We arrived home Friday evening with a stuffed full Xterra of our possessions, thing which had been hiding in closets in Ohio and Iowa for many years. Many, of necessity, forgotten. Aside from catching up on sleep and working 12 hours yesterday, all I’ve been doing since has been unpacking and reorganizing it all. It was an appauling pile in the middle of the living room, and finding spots for it all in our little house is a four-dimensional challenge.
We have a ton of outdoor gear (or course), and a truly profligate stock of cookware, mugs, and serving platters. Four pie pans, for instance. And yet only two skillets, neither in very good shape.
We also had a load of photos from years past, many I had utterly forgotten. Some are also pretty damn good, so rediscovering them has been a joy. Below are the greatest hits, scanned in in the most high tech, felicitous method available (taking macros with the cheap digital). Presented with only a vague order.
This is Pine Creek in Zion. Not sure who is on rap, or when it was taken. Likely the spring or summer of 2004. It was part of a whole roll that the developer fucked up during processing.
Meredith in the Left Fork of North Creek in June of 2004 (aka, above the Subway, above Das Boot). Highly recommended. The frogs abounded that day.
Mr. Rhoades near Moab in the fall of 2003.
Looking in on The Squeeze in the San Rafael Swell in October 2003. The first “real” technical canyon I hiked. Still haven’t gone back, which is quite the egregious act, it’s worth an annual visit. (The drainage runs through the center of the background, flowing left to right.)
Final rap in the Not-Mindbender Fork of Robber’s Roost, November 2005.
Ditto.
Meredith and Isaac getting psyched for the crux keeper potholes in one of the north forks of Robber’s Roost. We were the second documented party to descend what Tom Jones et al. had named the “Ho Hum Fork” when they did it earlier that year. Where they found short raps, sand, and no water, we found short raps, and two keepers with over-the-head water. M, Isaac, Phillip and I had actually first went in thinking it’d make a casual day, and without wetsuits or escape gear ended up retreating. We three came back a few days later and got it done, with the crucial move being an Imlay Nut Sack half full of sand and mud tossed and then used as a counterweight to prusik.
Isaac about to descend into the keeper in question. The water was cold, and the exit not easy.
Isaac out of the woods.
Exit rap.
A view during our October Boundary Waters trip that started the winter on the road, in 2005-2006.
M relaxing. Not sure if this was on the BW trip, or the Pictured Rocks tripped mentioned below (I think the later).
M on a backpack we did along Pictured Rocks National Seashore, on the UP of Michigan. A very nice, atmospheric walk along the coast. The first day had miles of beach walking, the second ladders and rocks along the cliffs. I then had an epic bike shuttle, my Cannondale XS 800 cross bike bogging down in gravel and sand on the dirt roads.
Drying out in the morning after a nasty rain, sleat, and snow storm on the BW trip.
Playing on the Charcoal Kilns near Telescope Peak in Death Valley. January 2006.
The crew with a months worth of old canyon anchors. L to R: Ariel, Isaac, M, me, Phillip. One of the best months yet.
Inside a Charcoal Kiln.
M in Spooky Gulch, Escalante, December 2005.
M enjoying one of her main food groups at the Iowa State Fair. August 2005.
Dinner party in our Grinnell apartment. Likely the spring of 2005.
The noble Perky. RIP.
Juniper.
Glacier near St. Mary’s, October 2005.
Dinner out (at the Mexican place in Grinnell) with the climbing crew.
Sarah and Kate.
It’s good to recall that our lives are bigger than each of us.
Bedrock & Paradox 
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