La Plata

On Saturday I left Boulder to climb La Plata. Of all the 14er's in Colorado it ranks in at number five for elevation (4369m). We started from the trail head at 7:20 am and after much post holing and rout finding we arrived at camp at 2:30pm. After setting up camp I had a nap, ate 2 two serving dinners and drifted off to a restless sleep until 5:30 am. Our plan we to get up at 4:30am so we could summit and hike back to the trail head by dark. As my old friend Mark Abraham told me long ago - Don't ever plan anything because it will never work. As it turns out Mark has been right on many occasions. My watch alarm didn't work in the extreme cold that we experienced on Saturday night and that is why we didn't get up at 4:30am. Instead after having some hot chocolate and some power gels our team headed to the ridge of La Plata at 7:40am. The climb to reach the top of the ridge took an hour and then from there we spent the next four hours slogging up the ridge to the summit. About five minutes before reaching the summit there was a nice patch of blue sky peaking through all of the clouds but it was not to be. At 12:30 we reached the summit of La Plata in a virtual whiteout. The trip back to camp took two hours and a half hours, things go much faster when you can plunge step through snow on the downhill. After helping my tent mate get some water and some food in to him for the hike back to the trail head we left camp at 5:20pm and arrived back at the van at 7:20pm.

It was my first winter ascent of a 14er and now that I know I can do it, it will not be my last as long as I have breath.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can

Nothing makes this four and a half year old happier than to help bake or cook. This morning I finally did something with the old bananas that were sitting on the counter. The recipe that I use makes two nice little loafs of banana bread, one goes on the glass domed cake stand, the other into the freezer for next week (yeah right). Today Kai remembered that he has a little apron with trucks on it (made by his Grandma Franks) that he needs to wear just as he flipped some of the creamed eggs and sugar out to the bowl. He is generally in charge of the wet ingredients, creaming the butter and sugar and mixing in the eggs. I just add the ingredients and he does almost all of the mixing. As the volume of wet ingredients increases I have to keep reminding him to mix slower and slower and to his credit he listens very well.



Kai - Dad when I grow up I want to be a cook.

Me - Okay buddy, that would be a great job. Did you know that your Grandpa Anderson is a cook, he's a big cook, a chef. And he used be the boss of a big kitchen. If you are a chef you could travel to all sorts of different countries and learn to cook their food.

Kai - No way, that's awesome. I could go to China. Dad, when are we going to have Chinese New Year?

Ah, the wandering imagination.


If I don't keep an eye on him he would eat most of the batter.

Cold but not too cold

Prior to Becky's prodding it was my intent to post some video and pictures from my winter camping trip. We started hiking into Mammoth Reservoir from a trail head near the town of Rollinsville. The hike took about two hours. After the first hour I donned my snowshoes to avoid sinking up to my waist in snow. Once we arrived at the site for our field trip it was an easy afternoon of digging, digging and more digging. When our snow cave was finished it was time for supper. Nothing beats rehydrated Santa Fe Chicken when it's -5 c outside and the wind is blowing straight into camp. After supper I toured around and checked out the other students' snow caves. All of them were larger than ours but there was a chance that ours would be warmer because it was small. I decided to head to bed around 620pm. Early you say? Why yes it was, but I had been up since 430am and outside in blowing snow at an altitude of about 9800ft for almost the whole day.

It took me about 40 minutes to take off my plastic boots, my jacket, get changed into some spare long underwear, and to adjust my sleeping pads (two are needed for extra insulation from the snow). Finally comfortable, I laid down and had a conversation with my cave mate about things that I can't remember now. When we were done with our chat I put on some music and around 830pm I fell asleep listening to Weezer. I was awake from 1030pm until 1230pm, again listening to music and in a very creative way going to the bathroom. There was nothing but sound sleep until 545am when I noticed sunlight coming in through our makeshift door (a big block of snow and my pack).

Breakfast was lukewarm oatmeal - my stove didn't work very well and so the snow I was melting for water didn't get very hot. Lucky for me though the tea I had made the night before (when the stove was working a bit better) was still warm and I had a warm/hot breakfast. Once everyone was packed up we headed for home. The nice thing about going uphill on a trip is that the descent is much faster. I was the third guy back to the trail head in one hour and twenty minutes.

