recap a couple of rednecks showed up late, with cheap beer, and the only contact at the party was three sheets to the wind. Ryan’s girlfriend came and got him because he was sure he would end the night beating the hell out of some one. I stayed because some more people I knew showed up. It got rowdy as hell, the cops showed up again and told everyone to move it inside or they were gonna start writing tickets. Then some drunk dude, who may or may not have been messed up on coke knocked my sombrero off and spat on me. I told him in return for not knocking all his teeth out that he was going to wipe it off on himself. He did. About 4 hours later I decided enough was enough, I was done with this party, and I went to bed. Last party I will ever go to in Vail. The next day we all went out for breakfast and recounted the kick ass party over, biscuits and gravy, bloody mary’s and coffee. 

I went to climb Shavano and Taubgache but ended up turning around because my sunburn stuck to my pants with every step. The cycle of stick, step, tear, got old really fast. When I got back to my campsite I washed my pants in the river because they were full of sunburn juice and blood. I decided to just turn the weekend in to a car camping weekend. Got out the map and figured, I got a whole tank of gas I bet I can hit Gunnison, Crested Butte, skirt the Taylor Reservoir to Tin Cup, take Cumberland Pass to Pitkin then meet up with the road by Monarch and head back to Leadville, and that’s what I did. I saw tons of old mining camps, walked through the Tin cup historic cemetery, and even made the drive to the old Alpine Rail Tunnel. With is way the hell out in the middle of nowhere at like 13,000 feet. It was a great drive, with beautiful views, and I stopped often to admire them. On one of these sightseeing stops, on top of Cumberland Pass I returned to my truck only to realize that all of my pockets were empty. My keys were hanging in my ignition, in my locked truck. I realized I was at 12,000 feet and a good days walk from the nearest town. The only thought going through my head was vocalized, almost involuntary, as a groan. “shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit”. I ran to the back of my truck and the shell was unlocked! I dove in and went to work on the sliding window with my knife. It opened with a pop and I was in… well I was in up to my shoulders because there was no way I could fit any further. I looked around my truck for something to grab the keys with. I saw nothing, but my rifle. So I there I am in the middle of nowhere squeezed into my back window trying to fish my keys out of the ignition with a gun. Sadly the gun was not long enough but I was able to find a stick and get the job done. I spent the rest of the weekend, as Alabama said, "just being natures friend" in a laid back way I had almost forgot was possible. Below are some picture from that weekend, click to enlarge them.

Things that happened after I failed at blogging

Frontier Days – Tons of fun

7 day wilderness trip – also fun, great kids, best co guide

Hanging out with coworkers – as always fun

Kickball whose only rule is that you have to always have a beer in your hand – speaks for itself

Absolutely terrible base camp – suck and it was Daphne’s last job

Absolutely awesome base camp – worked it with John Scheid, sweet

Made moccasins and a new sheath – being productive is fun

And so other stuff I guess, I know, weak sauce.

Everything from my wilderness trip to now is a blur that I don’t remember and don’t really need to. All the days seem to run together out here. I do know I wasted a lot of time with good friends in beautiful country. It was fun.

A failed rescue, horrible horrible (so horrible) sunburn, 14er summits, and a fat jerk from Arizona, sounds exciting right? Of course it does cause it was, duh. Joking aside, I woke up and nailed Mt. Belford and Mt. Oxford, two 14ers south of Leadville. The trail was great and the views were spectacular. Unlike the mountains just to the north, Belford and Oxford were not still covered in 6 feet of snow. I planned to head up the Missouri Creek trail and take the branch trail to the summit of Belford. From Belford I would drop my pack and hustle to Oxford. For my return I was going to drop down the backside of Belford and meet the Missouri Creek trail at the crest of Elkhart pass and take it back to the truck. I did all of that but I did most of it with an angry, belligerent man suffering from altitude sickness and severe dehydration. 

I first saw the man and his wife, who never introduced themselves I presume because they are jerks, on the summit of Belford (they were also in the background of my summit picture). I noticed he was stumbling a bit and I heard him say to his wife “lets take the loop (referring the Elkhart Pass route), I’m too light headed to go back down”. So I struck up a conversation asked him about his water and salt intake and he was not super forthcoming with the details so I said "meh" and left. I figured I wasn’t on the clock so I have no legal responsibility to help them. I said to my self if they were still there when I got back from Oxford I would attempt to help them down. I was in a time crunch trying to outrun the afternoon rain so I scarfed lunch, stashed my pack and grabbed my raincoat and headed across the ridge to Oxford.

