Cold

The snow has stopped and now it is just cold. Really cold. Like -1F without windchill cold.

But also beautiful and sunny.

Snowing

That's all. Just snowing.

Birthday weekends

For the past two years Jaro and I have spent early January at Red Rocks (outside Vegas), one of the best sunny winter climbing destinations in the US. Two years ago this meant I turned thirty in the desert, got salmonella, and spent my birthday in the tent in the campground. Oh... and Jaro managed to sprain his ankle on day two of the trip. Last year my birthday was the exact opposite of salmonella. We had a gorgeous sunny day, hiked up to a popular route, were the first people there, found a piece of gear someone had dropped (Booty!), and climbed some excellent pitches. We ended the day with a yummy dinner at PF Changs and dessert and book reading at Whole Foods. Mmm. Hard to top.

Happy Birthday from Red Rocks 2010

This year we decided to stay in Colorado and explore some of the climbing in the area instead. Friday we got out with Little Jon and spent the day in Eldorado Canyon. It was warm in the sun and not crowded. We had a fun day even though the boys got shut down on the routes they wanted to do and Jaro dislodged a giant death block from one of the routes he was climbing.

The death block Jaro dislodged while climbing Purple Haze. Eek!

Since today is my actual birthday we started the day with coffee and pastries from the little German bakery in Boulder. Nothing like a chocolate croissant to start the day. :) We planned on going back to Eldo., but the weather was against us. It was overcast, cold, and windy and none of us felt much like climbing in those conditions. We ended up going for a hike on a trail we hadn't been on before and checking out a bunch of climbing areas in the southern flatirons. The trails here are great and I will definitely be going back for some trail running once the snow melts.

Our hike ended with a trip to Smashburger, from which I am still recovering. OMG. The grease. I can't believe Jaro ate the ½ pound burger! Watching movies now and planning on relaxing and knitting the rest of the weekend. My box of goodies from knitpicks just arrived!

Ypsilon Lake Take 2

On Sunday Jaro, Jon, and I headed back up the Ypsilon Lake trail. This time we were armed with snowshoes and poles. It was a long day of trudging through snow, sometimes deep snow, sometimes breaking trail, but we had fun and made it to the top. Well... we think we made it to the top. It seemed like the logical place to stop anyway according to our topo map. We lost the trail near the top due to super deep snow.

10 miles of snow trudging + 2000 feet of elevation gain = 13 hours of sleeping afterwards

First Quilt

I finished my first ever quilt earlier this week. And by first I mean the first one I have done totally by myself start to finish... with no help from my grandma (I always seem to run out of gas at some point and she takes over.)

The fabric was bought at Sarah's in Lawrence, which is one of the coolest fabric stores ever. I used a white flannel with grass green polka dots on one side and a pink cotton print with little chickies on the other side. Originally I intended to use the pink fabric as the binding, but I didn't have enough in the end due to some poor planning (aka not really knowing what I was doing!). For the binding I used premade double wide double folded bias tape from Jo-anns. It looked the best of all the options I had.

I didn't get a good picture of the quilt at the very end, but here are a few pictures I took along the way.

Baby Lily's Quilt

Cabin Fever

It seems like every week there has been at least one day in the mid-50s... warm enough to climb. Unfortunately none of these days ever seem to be Saturday or Sunday. So instead of climbing, I went snow trudging on Saturday in RMNP on the Lake Ypsilon Trail.

Cutest Kitties Ever