river rock

nothing says summer more loudly to me

 then frying to a crisp under the hot sun on some dusty trail or rock wall

and then recovering good humor with a refreshing float down the truckee river.
so glad those summer days are finally happening.

 

birthday weekend

denver's birthday is this weekend

we're planning on celebrating the best way possible...in his book anyways,

surfboards and bikes included.

melody joy

It's amazing how one can spend days chattering about the weather, recent trips, this trail or that climb, all the while avoiding the one thing that weighs the heaviest. The one thing that takes up every thought and makes any other prayer seem trivial. Sadly, not talking about that bad stuff doesn't make it any less real.

My brother and his wife's world was rocked last week when their daughter was diagnosed with cancer. Yesterday it was rocked once again when more cancer was found upgrading Melody from a stage II to a higher risk stage IV. 

 I can't help but remember my brother's closing statement to an email that he had written just a few weeks before Melody was diagnosed:

thankful God has given me Karen and Melody to walk the road with... May He return soon.

 

  

Praying that the three of them will be able to continue to walk together.

  

Costa Rica, IV

Notice how I just did that just now? Squeezed in a few more Costa Rica pictures without any apologies or preamble...and you thought you were in the clear.

The last few days of our trip were spent in the tropical highlands and on the Caribbean side of the country. The highlands were a welcome break from the constant high temperatures. It was such a surprise to find ourselves surrounded by cabbage plants and wishing we had packed some warmer clothes.

The Caribbean side was dirty spicy and fun. The surfing was out of our league so we just snorkeled, checked out the tide pools and watched the skilled surfers. We had almost given up home on ever spotting a toucan in the wild when we finally saw the two, pictured above, hanging on the bars of our seedy hotel room window.

tyrolean downhill

pretty stoked to have ol Brian back in town for the weekend
it's always fun trying to catch up with him on our bikes

skiing the north peak couloir

"no need to bring food" we say, "it's basically a walk in the park"

those are the famous last you're-going-to-be-hungry words

perhaps the members of the donner party had a similar exchange

worth the effort and hunger pains though, just to see the landscape

the sierras always leave us wanting more

 north peak

 we skied the couloir on the right

Lover's Leap

dusted off the climb gear

did a trad climbing 101 recap, how has it been so long? 

remembered just how amazing a clean granite wall can be

fell in love with summer all over again