Dawn 'til Dusk

Amanda, Ryan, Zach and I drove to Gallop, NM on Friday afternoon to participate in a 12 hour mountain bike race as a team.  The race was on Saturday from 8am to 8pm.  It was a relay so one person from our team was out riding the whole 12 hours.  It was a great time or fun trails!  We were lucky enough to come in second!

Amanda getting ready for her first lap.

Ryan eating breakfast after his first lap.

Chillin' while Zach is out on the trail working hard.

The transition.

Last lap of the day.

Team Handle Barz!

Desert Fun

Bill Grasse made a video the other day that I think is great.  Good memories of great times with friends!

Stoned Oven

Matt, Bill and I drove up to climb Stoned Oven, which is a route in the Black Canyon.  Below is my first attempt at using imovie.  I now have a new appreciation for editing!

Canyon Country

Last weekend Bill, Dan, Michelle and I went canyoneering.  

Driving

Hiking to the start.

About to drop in...

A small petrified dog that we happened upon.

At the start of the canyon.

There were tires and all kinds of stuff down there.

It got dark enough that we had to use headlamps for a bit.  

Lunch break.

Bill

Evening entertainment.

Back at camp.

Day 2

Scorpion!

This was a huge free hanging rappel.  

Look for the black spot rappelling.

Lunch

There where some springs at the bottom of the big rappel.  So from there on out there was a lot of life down there and pretty big cottonwoods for the bottom of a canyon in the desert.

Super fun weekend with friends!

White Rim

Bill, Matt and I were able to go to the desert on Sunday and Monday to climb a little on the White Rim.  I told Bill to be at the City Market in Moab at 6:30am, my mistake was telling him that Matt was meeting me in Durango at 4am.  Apparently Bill's truck does not usually make the Durango to Moab trip in an easy 2hrs and 30min, because he decided there was no way we would be there on time and slept in.  We arrived at 6:32am in Moab because of a bathroom break in Monticello and finally at 7am Bill rolled into City Market.

First on the list was Hardscrabble...

Hardscrabble from the north.

The troops.

Pitch 2 belay.

Bill jugging, Ben belaying, Matt leading

Summit!

 We got back to the car at 4pm.  Next on the list was Charliehorse Needle...

Hiking in.

Bill on pitch 1

Pitch 2

Bill on pitch 2

Matt on pitch 3.

Exiting the summit.

Back at camp...

Candlestick was the objective for Monday...

Finishing pitch 1

Belaying pitch 2

While I was driving home Bill and Matt were food shopping for Tuesday.  They managed to drag themselves up the Tombstone and Cenotaph. Still not sure how they managed without me.