Friday, December 25, 2009

weather in the midwest changes plans for many people

Katie's flight was cancelled so AA sent her to a "nearby" airport. We drove to Eagle Vail last night. The plane landed at midnight. We got home at 3 am Christmas morning. The good news is that we all made the 450 mile trek and are together for Christmas. The bad news...Katies luggage is still in AA land somewhere.

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Sunday, December 20, 2009

Avalanche

Its been awhile since I posted anything.

We went snow shoeing above Red Mountain Pass today. The day was perfect, the snow just slightly less so. There are a few feet of snow on the ground at 11,000 feet. New, deep snow makes breaking trail quite a bit of a workout, so we took our time. We climbed up an old mine road from 11,000 to about 12,000 feet. We were hoping to ascend the ridge and then perhaps the summit...or not. It was a beautiful day and we just wanted to be outside. As the trail turned into the basin, we could see a few recent slide paths. We stayed in the trees, that being the safest route and found ourselves at the same level as this rather large slide. After taking a few pictures, we decided that the best route down, was the same one we took up!

This is a bit over exposed (I guess I left the camera at 1600 ISO) but it gives you the idea of the scale of the slide.
Better lighting. We are looking over at the slide.
You can see how far down the debris field is.
Looking back, a beautiful day.
Cute parents.