Lo and behold about 2 hours later they were still there, and he wouldn’t stop talking.
-They had just arrived THAT DAY FROM PHOENIX
-He had “pounded” and gallon of water just before their hike
-They had no salty snacks
-They described them selves as “not athletic”
There you have it, a perfect recipe of jackassery, what will put you on top of a 14er at the mercy of the elements and strangers. I recommended that we head back down the main trail but take it nice and slow, while it was steeper it was snow free unlike Elkhart pass. Nope. His years of mountaineering experience lead him to insist that crossing snowfields (that had now been in direct sunlight for 5 hours) would be WAY easier than slowly walking down the trail. When I mentioned, “post holing for hours” I just got a blank look. I saw that the only way he was going to comply was if we took Elkhart Pass. And guess what we post holed for hours and it sucked. As we headed down the mountain he got more and more pissy. He and his wife were now out of water, she took some of mine but he refused. I have no idea why. I tried to insist and he started yelling about being fine. He kept stumbling and grabbing me for balance. I told him that, that was a good way for both of us to take a nasty fall, 10 minutes later we were both tumbling down the backside of Belford. We tumbled about 30 feet, I shoved him off of me and said “I tried to help you, now you got to help yourself, I’ll send a ranger back”, and I left. I tried to leave quickly because things were getting unpleasant; sadly I was post holing up to my groin. I bet it was a funny image to the people up on the mountain, me failing to run away as this guy yelled “a**hole!” and his wife joined in. 

First rule of rescuing someone is not to get the rescuer hurt. I busted ass down the mountain and back to the trailhead. Sadly I could feel that the post holing had rubbed off all of my sunscreen and my tube was MIA. I could feel it burning. I made a note of the only car at the trailhead with Arizona plates. I sat on my tailgate and ate an avocado and a hardboiled egg, because screw that guy, I was hungry and not going to let him ruin my day. I got in the truck and headed off to find a ranger. I explained the situation and he said they would send some one up there. I was exhausted, what was supposed to be a short summit day followed by relaxing around a fire has turned in a mess of being yelled at and dealing with an idiot. I stopped and got some ice for my knee that was now pretty swollen from the tumble down the mountain, and headed off to the Leadville Hostel, for a shower and a real bed and to the Silver Dollar for some popcorn and a beer.  

The hostel was pretty sketchy so I decided it would be better to crash at my coworker Steven's place and take the 16 dollar hit. I had already done my laundry, used their shower and internet so it was not a total loss. I woke up at 9am and ran 22 blocks in the rain back to the hostel, trying to beat the 10am check out time so they would not charge me for another day. 9:55 I slid in there and ripped the sheets off my bed and ran to the office. I wandered around Denver for a bit and then decided it was time to head back to Minturn. I took Loveland pass instead of the tunnel and it was beautiful. I camped out with John on land SOS owns and we listened to Andrew's first show on Radio Free Minturn.

This last week I worked my first SOS base camp, and I loved it! The kids were great, and my coworkers are phenomenal. I finished that up on Thursday and headed to Leadville to do some laundry. While I was at the Laundromat I noticed a kid, kind of floating around me like he wanted to talk to me. Finally he stopped and said, “hey man I’m with Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, and I lost my ID on the trail. Think you could help me out?”, I laughed and said no. I was in a Laundromat, talking to my grandma on the phone; I’m not sure what part of that exudes the “I’ll buy kids booze” vibe. Well actually I guess just being at the Leadville laundromat and shower, puts that vibe out. I finished my laundry and met a friend and was able to grab a couch to sleep on in Leadville, which is always a good thing.

When couch surfing ,(floating friends couch to friends couch) there are a few things to remember;
Have something to offer, something that’s not money
Money should never come into play when couch surfing, it’s insulting, an defeats the purpose of couch surfing. So far I have gotten by on offering interesting conversation and PBR. 
Never expect a couch
Go with the flow, the worst thing that can happen is sleeping in the truck again.
Don’t be a hassle
If you get a couch and a shower to boot, then good job, but don’t throw off your host’s morning schedule by jumping in their shower. Wake up early! No one will invite you back if you sleep in until noon and occupy the couch all day. Wake up especially early if you don’t really know the people that own the house. Always fold the blankets they loaned you and leave a thank-you note or a pineapple (as I did last night), if they are those kind of people.

