Judy, Patty, and I completed the Tour de Tahoe, a scenic 72 mile ride around Lake Tahoe. The ride was well organized and well supported and even though Patty had a slew of mechanical problems (3 flat tires!), we all had a lot of fun.

After our ride, we met up with Ryan, Connie, Emilia, and Kelly for a couple days of bouldering. None of us were in very good climbing shape, but the weather, company, and just being outdoors made for a great time.

Ryan has a more detailed trip report on his and Connie’s site. Here are the pics and vids I compiled (a mix of pics/vids from my camera as well as those from Connie/Ryan). I’m aware of a funky formatting issue with some of the larger/wider videos (the “next” arrow ends up overlapping the video), but won’t have time to fix it for a while.

Some photos and vids from our first trip to Steamboat Springs.

Some pics and vids from the climbing trip Ben and I took to Joshua Tree.

Latte’s been having some health problems recently so we decided not to take any far-away snowboarding trips this year. She gets really stressed out when we leave her for more than a couple of days, and in her current state, such a stressful situation might very well do her in. Now that she’s on steroids, she’s doing much better so we decided to do a local trip to Tahoe and bring her along.

We actually headed up to Tahoe on Sunday in the middle of a big storm. “Awesome,” we thought, “fresh powder!” Just 35 miles from Truckee, the highway patrol closed the roads and turned everybody around, not because there was too much snow, but because visibility was really poor. Ordinarily, we would have just found a hotel nearby and just headed up the next morning. We had Latte with us though, so we would have to find a place that allowed dogs which can be tough. We had dinner with the hopes that things would clear up, but they didn’t. The condo we had booked was willing to cancel our reservation without any charges and so we just decided to head back home and perhaps try to come back again later in the week.

We headed up again on Wed night, this time with perfect weather. The storm we had driven in just a few days ago had left a lot of snow, but it warmed up quite a bit in the ensuing days and so there was nary a sign of any powder. No big deal actually since I probably wouldn’t have thought much about fresh Tahoe powder anyway being the powder snob that I am. We hit Squaw the first day and Northstar the next day. Conditions were spring-like with nice, warm weather and blue skies. Not epic conditions for a powder hound, but still lots of fun. Certainly better than staring at a monitor in a cubicle.

Unfortunately, Latte didn’t do as well as we would have liked in the condo. When we came back from Squaw the first day, we heaped praise on her because it looked like she had behaved herself. It wasn’t until a half hour or so later that we realized that our celebration was premature. While I was putting on my jeans, I noticed that they were a bit wet. At first, I thought it was just that my underwear was wet from snowboarding that day, but quickly realized that Latte had peed on my jeans! Damn dog!

The good thing was that my jeans (and one of my shirts that was also laying on the ground) pretty much absorbed all her pee and so very little got onto the carpet. Perhaps Latte peed on my clothes because she was smart enough to know it would absorb it. Or maybe she was trying to tell me something? Hmmm…

The original plan was to hit Alpine Meadows on Sat before heading home. On that morning, however, Judy was feeling really sore in her legs and since I just never got into the snowboarding mood this season (I just want to climb!), we both decided to head home a little earlier. I had pre-purchased our lift tickets through REI, but luckily, we were able to sell them to the first people we approached.

So that was our first, and likely only, snowboarding trip this season. I did manage a few shots during the trip, most of which are of Latte.

Judy’s parents recently accompanied us on a 14-day trip through China. We started in Beijing and Tianjin where we visited the Great Wall (our second time), checked out several sites of the 2008 Olympics (including the sand volleyball area), and got a pedicure (my first one ever – hey, it was cheap so why not?) as well as a massage (also a first for me and it was done by a blind person no less!).

From there, Judy and I split from her parents and headed to China’s famous Huang Shan where we hiked to the top and also crossed the dangerous Carp’s Back Bone (it’s actually made out to be a lot worse than it really is). After Huang Shan, we met up again with Judy’s parents in Chengdu. Here, we experienced the highlight of the trip when both Judy and I had the opportunity to hold a baby (but still pretty big!) panda at the Wolong Panda Reserve – a totally cool experience! We also visited the Dujiang Dam which, after over 2,000 years, is still playing a major agricultural role today. Afterwards, we were treated to the entertaining Changing Faces show in which performers are able to instantaneously swap face masks right before your eyes.

After Chengdu, we headed to the higher (and much colder!) Jiuzhaigou where we were quite surprised to see an extravagant Vegas-style show in what was quite decidedly a very non-Vegas-like area. We admired the beautiful waterfalls and uniquely colored pools of Jiuzhaigou and Huang Long. We then returned to the Chengdu area and saw the Giant Buddha – it was definitely a big Buddha! Emei Shan was our next stop, and though we didn’t find the Buddhist temples all that interesting, we did find the chubby monkeys quite entertaining. As we wrapped up our trip, we visited a textile factory where we saw the specialized skills and complex devices required to create Chinese textiles, and also saw many examples of highly intricate silk embroideries.

