March 2019

At times you gotta kick your way through this bitch.
                                                                           - Brother Ali

It's been a chronological year since my last post...a lot has happened since then. Most notably the loss of my Dad. I spent roughly 6 months clearing up stuff with his estate with the final act being the sale of his house in November.  The distraction of all the work before me, tempered the intense pain of losing my Dad. That would catch up to me as we entered late fall, outdoor activity drops off and it's dark and cold all the time. The depressing lack of sunlight and constant cold coupled with lots of downtime let the reality sink in....my Dad is really gone.....my dad was not going to die this soon.....fuck....I miss him.    I still enjoyed most of winter this year, although many times activities felt forced by my own will to push aside the dark curtains that are shading everything. As winter has subsided my attitude has gotten better, the sunlight really helps and now I'm feeling like getting some of my summer back from last year. I'm picking this blog up with march because it was fucking awesome and winter pretty much has it's ass kicked.





       

warming up with some hiking with ice ax assist 

Fat-biking before headed out to camp later in the afternoon

Second weekend of March was Man Trip, we pushed it a week due to intense cold. We want to enjoy ourselves not spend all our time trying not to freeze our balls off. We had a good crew and my oldest son came along as a right of passage, in truth he could have kicked all our asses. I was glad to have him and hope he enjoyed his time with the big boys.

Stumpy

Giegle and ArcFlash

On our way down river for a camp-out

Team meeting

ledges were common as well as our sleds falling off of them 

We dug out about 4 feet of snow to build a fire 

Good morning

Breaking camp

The rappel is always fun 

Skiing trails at Onion River 

A little night time fat-biking 

 Just a week later I was down in Oklahoma for the Land Run 100 with ArcFlash and O'Neil. Never before have I felt so unprepared and out of place at a race/event. I had maybe 30 miles of riding in, in the previous couple months and seriously wondered if I could even finish 100 miles. I carefully controlled my pace, brought lots of food and water and enjoyed the hell out of the entire day. I finished with nary a twinge of leg cramps and great satisfaction of going from couch to century ride. I even got the super cool Chase the Chaise patch from Salsa Cycles and my picture taken with my old pal Kid Riemer on the chaise.

I don'y have any pics from land run because my SD card is MIA.....here is my proof and prizes for completing the race.....damn it was fun  

I only have a couple pics of NW Arkansas for the same reason as above....missing SD card 

With a week and a half-ish in between travels, I finished up our DIY camper , crafted from a 6X12 enclosed trailer....... I call it the Teardrop XL.  It sleeps 5 and has a little kitchen in back. With the final touches going right to the wire and trimming the cushions to fit, moments after being dropped off by the FedEx guy, we were off to NW Arkansas. We would spend 4 days mountain biking the awesome trails in Bentonville and Bella Vista as well as three day kayak trip down the Buffalo National River. By the time we got to the kayak portion it was April so I'll cover that in a later post.

D Rider........................................out

Man Trip 2017

The Man Trip usually marks the end of winter fun for me, by now I'm pretty much done with it but want one final hurrah. For this year I wanted everything we did to be new. While our modes of travel remain the same ,fat bikes, skis and snowshoes, I wanted to hit up some new places we haven't been...on the north shore there are many.

Robinson Quarry

random swamp crossing

AF going over

Vandy

 A couple weeks before the trip ArcFlash suggested we go ice climbing the first day...perfect...that was a new one for the man trip. On Thursday, on our way north the two of us stopped off in Sandstone at Robinson Quarry. Although the temps have been quite warm there was plenty of ice for us to climb. We set up only one top rope and ascended it three times trying to vary the route by moving either side of center. It was a lot of fun and three passes were plenty,for having only climbed that one day all winter. The second half of the day was spent finishing the drive and then a little snowmobiling on the two old sleds I purchased earlier this winter. I haven't had any chance to ride them, so I was just itching to get out even if it was only a brief jaunt up and down the local trails. With the purchase of a house on the north shore the Man Trip has been changed drastically, try as we may, we did not camp-out once. Instead we played really freakin hard all day and then came back to lounge around, eat, and watch movies.

Thor

trying out Altai Skis....would have been better with deep snow

.On day two there were four of us, ArcFlash, Thor, and Vandy. I laid out a route the would utilize the Northwoods ski trail,  Palisade Valley ski trail, cross Bean and Bear Lake, with two rappels thrown in to make it interesting, as well as a mid-way camp fire cook-out. It was a beautiful sunny day for our 6 hour jaunt, with the only really cold spot being at the top if the first rap. Vandy, AF, and myself dropped off the ledge quickly and comfortably, not giving it much more concern than walking down a side walk. Thor on the other hand did an awesome job pushing his own personal envelope and dropping over the edge with greater caution. Once off rope came the dangerous part of descending the boulder field below the cliff. From there we cut across the two lakes and then cooked our lunch. Next came the second rap followed by another boulder field, and finished with nearly an hour of skiing to reach the vehicles.

man down

After fueling up we headed out in the late afternoon for a creek ride on the fat-bikes. After visiting this creek for the first time this past summer, I was hoping for mostly hard ice with little flow. No luck...the creek was flowing well as we made our way precariously upstream on the rotted ice. I suppose it was better this way, we were all giggling and smiling as we took turns navigating the bad spots, trying to stay dry. We took the road back and ended up finishing in the dark. On day three Thor had to leave us on account of family duty. That morning Vandy and I went out on the sleds for a quick ride, mostly so I could convince him to buy one for next year. We got back mid morning and got ready for another fat-bike ride and cook-out.

AF wringing out socks after going in up past his knees

 The ride went better than I had hoped and was my highlight of the weekend. The route, an out and back with a loop on the end, (lollipop) finished at approximately 20 miles,  crossing five lakes, utilizing snowmobile trails and portages. It was not in the boundary waters, but pretty damn close...shoot me a message if you need info. As with most winter outings,it involved a camp fire and cooking something on a stick. The riding was phenomenal, the trails were hard packed snow and the lakes were windswept or crusty and made for fast easy riding.  We wrapped up in the late afternoon and headed back to the warmth of a couch. Since it was our last night of Man Trip we watched two movies and ate ice cream.

let the fun begin

hand grill packaging added for dramatic effect  

 Although we took the easy way out, and spent our nights inside sleeping on beds it was a physically demanding and fantastic weekend.

D Rider.....................................out