Too Much Fun 2010 Teaser

The Too Much Fun (TMF) 2010 expedition went to the Wind River Range from July 20-25th, 2010. 6 of us hiked in about 20 miles for our first camp near Arrowhead Peak.

Chelsey, Daniel, and Jason packed into their "tent"

The next day the rain hit when we were about to start climbing. This made things interesting. The rain continued as we recollected our stuff and headed over to Titcomb Basin. It stormed a lot that night. The next day we climbed the S buttress of Tower 1 on Mt Helen and then up to the summit.

Mt Helen from our camp

On day 4 we headed over Bonney Pass and climbed Gannet Peak, then down the N ridge and west into the Wells Creek drainage.

Acroyoga on the summit of Gannet

On day 5 we descended (a little sketchy) to the Green River and packrafted down to in between the Green River Lakes. On day 6 we hiked around the other lake and rafted down the Green River for a long ways, then we got an amazing ride back to our cars. As you can imagine, the gear and miles required for this trip meant that there wasn't a lot of room left for comfort - hence the other name for this trip, a sufferfest. For instance, we had 2 tiny shelters and 2 sleeping bags (added at the last minute) for 6 people and we took hand paddles to save weight. Good times were had by all, but not all the time.

Hand paddling down the Green River with Squaretop in the background

This is just a teaser post, there will be a more complete trip report coming sometime. I'll put a link here when that happens.

As promised, here are some links... to the Wend blog or about the same info on my web page.


link to the spot track from this trip

Windy Mountain Hike Teaser

Another Teaser, this time of a hike into the Wind River Range starting at Dickinson Park and hiking or scrambling up Cathedral Peak and then Windy Mountain (12,539). That night I bivied over 12,000 feet sheltered in a V shaped rock formation. The wind was really high and gusty though and it was cold. I was glad to see the sun the next morning. The next morning I scrambled up peak 12,490 and Mount Chauvenet before hiking back out the Bears Ears Trail. The wind kept the mosquitos at bay most of the time, but also made it cold and knocked over some trees. As usual the views were spectacular and the amount of rock is staggering. In this picture from Mount Chauvenet you can see Cathedral Lake in the middle and Wind River on the horizon on the right (the snowy peak that I climbed last year).I made it back to Lander in time to catch Tartuffe by Moliere put on in the park.


here is my spot track from this trip

a more complete trip report can be seen here

International Climber's Festival

I just had a good run at the International Climbers Festival in Lander, Wyoming. I entered 3 contests, a rope throwing one (where I went first and didn't place - going later would have allowed me to scope other people's methods). I also entered the crate stacking contest (where you stack up milk crates while climbing up the tower you are making) - I got 21 crates and won! (second place had 20) they made a little video of it here: crate stacking craziness video link.

Then almost nobody was signed up for the slackline competition, so I entered that too. I wasn't particularly smooth as I tried to do what I could remember of Sam's yoga slackline routine. Still, it was good enough for the win.

It is nice to be able to put my useless skills to work.

RMNP scrambleathon preview

This is a teaser preview from a recent Rocky Mountain National Park scramble up and over Arrowhead, McHenry, Powell, and Thatchtop and the nice ridges between them. I did this trip with Kim Luba, always up for a good sufferfest in the mountains. We started hiking at 3:40 and got back to the car some time after 6 pm. We were in a nice weather bubble with no lightning or precipitation for the entire hike. We saw some nice wildlife too, including a mom and baby elk at rather close range (but too dark that early in the morning for fully satisfactory photography). As I said, this is only a teaser. Here are a few pictures...

Obligatory pose down on the summitHere is a link to the spot track of this adventure.

Here is a more complete version on my web page. Rocky Mountain traverse

Escape Velocity Achieved

"Head West" they say, and so I did. The Mountains are calling, and I must go. ZOOOM.

I stopped in Davenport Iowa to watch fireworks the 3rd. Now I am acclimating in Estes Park, CO.

Caught in the vortex

Lately I have been caught in the Needham vortex. Various events keep coming up that I will leave "right after" they are done. Birthdays, visits from relatives, etc. Someday I will achieve escape velocity, but not today. It is easy to get lulled into another day or 2 or 3 or whatever here. One of the projects I have been working on is hand paddles for the packraft. These aren't particularly nice for actually paddling anywhere, but the size and weight saving over regular paddles are significant and hopefully that will be worth it for the upcoming TMF expedition. TMF = Too Much Fun - also known as a sufferfest.