We have one an ice climbing field trip next weekend and then our class ends with a big climb on the weekend of Feb. 16-18. That is going to be a long long couple of days.

In a Funk

Apparently I haven't written anything since August 27. Even before that I guess I hadn't written much over the past year, possibly longer. There isn't any particular reason for this absence, I just haven't had much to say. But now I do.

On November 4th I was offered a spot on a hockey team and through a couple of generous gifts we were able to pay for the season. Ice time here in the USA is much more expensive that it is back home. So once playing on a team became much more affordable I jumped at the opportunity to play again. The team I play on is Dafoe Electric, I wear #20. The really cool thing is that we use the Toronto Maple Leafs logo. I am having a great time playing again.

In January I start Advanced Mountaineering School with the Boulder group of the Colorado Mountain Club. One vital piece of equipment that I have recently purchased with some Christmas money is a pair of plastic mountaineering boots. Warm dry feet are a necessity.
There are many things I have been thinking about lately and over the next few weeks I will start to post more often, I promise.

Trip recap OR Just post something and get it over with already.

I know - I didn't post last night, but I believe I said "maybe even tonight". Instead of posting, I sent myself to bed around 9 PM because I felt that cold coming on. You know, the one that chased us around Ontario? The one that everyone was either just getting over when we arrived at their doorsteps or getting just as we pulled out of their driveways? Yeah. That one. Keith got it as we were driving across southern Ontario on our way to the passport office to pick up Kai's passport so that we could get back into the U.S. (we like living on the edge). Anyhow, Keith managed to kick it by the time we were pulling into our own driveway two and a half days later, but last night it looked like it was going to be my turn to get it.

I swear, I am the queen of digression.

I have been thinking a lot about posting for the last two weeks. I've been chewing over all the many things that I could tell you about our trip. But all in all, it seems it will likely end up becoming a very long, boring post about things that you hardly care about, so I've been putting it off because I don't know where to start or where to end or how much detail to include.

[Suddenly a Monty Python dude appears in my kitchen and screams "GET ON WITH IT!"]

Sheesh... Alright already.

I'll try to keep things brief and in point form.

Highlights from our trip

aka Doing all the Canadian things that I could:

• Consuming as much Tim Horton's coffee as possible
• Eating ketchup chips
• Buying Toronto Maple Leafs stuff
  
• Enjoying a Swiss Chalet Front Quarter Festive Special (Mmmm... Lindt)
• Watching Hockey Night in Canada (and seeing the Leafs cream Ottawa.)
  
• Purchasing a big box with a variety Cadbury chocolate bars from Costco.
  
• Going to the LCBO (aka Lick-Bo)
• Shopping at Dollarama and the William-Ashley Warehouse Sale
  
• Snowmobiling
• Eating poutine (thanks Dwayne!)
  
• Discussing the weather
  
• Tobogganing
  
• Wearing a toque
• Sitting on a chesterfield

OK, so the last bunch are possible here in Boulder, and I don't actually call it a chesterfield, ever, but I still did all of those things in Canada, so I am allowed to mention them here. Feel free to add to the list if you witnessed me doing any other particularly Canadian things.

More highlights

Playing with new toys (aka Christmas presents):

Meeting this little cutey:


Playing in the snow:


Kai and I each going on our very first snowmobile rides:


Kai's expression as we wandered around Winter Wheat:


Taking Kai to his very first Santa Claus parade:

And finally, spending time with cousins and brothers and sisters-in-law and parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends... it was absolutely wonderful spending time with all of you, and I only wish that we could have seen more of you. Sadly, that just isn't possible on such a short trip.

There are certainly more highlights, but I'm sure that I have already bored you all to tears, so I'll leave you with something recent from here at home that made me chuckle. (A reward, if you will, for getting all the way through this post.) It was from one of those moments in which you think to yourself, I definitely have to write this down.

Things you don't hear everyday: Two days ago while I was standing at the bathroom sink, Kai pushed past me explaining "Batman has to go potty."

Apparently even superheros need to pee.

G'night all.

