OT - What are you doing right now?

Acn

Pork tenderloin and chicken thighs on a kettle in the woods.

nolaegghead

Replacing bulbs with LED bulbs

YukonRon

Caught this on our last hike and climb. The flat top right of Center was the goal. Long story, but the short version is; the road was closed to the Alpine Visitors Center, due to snow accumulation.

For those that have been there, you know the size of the structure. It was buried, completely under snow.

We chose another route to that area, that included hiking, scrambling, and climbing. We chose the Falls River Road trail. It was closed as well, but there was no snow removal going on the trail, which being done on the Alpine Highway, made the Alpine Highway a non option.

We got within 3000' of our goal, but the depth of the snow at elevation,  was too much for us to negotiate. At 11,000 ft we were post holing in waist deep snow. It was worse going forward.

We climbed 300 feet, vertically to gain access to the start of the closed trail. Hiked 13 miles. Worked our way through 13 landslides. Gained 3000 feet of elevation, before we called it. We were in a place where the only human foot prints were ours.

With all the news from Everest, and the stupid stuff going on up there, (over twice our our elevation goal) we should also remember, in RMNP, there are 3 bodies yet to be recovered.

They attempted climbs, they never came back.

2 of the three bodies have been located. They were left because the weather was too dangerous to attempt a recovery, last October.

The third person has never been located.

They found some of her gear shredded, close to the summit she had chose to climb. She never made it back.

These three were accomplished climbers, having summited some of the most difficult in the world.

We were blessed, with good fortune, to get as far as we did. But the desire to survive was stronger than the desire to summit. 

When we told the Rangers how far we got, and the trail conditions along the way, they were shocked we made it back. Alive. Another story on that some other time.

We will try it again next year, because we can.

The story is never about climbing a mountain. The story is why you climb the mountain.

Lit

Some wings on the Summit with the vortex. Ran 400 for 45 minutes or so with peach for smoke then light sauce of blues hog original then back on with more smoke for 10 minutes or so. 

Battleborn

Legume

YukonRon said:

Caught this on our last hike and climb. The flat top right of Center was the goal. Long story, but the short version is; the road was closed to the Alpine Visitors Center, due to snow accumulation.

For those that have been there, you know the size of the structure. It was buried, completely under snow.

We chose another route to that area, that included hiking, scrambling, and climbing. We chose the Falls River Road trail. It was closed as well, but there was no snow removal going on the trail, which being done on the Alpine Highway, made the Alpine Highway a non option.

We got within 3000' of our goal, but the depth of the snow at elevation,  was too much for us to negotiate. At 11,000 ft we were post holing in waist deep snow. It was worse going forward.

We climbed 300 feet, vertically to gain access to the start of the closed trail. Hiked 13 miles. Worked our way through 13 landslides. Gained 3000 feet of elevation, before we called it. We were in a place where the only human foot prints were ours.

With all the news from Everest, and the stupid stuff going on up there, (over twice our our elevation goal) we should also remember, in RMNP, there are 3 bodies yet to be recovered.

They attempted climbs, they never came back.

2 of the three bodies have been located. They were left because the weather was too dangerous to attempt a recovery, last October.

The third person has never been located.

They found some of her gear shredded, close to the summit she had chose to climb. She never made it back.

These three were accomplished climbers, having summited some of the most difficult in the world.

We were blessed, with good fortune, to get as far as we did. But the desire to survive was stronger than the desire to summit. 

When we told the Rangers how far we got, and the trail conditions along the way, they were shocked we made it back. Alive. Another story on that some other time.

We will try it again next year, because we can.

The story is never about climbing a mountain. The story is why you climb the mountain.

Welcome back.  Looking forward to the rest of the story.

Botch

YukonRon said:
....the road was closed to the Alpine Visitors Center, due to snow accumulation.

For those that have been there, you know the size of the structure. It was buried, completely under snow.

"redrum!!!"  

Always enjoy reading your adventures, Ron.  I love hiking and exploring but my fear of heights (and, from recent pics of Everest's summit, my aversion to crowds) keeps me at the lower levels.  

milesvdustin

ColtsFan said:

Just had a few combat choppers fly over.... So cool

Ch53's, we called them shitters because they were so nasty, left a cloud of exhaust behind 

Jeremiah

We bought this house 1 1/2 years ago. Irrigation had 7 zones, but the control box was missing, just wires dangling in the garage. (Short sale). No central location for the valves; all are daisy chained circling the yard in seemingly random locations. Long story short; a new control box, 12 new heads, 4 new valves, 20ish feet of pvc, countless fittings and a 12 pack of yuengling we have an operable system. Will need to replace the remaining heads, and add an 8th zone but still big progress for the weekend. Watching sprinklers run has never been so satisfing on a Sunday evening. 