Saturday morning I headed to Minturn to meet Daphne and go to the farmers market. I bought some bread and a pulled pork sandwich. Then I headed over to Beaver Creek Resort to watch the Tough Mudder. The Tough Mudder is an insane race with crazy obstacles. Daphne and I went to cheer on Andrew but totally missed him. Then we met some coworkers at a party. I got on well with every one I was introduced to and hoped I could parley that into a couch for the night, and I did. I am on couch surfing fire! Following rule 3 of couch surfing I folded my blankets, and busted out of there at 745. I hit Leadville for some groceries. Luckily it was Liyah’s day off so I got to talk to her, which was great because I really miss her. My life is very hectic right now, and I miss having her always there when I need her.

Right now I am sitting at a campsite, in the Colligate Peaks Wilderness, next to a beautiful pool watching a beaver swim and collect food. I am almost done cooking dinner (first meal on the new coleman). Tomorrow I am waking up at 4 am and attempting to climb, Mt. Oxford, Mt, Belford.

Well staff training was nothing special, other than the fact that I got to meet to some awesome people. I cant even go on for more than a sentence about staff training because it was so crazy and compacted in to such a short time that I am still processing pretty much all of it. Our last day of staff training was Thursday and it took place at the climbing wall at Camp Hale. Camp Hale was the base where the 10th Mountain Division trained as well as Tibetan guerillas, it also housed prisoners from Rommel’s Afrika Corps. We were all checked off to set top ropes and belay. From Camp Hale I headed back to Minturn to pick up my laptop charger (that I leave everywhere). After picking up my charger I headed back to Leadville and took a shower at the hostel. The Leadville hostel is great; 20 dollars for a room, 3 for a shower and 1 for wifi. I ended up at Kristen’s house (one of my coworkers). My self Daphne, Jamie, Kristen and John S (or other John) sat around a bonfire and shot the shit all night we also explored her creepy, trap door in the kitchen, basement. We all ended up crashing at Kristen house. I woke up and busted out of there around 7 am to work a climbing day at Camp Hale. Sadly it was dumping buckets of rain when I got there so I figure it was canceled and took a nap in my truck to await word that confirmed my suspicions. While I was sleeping I heard a strange knocking in my dream only to awake to Mikalaya’s  face in my window. Climbing was canceled so I headed back to Leadville.

I met up with Kristen and other John and we headed to Salida Co. for FIBark! FIBark is a whitewater festival sponsored by New Belgium. John and I got there just in time to see Jamie compete in the women’s freestyle expert category. She showed up with nothing, she was able to talk Jackson out of a boat and found a PFD, paddle and helmet somewhere. Not only did she kill it she won! 

We hung for the rest of the day watching the freestyle comp. After the days heats ended I headed back to my truck to drop off my pack. As I was walking to my truck I felt an arm snake around my shoulder, a girl with dreds then stuck a bottle in my gut and said, “take a pull of this!”, sadly I did. The smell and taste was instantly recognizable, Canadian Club and Vodka. A trick broke ass college students pull to give their gas station whiskey a bit more kick. suddenly I was surrounded but people with dreds who swept me along the path to the parking lot. I recognized some of them from the comp that day. We sat in the back of their truck, and talked about the comp, as they swigged their nasty concoction. When I was offered a second pull I declined and excused myself.  The night closed or started, depending on your definition, when Juneau What?  Took the main stage. They were awesome, I even tried to dance but quickly saw that it was not working and stopped. After Juneau What? we hit the town. We found a sweet bluegrass band, The Broken Spoke, playing at one of the bars in town. After their set I waited in line to tell them how much I liked them. I mentioned I would love to buy their album, but as I was living in my truck I didn’t have it budgeted so the lead singer, Tom, just gave me one! We chatted for a bit, since he and I were the only sober people at the bar. As the collective intoxication of Salida increased, I decided that it was time for bed. I really don’t understand how people can get that drunk that fast, and I didn’t care to see how it turned out. On my way to the car I heard another band that sounded good, but the bar was really rowdy so I headed to my truck and went to bed. 

