These things are small, but really neat looking. Rocky over at the goat linked to them and I thought I would pass them along.

They had the garage sale in Durham this morning and boy did we make out. I personally didn’t get much. Just a pair of nice shoes that can replace my current pair that is getting really worn out. But this time I brought others with me, and they all walked out with piles of booty. We got three backpacks, two from the garage sale for $30 and $50 and one full price. They got shoes, clothes, and Melissa got a nice down sleeping bag that was only like $8 because it has a tear in it that mom will easily be able to fix. Its pretty awesome that we were able to get what we did because we are planning some trips with them for later this spring and they will now be geared up and ready to go.

The backpack we got full price was an Osprey Ariel that James, Melissa, and I got for mom. She really likes my Osprey Aether, and the Ariel is the womans version of that. She tried it on with weight and it was love at first sight. If she was excited to go backpacking before she is really stoked now.

I also enjoyed a double header that the pack played against VT in baseball at the Doak this afternoon. Their game yesterday was rained out, so they played two today, and I went to one whole game and stayed for an inning of the second. We won the first 12-8 and the second 5-2 and as usual it was great baseball. Here are some pics I took:

Yeah I know its been a while since I have written anything here, but things have been busy and I haven’t been so inspired. I was also gone backpacking for a long weekend, and you can see the pics from that here. Kevin and I planned to hike Blackstock Knob out by Mount Mitchell, but we learned a few lessons and ended up doing Linville instead.

The first lesson was always call ahead, even if you dont need a permit or anything. We got to the Mitchell area and everything was closed due to fire danger (high wind and dry weather.) Our second lesson was to be flexible. After scratching our heads for a few minutes we decided to go to Linville Gorge, which is only 30 minutes from Mitchell. Part of the second lesson was bring all your maps just in case. We didn’t have a map for Linville, and that limited what we could do there. However the layout of the park is pretty simple, with the LG trail running the length of the river and all of the other trails dropping down into the gorge to the LG trail.

We decided to hike down into the northern part of the gorge and then hike along the river till we were beneath table rock, about in the middle of the gorge. I have hiked from the middle south, but never in the northern part, and there were a lot of really neat spots. One was a place where the river does an S all the way back on itself and drops several hundred feet rather abruptly. Another is the Babel Tower area where I am really looking forward to bringing a group to camp sometime this summer.

So we slept by the cars Thursday night. Friday morning we hiked down to the bridge at the spence ridge trail, and we spent the afternoon lazing by the river, sleeping, setting up camp, doing lunch and dinner, smoking our pipes, etc. It was very relaxing and totally enjoyable. Saturday morning we took the Conley Cove trail up to the road and hiked the road back to the cars. We were on our way home by noon Saturday.

So a couple other things that we learned. The saw that I brought was extremely useful for cutting brush into firewood, which enables us to keep warm when the temperatures got down to the 30s. Also we decided to make sure we have marshmallows next time and double check which end of the can Kevin tries to open with his pocketknife.

Also don’t count on being able to cover that much trail at Linville Gorge, because the going, even along the LG trail, is very slow. We also have decided that of the Cabin Trail, Pinch In trail, and Conley Cove trail, the Conley Cove trail is by far the easiest way out on the west side of the gorge.

Overall the trip was a great success given all the adapting that needed to happen and a great first experience with backpacking in early March. Looking forward to more trips like it this summer.

Jillian and I have been married for almost two years now, and we have had lots of adventures over the past two years, and from almost all of those adventures we have lots of pictures. The other day we sat down at the computer and looked through all the pictures from the past two years and picked out 13 really good ones from all of the various adventures, and we are having them printed for us to put on our walls. I was surprised at what a good price you can order prints for. We uploaded our pictures to Walmart.com and ordered ten 5×7s and three 8×10s for around $12 total. We are buying frames and we plan to have a wall containing all of our adventure pictures. I’ll post the ones that we chose on the blog here this evening or sometime.

I have always thought that the downside of digital photos is that its a little bit of a hassle to get hard copies of the pictures. However I am now convinced that digital is all good. If all of our pictures had been taken on old style cameras then we would have spent hundreds of dollars by now having the film developed, and we would have had to pay at least as much to have them blown up to 5×7s and 8×10s. Blow ups of digital pictures come out better because the resolution is so high when the picture is taken, and you don’t have to worry about the picture being damaged.

My dream is that down the road we have hundreds of pictures on the walls of our house from all over the world. Every picture can be a reminder of a trip or experience that we had, and can tell a story. We have been so blessed to have so many such experiences in the two short years that we have been married, and we hope for many more like them.

On the side, we have at least four panoramic photos that we would like developed. I have been told that pixeloutpost is the only way to go to print pans, but it is still pretty expensive there. If anyone has any advice for printing panoramic photos it would be greatly appreciated.

I put together the video I took of Brad at Snowshoe Monday.  If you enjoy things like awful wipe-outs then you will like this video.  Brad performs one of the most beautiful landings off of a snowboard jump that I have ever witnessed.  Check it out here on Google.