Botch

Jeremiah said:

We bought this house 1 1/2 years ago. Irrigation had 7 zones, but the control box was missing, just wires dangling in the garage. (Short sale). No central location for the valves; all are daisy chained circling the yard in seemingly random locations. Long story short; a new control box, 12 new heads, 4 new valves, 20ish feet of pvc, countless fittings and a 12 pack of yuengling we have an operable system. Will need to replace the remaining heads, and add an 8th zone but still big progress for the weekend. Watching sprinklers run has never been so satisfing on a Sunday evening. 

I had a similar Rube-Goldbergian setup in the place I'd moved into; its working fine now.  I'm assuming you did all the rework your$elf?    

ANDY_USMC

finally Egged a perfect crispy thin crust pizza... 

Jeremiah

@Botch yeah. It’s been a steep
learning curve. Biggest takeaway, if I ever build my own system, all the valves will be centrally located. Running wires all around a yard is incredibly stupid. 

bgebrent

Made traditional carbonara with pappardelle from scratch.  Nichole approved!  pancetta as I couldn’t get guanciale up here.

Botch

Jeremiah said:

@Botch yeah. It’s been a steep
learning curve. Biggest takeaway, if I ever build my own system, all the valves will be centrally located. Running wires all around a yard is incredibly stupid. 

My biggest takeaway, was that paying someone else to re-do my system (the parts/materials are actually cheep) was incredibly stupid!  That guy made more money in a weekend than I did in 2 weeks (and I was a bona-fide rocket scientist back then).  

northGAcock

Jeremiah said:

We bought this house 1 1/2 years ago. Irrigation had 7 zones, but the control box was missing, just wires dangling in the garage. (Short sale). No central location for the valves; all are daisy chained circling the yard in seemingly random locations. Long story short; a new control box, 12 new heads, 4 new valves, 20ish feet of pvc, countless fittings and a 12 pack of yuengling we have an operable system. Will need to replace the remaining heads, and add an 8th zone but still big progress for the weekend. Watching sprinklers run has never been so satisfing on a Sunday evening. 

You would enjoy the entire expierence much more with decent beer. 

alaskanassasin

Botch said:

Jeremiah said:

@Botch yeah. It’s been a steep
learning curve. Biggest takeaway, if I ever build my own system, all the valves will be centrally located. Running wires all around a yard is incredibly stupid. 

My biggest takeaway, was that paying someone else to re-do my system (the parts/materials are actually cheep) was incredibly stupid!  That guy made more money in a weekend than I did in 2 weeks (and I was a bona-fide rocket scientist back then).  

 I used to make a killing installing irrigation! Rich people are scared of shovels. We did manifold for small yards and placed control valves wherever they fall on large systems 

nolaegghead

started what i thought would be a simple brake job, but found excessively worn hub bearings,  so ordered the new parts and will just put the wheels on so we don't look like "those" neighbors.   Part in on Thurs.   Sorry, SWMBO, your parking spot is out of order until Thurs.

HeavyG

nolaegghead said:

started what i thought would be a simple brake job, but found excessively worn hub bearings,  so ordered the new parts and will just put the wheels on so we don't look like "those" neighbors.   Part in on Thurs.   Sorry, SWMBO, your parking spot is out of order until Thurs.

With that jealousy inducing workshop of yours I am a bit surprised you'd still do some driveway mechanic-ing.

DuckDogDr

Resisting the urge to go get a whataburger milkshake 

HeavyG

DuckDogDr said:

Resisting the urge to go get a whataburger milkshake 

Who ya gonna throw it at?

YukonRon

Botch said:

YukonRon said:
....the road was closed to the Alpine Visitors Center, due to snow accumulation.

For those that have been there, you know the size of the structure. It was buried, completely under snow.

"redrum!!!"  

Always enjoy reading your adventures, Ron.  I love hiking and exploring but my fear of heights (and, from recent pics of Everest's summit, my aversion to crowds) keeps me at the lower levels.  

We had a VRBO about 2 miles from "The Stanley" where that was filmed, in Estes Park.

It should be called Elkstes Park, there were so many Elk in the area.

alaskanassasin

nolaegghead said:

started what i thought would be a simple brake job, but found excessively worn hub bearings,  so ordered the new parts and will just put the wheels on so we don't look like "those" neighbors.   Part in on Thurs.   Sorry, SWMBO, your parking spot is out of order until Thurs.

 
 I wouldn’t go wiggling things around with a pry bar... you will have the whole front end torn off that dodge!

AlbertaEgger

A few boats stuck in this little channel. We were at the far end. Almost made it. But there was no exit. Would have been a rough exit over some bumpy land if we wouldn’t have plugged up.

northGAcock

Botch said:

YukonRon said:
....the road was closed to the Alpine Visitors Center, due to snow accumulation.