Surgery

This past Wednesday I went under the knife to have a fatty mass removed from my neck. I asked the surgeon about a month ago if I it wasn't removed would it eventually look like a goiter - he said no. Nonetheless I decided to have it removed. The surgery went well, but how do I know, I was under general anesthesia. Thankfully I didn't have any side effects from being in lala land. My recovery has gone quite well, I really haven't had any pain to speak of just some minor discomfort for the first day after surgery. The incision looks good so I won't have to go to my follow up appointment on Wednesday, which is good, one less copay. The surgeon used internal dissolvable stitches with some dermal glue, he said the scar should disappear over the next six months but I'm not too concerned about looking like a tough guy.

Keeping Busy

Becky has been gone for a week and an half at this point and we have been very busy. We have been camping, I have been working during the day two days a week, Kai has been having play dates with friends from the rec centre and from church. Our big adventure so far occurred last friday.

After finishing work at the rec centre last Friday afternoon Kai and I went on an overnight backpacking trip. We went to the James Peak Wilderness area for a fun little excursion into the woods. We hiked in about 1.5 km (1 mile) and we found a campsite beside South Boulder Creek. Since there was a fire ban on at the time I knew that the best thing would be for us to eat dehydrated meals. The plan was to have some mac and cheese for dinner but first we had set up the tent because it looked like we were going to get some rain. Lo and behold just after I had poured the boiling water into the container of our high calorie, high sodium dinner the skies opened up. We quickly ran to the tent and proceeded to have a fun wrestling match for about ten minutes. Once out of the tent I noticed that it hadn't rained as much as we thought or had heard hitting the tent. We were able to find a dry spot under a nearby tree and munched on our dinner. After dinner I hung up the food bag while Kai played in the tent again. I had forgot my watch so I had no idea what the time was during this whole trip but i figured it was probably getting close to bed time so after spending a fair bit of time throwing rocks into the creek we headed for bed.

Kids and flashlights have always been a good match in the outdoors. Kai was insistent that the headlamp that I had packed was going to be his for the night. As we lay in our sleeping bags we made hand shadows against the wall and ceiling of the tent, listened to the sounds of the night and talked about the animals that live in the woods. The next thing I remember I was waking up to loud claps of thunder and pouring rain. I have no idea how long I had been asleep but at least Kai had fallen asleep and was currently sleeping through the storm. Oh, wait no he's not, you know when you have a thought about something and the opposite happens. Well he had been asleep but now he was awake. He told me that he was scared of the storm but that he was going to play with the headlamp and he would feel better. Once again I fell asleep and he stayed awake. I woke up again later only this time he stayed asleep until what I can only guess was about 5:30am.

After having a breakfast of instant oatmeal and and apple we packed up camp (because it looked like more rain) and hiked back to the van, arriving at 9am. No sooner had I put my pack in the van and started down the road towards home when Kai asked "Can we go camping again Dad?"

Live from Santa's Tropical Science Camp!

Sunday, 11:25 PM.

Good news! I've got an internet connection!

And I'm in my very own room on a wireless connection, no less. You'd almost think this place was a five-star hotel!

Oh wait - we stayed at a 5-star a couple nights ago in San Jose (the Marriot, of all places), and the internet cost an extra $12.95/night there.

I'm not sure how many stars to give this place, but the food I had for dinner was great, it's right on the ocean, and so far I've only seen one lizard in my shower. There are crabs outside, but none have made it into my room. (Mind you, they're awfully cute.) Anyhow, it does seem like camp, but with only one person per room instead of 8.

I'm so tired. We've been flying for 5 days in a row, including the last test flight and the short flight where we had to turn around and return to San Jose because the cabin wouldn't pressurize. However, I'm so thrilled by the novelty of being in such a primitive place, and having wireless in my room that I thought the least I could do is share some pictures with you.

I found a sea anemone on the beach.


I also found this little teeny tiny hermit crab wandering around the beach near the hotel. Isn't he cute?

Speaking of the beach... wow.


And then there's the water. Crystal clear. I can't wait to go snorkling.

I promise, I am here to work. Tomorrow is a "down day", and then I'm going to be working on the plane on Tuesday and maybe even Wednesday, with a likely flight on Thursday, so there will be science to report, I promise.