Brad, Mr Pete and I drove out to Snowshoe on Sunday night, and had an incredible day snowboarding on Monday. I think when we went to Beech Mountain a couple weeks ago i said that was the best conditions I had been in. That was far superseded by Monday. It snowed for a week and a half leading up to Monday, and there was over a foot of natural snow covering the county, and over three feet on the slopes. I have never been on powder before, but Monday we had an abundance. Down the center of the trails the snow was hard packed, but along the sides you would sink into the powder so it came almost to your knees. There were trails in the woods that you could skate through, and tons of neat features along the slopes. not only that but the place was empty, so at some lifts there were no lines at all, and on others the lines were less then 10 minutes.

This was the countryside on the way out there.

I had never been to snowshoe before, and I loved that place. We were on the slopes all day, never stopping to eat lunch or anything, and we didn’t even do half of the trails there. Everything we did do was a lot of fun, and the size and difficulty of every trail kept things interesting. I discovered that moguls are actually very enjoyable when they are not made up of mounds of ice that jolt you every time you hit them. All of their black diamonds had moguls and a lot of their intermediate slopes had moguls, and they were a lot of fun to tackle.

The powder is deep on and off the slopes

Another incredible thing about snowshoe was their terrain park. It was enormous, and each feature was enormous. I figured that I would give some of the things a shot, and tried some of them out, but most of the stuff there scared the crap out of me… which is good, because it gives me something really high to aim for. Maybe someday I’ll be hitting stuff like that. I did carve my first black diamond and built up the confidence to tackle any slope, so I should be able to keep up with any of my skier friends on future trips.

The potential energy depicted here is amazing. In another second both the snow butt boy and the camera man would be zooming down this slope almost to the lake far below.

The long and the short of it is that it was an incredible day snowboarding (as every day snowboarding this year has been incredible) and it was beyond incredible due to how incredibly incredible the conditions were. That was the long… the short is that it was incredible. The end.

Two things this weekend.  First of all it seems that things have come together for snowboarding on Monday.  We’re planning on going up to snowshoe, and i am really excited about that.  Of all the places in the southeast it is the biggest, with 57 trails.  It is very spread out so that none of the lifts should get too crowded, and it has been snowing all week and is supposed to snow all weekend, with Monday being sunny.  Looks to be some great snowboarding.

The other thing I am excited about is fantasy baseball.   With the season just around the corner I am full steam ahead studying for the draft.  Last night I did a mock draft that was helpful because it lets you get an idea for where people are being drafted.  I thought I did pretty well in the mock draft, and looking forward to the real thing.  There are so many great players that emerged last year, it will be very interesting to see how things play out.

I compiled all the video from Thursdays snowboarding trip, added a tune, and put it on Google video, where you can see it here. Enjoy!

I am planning a few trips for the near and distant future and thought I’d throw them out there in case anyone local is interested in joining. Closest at hand is a boarding trip out to beech mountain tomorrow that I am “totally stoked” about. Its an all guy trip since their have free lift tickets for guys on Thursdays, and we have 7 so far. Should be great conditions as they have had tons of cold weather and snow lately, and it shouldn’t be too crowded since its a week day.

I also have Presidents day (February 19th) off work, and I am planning on going snowboarding then too, though I haven’t decided where yet. Maybe up to WV for some “big time stuff.” If anyone is interested in joining me just let me know.

The third is a backpacking trip out to the Mount Mitchell area in early March to climb Blackstock Knob (one of the SB6000 mountains.) That should be chilly but as long as its sunny it should be nice. I am excited enough about backpacking to not mind the cold and am looking forward to knocking out another over 6000 peak.

The other backpacking trip doesn’t have a date yet, but will be when things warm up a little and will most likely involve some people who are excited to go backpacking but have never been before. Hopefully my brother and sister will both be able to come out and we’ll do something like Linville Gorge or Shining Rock.

Alright well there they are, roughly and without much detail. Just let me know if you are interested in joining any of them.

Yesterday I got one of those emails from REI saying that you can take an additional 20% off one REI-Outlet item (the coupon code is outlet27 by the way.) Every time I have gotten one of those I have checked the outlet to see if their UL60 backpack is there, and up till now it hasn’t been. The UL series of backpacks by REI was designed (as its name suggests) to be ultra light. The UL 60 is a backpack with almost 4000 ci capacity that only weighs a little more then 3 pounds and is super simple. When they first came out and I was looking for a backpack I tried one on and really liked it. It has some unique innovation which make it super comfortable, and it is big enough for a weekend trip. The only problems back then was that it was expensive and I was a little worried about its durability.

Well as you might have figured out already that pack is now for sale on REI outlet and with the additional 20% off if it only costs $63. That is an amazing price and I cannot resist. In the past we have tried planning trips with some people who are new to backpacking and don’t have their own stuff yet. I will now have an extra pack that anyone I want to bring can use (one of its features is that it is very adjustable for size.) My concern about the durability of the pack is nixed since it is my ultralight backup now, that I will only use in non rugged conditions. Yes I now have two backpacks, but now you can see all of my rationalizations spelled out. Thats my story and I’m sticking to it!