Are You Living It?

Of visiting Yosemite and doing some climbing….

Taken in 2005 on a 10 day vacation to heaven on Earth….

Yosemite Falls going off in late spring… it beckons.

Live Your Passion has lost a dear friend in Ryan Triplett.  Please read a meaningful tribute to him written by his good friend Cam:

http://www.ece.utah.edu/~ccharles/personal/RyanTriplett/

**In honor of Ryan and Jen Triplett, the Are You Living It blog will not publish new posts until this weekend.**

My husband attempted to kill me this weekend. And he came mighty close, to be honest. I still can’t walk normally.

Let me back up a bit.

Since we had a long weekend with the 4th falling on a Friday, Ryan canceled his plans to trek to Horne Lake on Vancouver Island and instead booked the weekend with me at our cabin in Mazama. He decided to take me up the South Early Winter Spire on a moderate yet classic route.

Two days of straight sun - it’s been a while. And my pasty white body was ready to soak up the rays - deepening my embarrassing biker tan lines. Rough life, eh?

I think I have a weekend hangover. It’s Monday - and I’m exhausted. I would think most people have a normal, relaxing weekend of chilling out, recovering from the long work week and preparing for Monday. But mine is usually the exact opposite. Thankfully my job is perfect for the bike racer/ weekend warrior lifestyle. It rocks. Today will be filled with catching up on what happened this weekend in the world wide web. I know, I suck.

Makes you wonder if this is the same sport as the one with ropes, draws, and bolts:

The miles rolled by more easily than expected (no doubt encouraged by a double mocha and an uncontrollable urge to just get the hell OUT of Durango) and early evening saw the silver Tacoma pulling in to the parking lot of the American Alpine Club Museum in Golden. Ed Webster was presenting a slide show that primarily centered on his epic desert sandstone first ascents.  Though I only caught the tail end of the show, it was enough to steal a laugh or two from a seemingly wonderful man and marvel at the courage that some of his early climbs must have required. I felt like a well-versed tourist; having spent a solid decade knocking off many of the classic climbs that litter Colorado and Utah, I knew of the people and places that the prolific Mr. Webster ticked off. That climbing has not been a significant part of my life for the better part of 6 years contributed to the dissonance, but it also sent strange pulses of inspiration running up my spine and into the tiny 1-bedroom rental in my frontal lobe that dictates nostalgia. There was a certain luxury that identifying myself as a climber, a true adventurer, a hardman if you will, had once afforded. It used to flip a switch that relegated all of life’s other trivialities to a recycling bin conveniently located next to the afore-mentioned cerebral flophouse. Contrasted with the epic beauty of sandstone and granite walls, the impending doom and excitement of lightning storms and rockfall, the smell of carbon and dust that permeates sunburnt skin and strangely cleanses the soul, the minutiae of “real” life lose there significance.

Would have known that there was something missing for the world to be right or he right in it and would have set forth to wander wherever it was needed for as long as it took until he came upon one and he would have known that that was what he sought and it would have been. -Cormac McCarthy

Jay and I blasted out of town headed for the trails of Sand Canyon. With just a quick stop at one of our favorite bike shops, Kokopelli Bike and Board, for some trail intel, high tech gooey nutrition and to ogle over their enormous bike inventory, we were on our way. We arrived at the trail head and quickly plotted out a series of twist, turns and loops that would give us about a 12 mile run, which was about 8 miles too many given our current fitness levels.