In the meantime, I've been almost falling asleep as I have been waiting for these pictures to upload, so I'm packing it in.

Oh, and Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Southbound

Just stopping by for a minute to say hello and that I'm on my way south within the hour to fly to Christmas Island. I'm currently in Honolulu in a little airport lounge, drinking guava-passion fruit juice from a can and eating chocolate covered macadamia nuts.

A little bit of luxury before science camp.

Hope you're all well. I'm not sure how strong the bandwidth will be, or how reliable internet access will be once we're on the island, so if you don't hear from me for a while, rest assured that I'm doing well, flying around, possibly doing some bone fishing or scuba diving on my off days, and sweating on the plane on my on days.

I'll leave you with a couple of the sights we saw while flying into HNL:

Diamond Head

Pearl Harbor

Starting Early

Tomorrow after I finish working at the local rec centre Kai and I will be heading out on a camping trip. My plan is to get to the trail head by 4pm, hike in about 2 kms, set up camp and do some exploring. We have taken Kai on a few car camping trips in the past but this will be his first backcountry experience. My idea is to pack as light as possible since I will have to carry everything. If everything goes well we will pack up after lunch and head home.

On the menu - Dehydrated mac and cheese, noodles and chicken, and ice cream sandwich (this should be fun) and lots of peanut butter, instant oatmeal and finally Kai's staple - apples and cheese.

Let the adventure begin.

Crikey! He's a beauty!

First, to Keith's parents: you may want to look away.

Everyone else, check this out. (I'm not web-savvy enough yet to post a video right here. Maybe someday I'll take the time to work it out, but for now, this should work.)

So there I am, watering the flowers in the backyard with Kai following me like a little shadow, and as I turn to water the second window box, I notice movement in the grass below.

Big orange and yellow stripey movement.

That's right folks. It was the largest garter snake I have ever seen in my life!

(I should pause to admit that I've really only ever seen about 3.)

Being the calm, cool and collected mom that I am, I screamed for Keith.

Well, scream is a relative term. I called loudly for him. (yes - I can yell when I need to.)

But he was busy vacuuming, so I had to turn, walk four steps, knock on the sliding glass door, and then proudly explain that I found a snake for him to show Kai. (Me pick it up? Are you kidding me?)

So here is what ensued:

Wow... Pretty amazing! It's not everyday that you get to experience nature up-close like this or share an appreciation of wildlife in your own backyard with your child. And I especially love that Kai is so willing (albeit somewhat reluctantly at first) to hold a snake. He's a gutsy little kid.

Adventure is in my blood.

I have had a variety of hobbies in my lifetime, almost every one entails being outside. There really isn't an artistic bone in my body, those gifts were bestowed to my brothers. I don't know if it really means anything but almost all of the pictures of me from my childhood were taken outside. I have memories playing and tramping for hours through the old gravel pits in Cedar Springs, not wanting to come inside when the sun set. There were canoe trips, Boy Scouts, riding my bike down to Lake Erie for some adventure on the beach, lots of days wallowing in snow and playing pond hockey on the coldest days of the year.

Spring ahead to May 2005, we move to Colorado with mountains and valleys almost too numerous to name. Soon after arriving I started taking courses that would teach me the skills to be active and safe on these glorious peaks. I recently completed Basic Mountaineering School and I have started to work on requirements for Advanced Mountaineering School. This past weekend I was in Rocky Mountain National Park learning how to climb in crampons and I had this sense come over me that all the things I had done in my life had prepared me for this moment. I am a climber, albeit an amateur with more to learn and experience but a climber none the less.
Becky and I have had a conversation about me climbing Everest some day. She doesn't want me to go, she would prefer that Kai be married and she was actually dead before I attempted that peak, well she needn't worry anymore. There are less crowded and more enjoyable mountains in the world that can be climbed, and I intend to climb some of those magnificient monsters.

Swan lake

(1 minute ago)

Me: When you're finished watching your movie, we should make a card for your dad.

Kai: Is today Father's Day?

Me: No. Tomorrow.

Kai: Is there a kids' day? One where you do nice things for your kid?

Me: Um... no.

(pause)

Me: Well, maybe your birthday or Christmas... Or maybe everyday.

