The Trek

Several months ago my friend, Hellen, and I decided to put our names in for the Whitney Lottery. For those of you who do not know what this is, I will explain. Mt Whitney is the tallest mountain in the contiguous US standing at 14,505 feet. It is very hard to obtain a permit through the lottery, so I am told. We were fortunate to receive one.

In the weeks leading up to the trip, I was determined to become prepared for the trip. This is something that I have never been able to accomplish. Usually I am getting my shit together the nite before I leave on the excursion --- this means I forget very importants such as T.P.

My pack was completely packed the night before, and I even weighed. It came in at 32lbs, without a bear cannister and water. I assume my pack hit 40 lbs. The lony 2 miles that this came into play was the 2.5 miles jaunt from 10K feet to 12,500 feet. It was horrendous, I wish someone would have told us that this stretch of trail was grueling and hot! It was like a Death March.

We made to 12,500 feet without any major problems. We quickly forgot about the Death March once the sun went down and we were eatting our dehyrated packets of food. I got great sleep given the elevation, however, Hellen was not as fortunate. She slept through that headache as best as she could.

On the morning of my 29th birthday, I headed for the summit. It was a clear day with no wind. I paced myself and reached the top in 4 hours, an hour ahead of schedule. I felt great and made it with not headache or nausea! I couldn't have asked to a better birthday.

Mt Whitney Summit

Buttercup --- R.I.P.

Back in January, the nickname Buttercup was put to rest. There is no longer a nickname for Duncan....for now.

Celebrate good time...come on....

Mogli in ACTION

Who's that girl?

The BIG E turns 3-0!!!!

Can't believe it, but my older sister turned 30 this year........you know what that means?
She is half way to 60!

I flew back to PA in April to help celebrate the occasion. It was suppose to be a suprise, but then, the snafu happened. 5:45 pm --- There we were (Molly, JB and I), making dinner for the party and talking about the people who were going to attend the party. Then BAM! Emily and Mogli show up unexpected. I dropped everything I was doing and ran down stairs. Molly and JB proceeded to follow me. As I was running to my hiding place, I realized, "why is JB and Molly following me?" I turned around an whispered as loud as I could...."why are you following me?" JB replies, "I don't know." I instructed the two of them to go upstairs and entertain Emily. I told them that I would wait until the "suprise" was going to take place and then appear. I got JB and Molly composed (side note, don't ask me where our mother was when all of this was taking place) and sent them upstairs. Not 5 minutes goes by and the snafu happened .... JB let out the secret of the suprise and I had to come out of hiding. In the meantime, Mogli was running around and hanging from the ceiling.

So much for the suprise. Oh well, we opened the bottle of Jack and toasted to Emily.

Lake Tahoe

Freshie....

An Epic Snow Day.....

Duncan in the Snow

Tahoe Snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We rented a cabin this past season in Tahoe with 10 of our closest friends:) Imagine....a hostel in Tahoe....that is what are ski cabin looks like!

I think that my car is on auto-pilot to South Lake. We went almost everyother weekend from the end of December to April. All in all it was another great boarding season with alot of the snow falling in March.

In case you were wondering, I ripped up the slopes and left Duncan in the dust.