It was a fantastic trip and we had a great time. Here are the pics and vids.

Well, now that I’m experiencing a bunch of downtime to heal my injured finger (I strained my A2 pulley on my right ring finger during our recent trip to Tahoe and then made it worse at Joe’s), one of the things I decided to do was add captions to all of Bob’s pics from our 2000 trip to Hawaii.

It was really fun going back through all the pics and reminiscing about the trip – it certainly brought back some good memories! As there was no shortage of good fodder for captions, there’s a bunch of pretty funny ones if I, achem, do say so myself. I also took the time to stitch together a bunch of the panoramic shots that Bob took. Take a peruse and enjoy!

This Memorial Day weekend, Judy and I flew to Utah and met up with Ryan for a fun four days of bouldering at Joe’s Valley. We were bracing ourselves for big crowds and hot temperatures, but neither was the case – the weather was pleasant and we ran into very few other climbers. We got a lot of climbing in and both Judy and I were able to send our first outdoor V5s!

As usual, I put my camera to good use. There’s only a few pics, but quite a few video clips.

We just purchased the newly published Lake Tahoe Bouldering, Lake Tahoe’s first bouldering guide. Although not widely known for its bouldering (at least not yet), there are a huge number of problems in the Tahoe area. With Tahoe only a few hours drive from where we live, we intend to make good use of this book through the coming months.

This was a short trip so there’s only a small handful of pics and vids.

Pics and vids from our trip to Vietnam. There’s no separate trip report; rather, I’ve tried incorporating the report into the captions for each pic and vid. It was a fantastic trip (here’s a PDF of our itinerary) and I was able to capture some pretty good pics and vids so take a peruse and enjoy!

This year, Judy and I decided to get a few more days of Utah boarding in by driving out and spending a week there. Unfortunately, this was probably one of the driest seasons in memory with unseasonably warm weather and a dearth of snow. With our lodging pre-paid, and with Dave and Patty having already booked their flights, the trip was on despite of the conditions.

We thought it would be fun to bring the Latte Dog along so that’s what we did. It was the first time that Latte has ventured past the California state line. We were also hoping that it would be the first time that she would be exposed to snow, but that was not to be.

Judy had found a great deal through Craigslist for a condo near Salt Lake City. It was a nice, cozy place that allowed pets for only $70 a night! That it also had screaming fast fiber optic internet was also a big plus. We hit Brighton our first day (Monday) there (where we got up close and personal with a porcupine!), took a rest day the second day and visited the Park City downtown, and then hit Snowbird on Wednesday. Since there was no fresh powder to be found, I spent the first half of the day at Snowbird trying my hand at skiing.

Thursday was a non-ski day as well – Judy worked out at a nearby gym while I went climbing at The Front, a local climbing gym. Later that day, we met up with Patty and Dave in their cool Murano rental. After dinner at the Outback Steakhouse, we headed to the lodge. There was a lot of new construction on the 15 and we ended up getting off the freeway one or two exits too soon. Instead of getting back on the freeway, we decided to have our Garmin Nuvi 350 GPS direct us. Although it got us to where we wanted to go, it took us through downtown Ogden which is probably not the quickest route.

Moose Hollow used to allow pets, but no more, likely due to a recent management change. We were originally going to shack Latte up at Camp Bark A Lot, but then decided to take a chance and sneak Latte into our condo. Although having to go incognito when Latte needed to do her business was somewhat of a pain, Latte behaved well (as expected) and things went without a hitch.

We went to Powder Mountain on Friday and Snowbasin on Saturday. There was no powder, even in our secret stash areas, so we mainly stayed on the groomers. Dave and I did a few runs through the terrain parks where I not-so-graciously provided some entertaining video footage. Dave cooked his yummy pasta (this time, due to the reduced number of people, without pepperoni and substituting ground buffalo for ground beef – it was much healthier and just as tasty!) the first night and stir-fried noodles the second night. The new management at Moose Hollow, likely in a cost-cutting move, decided to no longer provide complimentary Moose Tracks ice cream so we had to go out and buy our own.

It’s always a great time to get away from cubicle hell and be out in nature with friends so although the snow left much to be desired, it was nevertheless a great trip. And the lack of powder also made for a much more relaxing trip (we were good if we were on the slopes by 10:30!), which was actually really nice. Here are the pics and vids.

Damages:

 664.10   Lodging 166.03 pp (Dave, Judy, Patty, Roger)
  47.54   Groceries 15.85 pp (Dave, Patty, Roger)
 184.00   Powder Mtn lift tix 46 pp (Dave, Judy, Patty, Roger)
 204.00   Snowbasin lift tix 51 pp (Dave, Judy, Patty, Roger)
  26.72   Groceries 6.68 pp (Dave, Judy, Patty, Roger)

 285.56   Dave     PAID
 269.71   Judy     PAID
 285.56   Patty    PAID
 285.56   Roger    PAID