The sun hit my truck at 7 and by 8 it was an oven. I was brushing my teeth as other John woke up and got out of his CRV. It turns out he was out way later than me, he confirmed my suspicions that the entire town was crazy drunk and I was glad I had not stuck around for it.  Day two of fibark was really cool, we hit the New Belgium Parade at 10 am and it was awesome. Then I went and watched stand up white water paddling. Stand up paddling is a newish sport where you stand up on a surfboard and paddle through whitewater. I lost interest and wandered around town for awhile. Salida is a neat little town, but it’s pretty expensive.  John, Kristen, Kirsten’s friend whose name I don’t remember and I headed to the Boat House for dinner. Then we headed down for the Hooligan Race!!!!

The hooligan race is where people make their own crazy boats and race down the river. If they make it through the two standing waves they must contend with the bridge. I’ll let the pictures speak for them selves. 

After the Hooligan Race an all female AC/DC cover band called Hells Bells took the stage. Whilst trying to locate a vantage to watch the show from, I almost stepped in some puke. Thanks to a friendly warning I narrowly avoided it. Literally a second after jumping over the puke a dude walked up and complemented my moves and offered my mushroom chocolates. I am almost positive the two are connected. It was about then that I decided it was time to get moving. I have decided that this summer will be lead by my gut, no planning no reservations, just freewheeling. If that doesn’t sounds good to you then just stop reading now. I tried to get a hotel in Salida, I don’t know what I was thinking, with the festival, the whole town was booked up.  I am ashamed of myself, I had a moment of doubt. For a minute I thought I was too tired and it was too late to sleep in my truck, I devotion to my summer plan was failing. Since there was no vacancies I headed back to the festival and camped. Again about 7 the sun hit my truck and by it it was an oven. I woke up and headed out of town. The plan was to head back to Buena Vista and go tubing, but the more I heard about the tubing the less I was into it. Heading in to Buena Vista I suddenly got a wild hair and cut a hard right on to route 285 towards Denver. It was a beautiful drive, it hit two passes and crossed high plains. In the heat of the day I pulled over to have lunch. I sat under a tree looking out across the great plains of Colorado. As I looked out over the flat expanse at 10,000 feet, hemmed in by mountains, I thought Colorado is alright. I used to hate it but I relized I had only seen the Denvers, Vails, and Winter Parks of Colorado, I could never live in those towns, never. I could however thrive in the Leadvilles, and Fairplays of Colorado.

By and by I pulled in to Denver and headed to the Melbourne Inn and Hostel. The price was much better than the Leadville hostel, $16 for a bed, $3 for sheets, and showers were free and had no time limit. I did some laundry in the Laundromat attached to the hostel. This is a Laundromat bus station, where all of the signs are in Spanish. I chatted up the woman behind the counter and found out that she would sell me a bus ticket for cash with no ID. So out two and two together on that one. While I waited an old Hispanic man approached me with his hands out yelling “ Todo su dinero, Ahora!”, I responded “No hablo espanol”, and looked at the woman behind the counter. She yelled at him in Spanish and as he puttered off she smiled at me and said “he wont bother you anymore”. Then I headed off on a mission to fill my craving for fish tacos. 

 I had also been told to go and help as the SOS Outreach (the company I am working for this summer) booth at the Denver Pride Parade. Yup. This is how ghetto SOS Outreach is, they did not have their own booth they were working the Barefoot Wine booth and a handing out SOS sickers and pamphlets. Since I stumbled in to Steven (a coworker) before I found a fish taco stand I helped them clean up the booth and rewarded with a free bottle of wine. I don’t really know what I am going to do with that since I don’t drink wine. I will probably hold on to it and give it to some one at work on Wednesday. 

Finally I found some fish tacos! I bought one for there and one to go and headed back to the hostel. Where I currently sit reflecting on what a bizarre and interesting week my first week in Colorado was. 

This summer I will be guiding in Colorado. Instead of paying for housing I have opted to live in my truck. Yup. So my plan is to work my trips and spend my down time enjoying living outside with no electricity or running water for about 60 days and to squeeze as many 14ers in as possible. I will return to the front country a day before my next work trip to shower and prepare mentally for work. While in the front country I plan to post media rich blogs about my time, solo, in the wilderness. I aim to keep it light and fun. So here is my first Colorado blog, it covers travel to Vail and my first day in CO. I drove through Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska, pretty much the three most boring states in the country. When I finally made it to colorado I was greeted by the first traffic jam of the trip. I filmed interesting bits of the drive from Denver to Vail and strung them together at 800X speed. Just because.