We're back inside. The sky is rumbling and I'm expecting rain anytime now. Thankfully, it was beautiful this morning while Kai and I were in Lafayette for another preschool kid's birthday party. It was held at a park at a little lake in the middle of a subdivision. (Reservoir, perhaps, might be the appropriate term.) The lake has paddleboats which the birthday boy's family rented for us. Ours was in the shape of a swan.

Once we came home we had another little project. Here's a sneak peak:

Attack of the Jesus Tomato

On Saturday morning we went to the opening of a new Christian bookstore in Boulder. Becky and I kept the fact the Bob and Larry from Veggie Tales were going to be there a secret. It certainly was a surprise to Kai when they walked into the store. For the first ten minutes Kai essentially hid behind some shelves as the giant vegetable characters walked around the store. He finally warmed up to them (after a great deal of encouragement) enough to have his picture taken first with Bob and then with Larry. Twice he indicated to me that these guys were different because "they have arms and leg". He seemed perplexed as to how they were able to walk like people because they just bounce around on their t.v. show. The little Sherlock Holmes even figured out that people were actually in the suits. In this last picture he is looking at a space in the suit where the glove of the suit is attached to the arm. "Dad, I see skin in there. There is a person in there."

Anatomie of a bike ride

I developed this idea for a post (or at least for a collection of photos) a week ago today. It was a beautifully sunny morning, and as I was zooming along a bike path on my way to work, I caught sight of my elongated shadow on the grass beside the path, and I thought that it would be fun to document the stages of my bike ride. It's a ride I've been taking to work for almost a year, since my lab moved to a new building on the opposite side of town. I had a little hiatus over the winter, not so much unwilling to ride in the cold, but wary of the ice and snow. The hiatus was made easier by the willlingness of a co-worker who lives nearby to cart me to and from work. But I've been back on my bike for the last 3+ weeks, and it's certainly a pleasurable ride.

So although this idea occurred to me over a week ago, it has since then been rather gloomy (and even snowy). That is, until today, when I finally took the camera with me to capture the following:
The Road Near Home. This is one of two roads that I actually have to ride on. Otherwise, it's all bike paths.

Along that same road, a bright yellow sign announces that, indeed, this is a bike-friendly road. Not all roads are labeled as such: this one is essentially a connector street that cyclists can use to use to get from one bike path to another.

Bike path #1. This little connection gets me to the Foothills Parkway path. Do you see the overpass up ahead? I'll come back to that later.

The Foothills Parkway path. I'll be on this for a while, paralleling the parkway almost the entire rest of my trip. I'd really rather not be so close to the parkway, a multi-lane highway-ish road that cuts through the city from the south to the north, but it's the most direct way for me to get to work. Thankfully, I have the path. I've just passed the first of four prarie dog colonies. These little guys were all still in their homes as it was still too shady and cool for them to emerge out into the world.

Ugh. The construction. This is the busiest intersection in town, where the Foothills Parkway crosses the busiest of the east-west roads. When the signs went up last year, they predicted that the construction would take 10 months. 10 MONTHS! Thankfully, they've kept true to Boulder form, and have continually tried to make it possible for cyclists to pass through unscathed. It certainly keeps us on our toes, as this path often changes from the morning to the afternoon.

The overpass. Other than the intersections, this is the closest that the path comes to the parkway. It's also the highest point of my trip, just past prairie dog colony #3.

The wait. This light takes forever. It's the bane of all cyclists who use this section of the path. Pressing the button doesn't help speed it up. It's just a long wait.

The underpass. I don't actually use this underpass, or the overpass that I pointed out in the fourth photo. But underpasses like these are what make Boulder such a bike-friendly city. It's very easy to go from one end of the city to the other without waiting at a stoplight because these exist. And they're kind of fun!

The Home stretch. Up to the intersection, across one more street, up a hill and I'm at work.

But not until I've passed prairie dog colony #4.

So why do I bike to work? You can probably guess that there are a couple reasons, but I don't know that I can prioritize them: it's cheaper than driving, it's good exercise, and it's better for the environment. Personally, I think the more important question is why is it possible for me to bike to work? The non-philosophical answer is that we designed things this way when we chose where we were going to live. I'm just fortunate that it's working out the way we'd hoped.