T-shirt Weather

It's always nice to have a warm spell mid winter, if only the ice would hang around. Well I hope you all enjoyed the t-shirt weather, good bouldering, sunny climbing, and trail running temps. It looks like it might get cold again.

Mid-Winter Day Dreams

Seeing a bear in the winter is always surreal (I have only seen a few) but this one was really hard to believe. Sometime I will tell you the whole bizarre dreamlike sequence but the short version involves us watching the daredevil climb a steep rock and ice cliff where most skilled climbers would not tread without a rope. We watched in amazement until he lay down on this ice ledge probably 80 feet up from level ground! Not wanting to disturb the bear in such a precarious place we chose another area to go ice climbing. Although the recent warm spell has put the kibosh on ice close to home we hope to have the spirit of the bear with us the rest of the season.





Recent freezing rain has brought some of my favorite conditions to enjoy the wilderness. Ice Everywhere!

Icy Fun

Never let me slip, cause if I slip, then I'm slippin' - Dr. Dre

These are the things that you are missing if you fail to hike in the winter. Give yourself permission to go with us, we will take care of you!


Strange cool ice formations forming from the ripples on the log.



Take a quick picture and move on if your are standing under (or even close to) big ice with no helmet on, even if it is below freezing like when this picture was taken. A nurse with a lot of trauma experience should know better, but she did hire a guide for a reason.(She's not as close as it looks)



See if you can find the staircase, the trail is under all that ice somewhere. Along with telling you how to prep for the cold we will hook you up with traction for your feet, and if the traction devices start to slip off your boots we are prepared to tape them on!



You gotta see it to believe it. Cool trail side ice formations.

The New Year

Rang in the new year yesterday with our first guided hike, the temps were in the teens and the wind was raging but we had a great, safe and warm trip over the mountain and across the icy trail!



In case you missed the fireworks in your town, here's some pics of the fireworks found in the woods! The above is the frost on a tall piece of grass at sunrise.


This ice exploded out of the ground as the water in the dirt expanded up through the paths of least resistance. The ice pictured stands about 4 inches tall and lifted the golf ball sized clump of dirt off the ground!


Sometimes you start to notice friendly faces in the woods when you hike to many unbroken trails by yourself.