Castle Peak & Bandits

The house might of made out like a bandit for Christmas, but the bandits certainly made off with the house in January. We came home last Sunday night to find that there had been unwanted visitors while we were out. The house had been ransacked and we found ourselves short quite a few personal belongings. Including all of Denver's camera equipment and cameras. Jocelyn's got us covered, for the time being, with her old set-up. Initially I felt like we should simply hang around the house and keep a careful eye on our remaining belongings. However, as you can imagine, that turned out to be decidedly boring. We quickly returned to our normal activities. Normal activities plus a little more door locking.

We've been wanting to ski Castle Peak ever since we spotted the "fortress-like" summit blocks looming overhead on a mountain bike ride this summer. The direct south facing slopes were perfect for finding some slushy corn on a warm afternoon. The coverage was a bit sparse at the top but altogether better then expected.


Working our way up


At the summit


The fun part

Finally!

It finally snowed. Seriously snowed. Like face shots in the backcountry. Like grinning from ear to ear because we'd forgotten how awesome deep powder makes us feel.












Thanks to Jocelyn for sharing some of her photos!

A Change In The Weather

The high pressure finally moved out, and the storm door is open, at least for a while. There is still not quite enough snow up high to really go into the backcountry yet. More is coming, but for now, we're biding our time.

Terrarium

Doesn't this just make you yearn for spring?

We happen to know an artist who needed to borrow a tile saw. We had the tile saw. The tile saw was returned with a brand new blade and this terrarium. Big win. If any other similarly talented individuals need to borrow a tile saw, you know where to find us. More of these lovely creations can be found here.

The blog has been "cluttered up a bit" as Denver put it. Thought it needed a little spice.

Logging & family portraits

New Year, New Experience

Occasionally we feel a bit sad that our lives lack culture. We rarely attend cultural events of any sort and instead spend all our free money on gas and house renovation. So when we got the invite to join in on a weekend of wine tasting in Amador County we determined that it was about time we added a little sophistication to our normal routine. Plus the weekend included a morning at Squaw Valley. Who could turn down both wine tasting and skiing in the same day? Certainly not us.








We tagged along with the pros (B&B), pictured above, and learned the wine tasting ropes. (The pictures are ridiculously blurry, maybe squinting helps? The camera battery was left charging at home and I resorted to snapping a few photos with the broken camera on my phone.)

We met B&B our first few months in Reno. They quickly made us feel connected and at-home in our new city and I've seen them do the same for so many other people over the last year. Because of a shared love of skiing and Jesus we've remained friends. Denver and I are always talking about about how we should invite the neighbors over for dinner, or try to climb such and such, or ride a certain trail, or how we should give generously but yet be frugal with ourselves, or how we should remember to ask the check-out lady about her day. B&B don't just talk, they're some of the few that actually do ALL of that WITH three small boys in tow. It's impressive. Honestly, we could hate them for being so industrious but instead we'll just be super thankful for friends who inspire us to pack-up, head-out, and be nice. Wine tasting, skiing and good company? Yes, please.

Winter thus far

Mt Rose summit, January 7th. Where's the snow?