I stayed at Beaver Creek Resort in Vail, which is as fancy as it sounds. Today I woke up at the crack of 11 and headed toward Leadville. My goal was to hike to Holy Cross City, an abandoned mining camp outside of Leadville, but the road was snowed out so I just wandered around in the snow for a couple of hours. Then I headed up to Homestake Reservoir and hiked around there. When I was done hiking I headed in to Leadville since I was right there. I have driven all over Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado, and thought it was all pretty, but the drive from Minturn to Leadville is one of, if not the, most beautiful drives I have ever made. A testament to this fact is that I hardly have any pictures because I was too busy just soaking it in.

On my way back to Minturn I passed through Red Cliff, which was a great little town crammed into a very narrow valley, not more than 1000 yards across at its widest part. I also passed Gilman CO, an abandoned mining town just off the highway, perched on an outcropping that drops 600 feet into the Eagle River. The mine was closed and the town was abandoned in 1984 after two large fish kills due to mine waste lead to an EPA investigation. It was left so quickly that there are still cars in some of the garages. I would really like to check it out but it is private property, and I heard in Red Cliff that the EPA takes trespassing on a Superfund Site very seriously. 

This is a quick tour of my home for the summer. I apologize for the crap camera work

Not as exciting as it sounds. My dad and I headed straight from Texas to Yaak, Montana to hunt black bear. My first thought when we got up on the Yaak River was “holy hell there is a lot of snow up here”.  We found tons of bear sign (scat & tracks), the only problem was it was all grizzly scat and tracks. We saw moose, elk and an absurd amount of white tails, but no black bears. It was so depressing. We would head up a logging road to scout and less than 500 yards in we would hit 3 feet of snow or a mess of fallen trees blocking the road. 

The trees were easy, I would get out and move it if I could but the snow stopped us dead in our tracks. One road was totally iced up, snow packed by logging trucks, we said screw it and just kept going. We were driving up this totally iced over logging road sliding all over the place because I don’t have chains and after almost sliding in to the river for the tenth time we decided to turn around. It was a huge bust, but it was me and my dad hanging out cooking on the tailgate and enjoying nature so it was still a lot of fun, just not bear killing fun. It all about attitude, a bust of a trip can still be awesome (see gannett peak shit show). On the way home we stopped at the old Montana prison and the Berkeley Pit (largest superfund site in North America). Hopefully my dad will be able to come back in the fall and pop a bear then.

The summer is here and that means it’s traveling season. At the end of April my family all traveled to Yorktown, Texas for the Woods Family reunion. This is my mom’s side of the family, and this reunion is the oldest family gathering in the state of Texas. I don’t know for sure when the reunion stated but the Woods family was one of the original founding families that Sam Houston took to Texas, so I think its been quite awhile. This year was special for two reasons, one sad and one happy. First my grandpa suspects this will be his last visit to Texas, for the reunion. From the vibe I was getting the family suspects the same, but he is a fighter and I give him better odds. Second our great-uncle John Allen passed down a fiddle that has been in the family for over 100 years to my sister. It was owned by my grandpa’s “free spirited bachelor uncle”, Monroe Woods. He was a character, he married a schoolteacher once but was “too free spirited for her”, and according to John Allen as long as you kept him in beer he would fiddle all day for you. He was a cowboy and would strap the fiddle to his saddlebags and take it on cattle drives. Monroe once rode into town with grandpa and said “You go to the movies and I’ll have a drink, meet me here when you’re done and we will ride home”. Well, grandpa came out of the movies, and there was a drunk Monroe and no horse. Grandpa asked him what happed to the horse and Monroe said, “I ran out of money, we best start walking.” 

Uncle John Allen gave Kat the fiddle on the condition that she learn, and play for him, The Waltz You Saved For Me. When the time came she got her violin out but John Allen insisted she play it on Monroe’s fiddle “because it has that twang”. It hadn’t been played since Monroe died and took forty-five minutes for her to tune. John Allen stood in silence while she played and it looked like he was going to tear up. He even asked my mom if she knew how to waltz because he hadn’t danced since 1964.

The next day we went to the reunion at the family cemetery. Every year the graves are decorated and we sing hymns. Kat played amazing grace on Monroe’s fiddle as generations of the Woods family sang. Then we retired to the foreign legion hall and tore into a feast of home fried chicken, sweet tea, and more delicious southern fare. Sadly there is not a full film of her playing and I don't posses a hard copy of the partial, but you can view it on my facebook.