Cyclocross Prologue

Its Fall. The leaves are turning and that is when must of us here at IMBARW start thinking about skiing (see previous posts). However for some there is cyclocross, namely climbwill and bostin. This last Sunday Sunday Sunday was the first CX race of the season up in Pocatello. M and I drove up Saturday night for the race and also a climbing outing at Ross park, a basalt crag literally in a park with green grass and benches. I've been training for the race season seriously since about early July. In Friday Harbor I time trialed around the island. I even bought a HR monitor to get nerdy with...

A video of me at a barrier section can be found here. If anyone can show me how to flip the picture please let me know....

Or here.

Here are some pictures of me and others in the B race.




The guy in the cutoff jeans and tie die with the fixie was ripping...

For my efforts I won the most strange prize: An EPO fleece blanket.

First Tracks

Well there will have to be more posted about these first tracks as not all of the pictures are on this computer. Friday night, Me, Boston Ben, Christy, Greg, and Rob went up and camped at Alta to wait for snow. we didn't wait long as there was already an inch when we got there. Here are some photos of the adventure in random order.

Here is me and Rob looking cold in the snow

Ben Rainville lovin' the start of Utah winter and his inagural Turns all Year

Christy in more snow than Tennesee will ever get

Greg Putting up the tent at the campsite- under the sunnyside lift

This next one is me getting some turns in- with a tractor

Snow?

This morning I was super psyched to see the weather channel forecasting temperatures to cool through the weekend. As it's finally gotten down into the 70's I feel like my body has woken up again. All of a sudden I want to run or hike or climb or do all those things that I didn't really do while I spent August sweating on the couch. In fact just yesterday I was looking up ski mountaineering races online (schedule is still on last year, so don't bother) thinking of additions to the powderkeg I could do in the upcoming months. I got into school this morning and was greeted with a "Have you seen the forecast discussion!?!??!" "No" I said and I grumbled mentally " I just got here 2 seconds ago, I'm trying to figure out if I'm supposed to teach a 90 min graduate class in radiation starting in 3 min, instead of working on my thesis, no, of course I haven't read the forecast discussion!" Well here it is for all those of you who may be interested:

MUCH COOLER AIR WILL SPREAD ACROSS THE FORECAST AREA BEHIND THIS FRONT SATURDAY...WITH GFS PROGGING 700MB TEMPS DOWN TO -6C BY 18Z SATURDAY. SHOULD SEE FIRST SNOWFLAKES OF THE SEASON ACROSS HIGHER TERRAIN OF NORTHERN UT LATE FRIDAY NIGHT INTO SATURDAY.

So even though much of me has been looking forward to snow for a long time I feel a kind of a sigh. I haven't done all the huge hikes I wanted to do this summer. In fact I haven't hiked nearly as much this summer as last. For good reasons- I've been climbing a bunch. Been working on thesis like crazy, been on tons of rescue calls, oh yea, and actually had people to hang out with instead of spending all summer evenings hiking Millcreek by myself in disgust. Still, I might have to get a last push before the snow flies in this weekend, . . Start waxing your rock skis, it's nearly here!