For those that have been there, you know the size of the structure. It was buried, completely under snow.

"redrum!!!"  

Always enjoy reading your adventures, Ron.  I love hiking and exploring but my fear of heights (and, from recent pics of Everest's summit, my aversion to crowds) keeps me at the lower levels.  

 I am in the "I'll see you when you get back" camp myself.

TN_Egger

northGAcock said:

Botch said:

YukonRon said:
....the road was closed to the Alpine Visitors Center, due to snow accumulation.

For those that have been there, you know the size of the structure. It was buried, completely under snow.

"redrum!!!"  

Always enjoy reading your adventures, Ron.  I love hiking and exploring but my fear of heights (and, from recent pics of Everest's summit, my aversion to crowds) keeps me at the lower levels.  

 I am in the "I'll see you when you get back" camp myself.

Namaste here.

HeavyG

YukonRon said:

Caught this on our last hike and climb. The flat top right of Center was the goal. Long story, but the short version is; the road was closed to the Alpine Visitors Center, due to snow accumulation.

For those that have been there, you know the size of the structure. It was buried, completely under snow.

We chose another route to that area, that included hiking, scrambling, and climbing. We chose the Falls River Road trail. It was closed as well, but there was no snow removal going on the trail, which being done on the Alpine Highway, made the Alpine Highway a non option.

We got within 3000' of our goal, but the depth of the snow at elevation,  was too much for us to negotiate. At 11,000 ft we were post holing in waist deep snow. It was worse going forward.

We climbed 300 feet, vertically to gain access to the start of the closed trail. Hiked 13 miles. Worked our way through 13 landslides. Gained 3000 feet of elevation, before we called it. We were in a place where the only human foot prints were ours.

With all the news from Everest, and the stupid stuff going on up there, (over twice our our elevation goal) we should also remember, in RMNP, there are 3 bodies yet to be recovered.

They attempted climbs, they never came back.

2 of the three bodies have been located. They were left because the weather was too dangerous to attempt a recovery, last October.

The third person has never been located.

They found some of her gear shredded, close to the summit she had chose to climb. She never made it back.

These three were accomplished climbers, having summited some of the most difficult in the world.

We were blessed, with good fortune, to get as far as we did. But the desire to survive was stronger than the desire to summit. 

When we told the Rangers how far we got, and the trail conditions along the way, they were shocked we made it back. Alive. Another story on that some other time.

We will try it again next year, because we can.

The story is never about climbing a mountain. The story is why you climb the mountain.

Doing the "Jumble" in the newspaper today made me think of @YukonRon - hoping he and his "partner in climb" have many more years of "getting up there"!

YukonRon

HeavyG said:

YukonRon said:

Caught this on our last hike and climb. The flat top right of Center was the goal. Long story, but the short version is; the road was closed to the Alpine Visitors Center, due to snow accumulation.

For those that have been there, you know the size of the structure. It was buried, completely under snow.

We chose another route to that area, that included hiking, scrambling, and climbing. We chose the Falls River Road trail. It was closed as well, but there was no snow removal going on the trail, which being done on the Alpine Highway, made the Alpine Highway a non option.

We got within 3000' of our goal, but the depth of the snow at elevation,  was too much for us to negotiate. At 11,000 ft we were post holing in waist deep snow. It was worse going forward.

We climbed 300 feet, vertically to gain access to the start of the closed trail. Hiked 13 miles. Worked our way through 13 landslides. Gained 3000 feet of elevation, before we called it. We were in a place where the only human foot prints were ours.

With all the news from Everest, and the stupid stuff going on up there, (over twice our our elevation goal) we should also remember, in RMNP, there are 3 bodies yet to be recovered.

They attempted climbs, they never came back.

2 of the three bodies have been located. They were left because the weather was too dangerous to attempt a recovery, last October.

The third person has never been located.

They found some of her gear shredded, close to the summit she had chose to climb. She never made it back.

These three were accomplished climbers, having summited some of the most difficult in the world.

We were blessed, with good fortune, to get as far as we did. But the desire to survive was stronger than the desire to summit. 

When we told the Rangers how far we got, and the trail conditions along the way, they were shocked we made it back. Alive. Another story on that some other time.

We will try it again next year, because we can.

The story is never about climbing a mountain. The story is why you climb the mountain.

Doing the "Jumble" in the newspaper today made me think of @YukonRon - hoping he and his "partner in climb" have many more years of "getting up there"!

I am the one getting up there in years, My Beautiful Wife is my climbing partner.

She is the best climbing partner I have ever had. She is determined, focused, brilliant and tough as nails.

I am the lucky one, old, but lucky.

Acn

DoubleEgger

Botch

HeavyG said:

I see Hank Ketchum is still recycling his old comics from up to 60 years ago!