Valentine

This is Brian's lover, Alina. I've hacked into his blog, on this Valentines Day, to give him a virtual card. (Because I love you, and love to embarrass you.)












TUNED IN

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.
George Washington Carver (1864 - 1943)

If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere.
Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890)

SUCCESSFUL

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
Herman Cain

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945)

PATIENT

If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.
Hal Borland (1900 - 1978)

STRONG

The first prerequisite of an advanced being is a sense of humor.
Richard Bach (1936 - )

HUMOROUS

BRIGHT

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love; and in proportion to our truthfulness and confidence in one another, our lives are divine and miraculous, and answer to our ideal. . . . Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.

What is the singing of birds, or any natural sound, compared with the voice of one we love?
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

LIVING IN MELODY

41 inches in 72 hours and other stuff

Last weekend we ended up getting 41 inches of snow in 72 hours in the La Sals and almost nothing in town, it was almost an all time record for the La Sals . The plows still have not got up to the trailhead as they are still digging Monticello out.

This has been the first weekend with the sun out and relative warmth in a while. And as much as I love deep powder and winter, a little warm sun did get me thinking about sitting on warm slickrock, green cottonwood leaves, and boats drifting down the river. But before I let myself dream to much about spring I quickly snapped out of it to start thinking about the upcoming trip to British Columbia. Once we get back from the north maybe I will start thinking about spring again.

I took this photo yesterday from up on Poison Spider Mesa, it is hard to take a bad photo of the La Sals, but I really like this perspective with all the Navajo sandstone fins in the foreground. The fins are in the "Behind the Rocks" Wilderness Study Area (WSA). A very hard area to get around in even though it is right next to town. Between the mesa top and the fins is where the Colorado flows. The big peaks in the back are Tukinikivatz (supposedly a Ute word meaning where the sun lingers last, which it does) and Mellenthin (named after an early Forest Ranger shot by a draft dodger hiding out on the mountain). The ski shots from my last post were taken between the two high peaks on Laurel Ridge.
















MLK day we hiked back up to the tunnel in the unnamed side canyon of Courthouse Wash . The kids now call it the "Worm Hole". It is an interesting natural formation.

The mighty Colorado frozen over a couple of weeks ago. People have been walking across it to access climbs on the other side of the river. Hard to belive that is the same river we float and swim in all summer in the blistering heat.

La Sal Face Shots

We are providing a Level I Avalanche Class this weekend in the La Sals so I was out playing in the snow today. We were forecast to get 3-4 inches last night but ended up closer to 18 inches of super nice niceness (as Todd would say ). The skiing was superb.

The class headed into the hills, yes we even let snowboarders come. We are equal opportunity




















and Dave skiing the goods