Desultory Thoughts

I plan on hiking one peak per month for the rest of the peak-bagging season.  True peak-baggers probably don’t restrict themselves to a certain time of year, but I’m proud to say that despite the inclement weather we were having this weekend, I stuck to my plan and it really paid off!

I was banking on the weather clearing, but when I paid my $9 entrance fee to enter Antelope Island State Park and heard the two rangers tell me that there was no hope of the weather clearing up today, my heart sank.  Nothing to do but hike the peak, no matter what the conditions.  It rained on me the entire way up the mountain.  The winds got pretty strong and the rain stung my face.  Despite the weather, it was one of the easiest peaks I’ve ever climbed.  The trail was great all the way up, despite the muddiness, and there were only a couple of exposed areas.

Upon reaching the top I took some pictures (not too much to look at when you’re in a cloud) and was about to head back down after only 15 minutes, but as I reached for my pack I noticed a flash of sky and a mountain off in the west.  As quickly as I saw it it disappeared.  But it gave me a glimmer of hope that the storm was about to clear.  Another flash, and another!  Sure enough, the clouds started to clear out.

I ended up staying on top for an hour and a half and by the time I headed down I had a clear view all the way to the Wasatch mountains to the east. It was awesome! I can’t wait for the next peak!

I took the day off the other day to attend a sales event that NCSI (a vendor that sells network apps and utilities) hosted for a bunch of their customers.  It took place at the Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, so I didn’t have to drive very far.  Some of the customers came all the way from Wyoming to attend!  They were showing off some stuff from LeftHand Networks (iSCSI SANs).  Pretty cool stuff, but it pales in comparison to the pre-event!

First we were able to get out in a Mustang on closed course track with cones.  We took three rounds through the course to get a feel for it, but their advise to us was to drive the car like we stole it.  I’ve never in my life driven something with that much power!  It was pretty dang sweet!  After we warmed up we took three laps around as they timed us.  I wasn’t the best, but I wasn’t the worst either.  And I never hit any cones, so that was good.

After driving the Mustangs you wouldn’t think that it could get much cooler, but it actually did.  The coolest part of the experience is when we rode shotgun with professional drivers around the actual race track!  Their were three cars out there jockeying for position on the track, just like they would in a real race.  The only thing they held back on was actual tapping.  That’s what they do in a real race that so often ends with a car off the track, so I’m glad they held back a little.  I had my little camera so i pulled it out and flipped it into video mode and took some low-quality video of the experience.  This video doesn’t do it justice, but you’ll still get the idea.  It was a lot of fun!

My wife and I enjoy watching “So You Think You Can Dance” and were excited to see that they were coming to Salt Lake City to search for talent this year.  The Salt Lake City episode aired tonight and it wasn’t long before I saw a familiar sight.  Anyone involved in the Special Olympics Utah program would recognize it in a heartbeat, it was none other then Brett Banford rippin’ it up out in the snow on the street in his ski jacket as he often does.  In fact, if you ever decide to volunteer for a Special Olympics event be sure to stick around for the dance that takes place after the first day of events.  You’ll have so much fun!

Brett is a very outspoken and charismatic athlete and he loves everyone he meets.  He told Kat he loved her on the show, but he told me that before, too.  He represented Special Olympics and people with disabilities so well tonight; we can all be proud.  I’ll upload his highlights and post it soon so you can all enjoy his performance and words of inspiration if you missed tonight’s episode.  His personality is addictive!

Way to go, Brett!

UPDATE: You can also see him in an interview on Fox 13 News.

As promised, here is some old video of another trip we took to Gooseberry Mesa, this time mostly shot and edited by me. It was really hard not to edit further as I was prepping it for upload to YouTube, since after so long I started to be overly critical of my work. And, since YouTube only allows submissions of 10 minutes or less, I had to break this into four parts. Don’t feel obligated to watch it all; the good stuff is in parts three and four. The first two videos will be good if you are curious about what we do when we’re not biking on our mountain bike trips.

The Gooseberry Mesa Adventure – Part I

The Gooseberry Mesa Adventure – Part II

The Gooseberry Mesa Adventure – Part III

The Gooseberry Mesa Adventure – Part IV

Another wonderful spring day makes me want it to be spring for real, all the more! Good news is that Matt called me today and told me we’re going biking this Saturday. Bad news is, the weather forecast for this weekend is predicting rain! Dang it! At least it’s not snow.

A few years ago my friends (John, Matt and Chan) went biking at Gooseberry Mesa in Southern Utah. John and I filmed the whole thing and John made this video that makes me wish it were spring already! I love this video! I’ll upload another Gooseberry trip video that I edited and share it, too.