Day 4: Battleship and a campfire

Approaching battleship

 More (imposter :) ) lady bugs. They were this thick on all the rocks, it was near impossible to find a place to sit.

 The Grand! and Middle Teton

This was one of my favorite view points of the whole trip. 

We decided to forego sleeping on top of table rock (which ended up being a great idea, seeing as the wind rocked our worlds that night)

I finally had enough of being salty and gross, so an improvised shower took place. What you don't see is 3 feet upstream, this is all running straight out of a glacier. In other words, it was criminy cold! But felt sooo amazing.

Our last night at camp, we found a little geocache with a bunch of notes in it. We had a great time reading them and then hunkering down for the night.

Day 5, we woke up early and high tailed it out of there. Everyone fell asleep in the car with wet boots and pants after fording a river. 

It was an amazing trip, one that I hope to repeat again!

Day 3: Static

Did you know that cheetah print duct tape is actually cheaper than the plain ol' silver kind?

Because it is. And it prevents blisters like a dream.

Day three, we took our summit packs and headed on up to climb Static. There were tons of gorgeous streams, rivers, waterfalls and several sketchy snow bridges to cross.

The whole way up, Kugath kept saying how we weren't going to need ice axes because static was on the Southern side of this big saddle so it'd be getting more sun. So, we get to this saddle:

Here is what we were coming from:

Yes, those are wildflowers. The hike up was pretty mucky and muddy due to everything melting, so we were all excited to get some potentially dry ground.

This is what greeted us on the other side of the saddle:

Welcome to Mordor, yo.

Fortunately, we all made it to the top despite the fight against plummeting temperatures and fairly strong (we ended up finding out they were 40 mph gusts) winds.

One of the craziest phenomenons we saw while hiking in the Tetons, was what we later researched and found out to be convergent lady bugs:

On the tops of several of the peaks, we saw just stock piles of lady bugs. Apparently they all fly to an elevation that they deem good as a group and hang out there.

On the way back, Russ and I split from the group (it was planned, don't worry, we weren't just running amuck while everyone was worried or anything like that) and leisurely hiked back to camp.

 We were super glad to be heading back, I was pretty cold and I really don't warm up easily. So, we set up our tent (we had enough of getting rained on in sleeping bags. Been there, done that, moving on)

and just hung out:

Until our tent started to collapse from the weight of the rain. 

Russell ventured into the freeze and found us two sticks to finagle into place.

With the assistance of duct tape and a bra, of course.

We found out our tent is not water proof/resistant in any way shape or form, so we both scurried out to get our tarp out from underneath and rig it up above our tent. As we both got out of the tent, we looked up to see this guy:

He was only 5 feet away from us when we got out of the tent and actually started walking towards us, which (not gonna lie) freaked me out a little bit. I scared him off a little bit by sneaking back into the tent to grab my camera.

Day 2: The Wedge and Alaska Basin

That slightly ominous guy up there at the tip-top, that's the wedge.

Here's a better view:

We kicked a path into the snow (it was, honestly, a lot steeper than it looks) and scrambled up choss and made it to the top of the wedge.

On our way down, I had my first experience with self arresting with an ice axe. We were going to slide down a rather steep snow field that ended abruptly by a ton of rocks, when I started slipping down a lot faster than I had anticipated. Luckily we had gone over self arresting before this went down. I just didn't realize I was going to be applying the tactics so soon!

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After hiking the wedge, we made a decent push to Alaska basin

We got to sleep on an awesome slab of granite and get rained on a lil bit.

Doesn't Russ look so refreshed?

As if getting rained on in our sleep wasn't chilly enough, several of us took a quick dip in the little alpine lake.

Fair warning to anyone who ventures into the Tetons; don't think you can escape the wrath of the mighty marmots.

The little sneaks steal everything and chew through anything salty (including harness webbing, learned that the hard way!)

We were, all marmots aside, rewarded with amazing sunsets all week. 

I didn't die!

In case you were worried about me, I'm alive! 

I survived my first (extended) backpacking trip of all time!

5 days, 50 lb pack, and I came back having gained weight.

Yea, go figure.

Its all muscle folks, I promise. Nothing to do with Oreos and Swedish fish. 

Day 1:

We hiked into Teton Canyon and on up Devil's staircase until we found running water up there.

We camped in a little meadow next to a glacier. It was a rough night because, despite the cushy-looking-ness of the meadow, it was a lump fest.

A little coyote came into camp during the night and was tugging on the straps of one of the guys' packs. Unfortunately it skidaddled before anyone could snap a picture.

Pack it up, pack it in, let the hiking begin

Packed pack: check

Homework done: check

nervousness: check

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Tetons here we come! Cya saturday friends!

....

If I don't die.

Homework...?

No, that is not paint of any sort. Yes, it is ketchup, mustard, and oil on fabric.

Gotta love textiles.

And Kait for helping do ridiculous labs.

A camping we will go!

Russell and I are taking a Mountaineering class, so we have been preparing. 

In preparation....

We bought a tent!!

It weighs 3.5 lbs, is long enough for us to comfortably sleep in and has a handy little vestibule (vegetable as I kept getting it tongue tied) for our gear, in the front.

We practiced setting it up and taking it down at Smith Park, it was perfect weather to hang out in our little tent and we got our set up time to 3.5 minutes, woot!

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We had talked and goofed around inside for a good hour or so when Russ turned to me, smiled, and said 

"I feel like we are still dating. I love you" and pulled me close to his chest.

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Melt my heart a little more Mr. Gordon. Melt my heart a little more.

Disappearing act

We've been really good lately at pulling short term disappearing acts and stealing away together.

We drove up to Mesa Falls, checking another sight off the "Before We leave here forever" list. It was the perfect afternoon!

On the drive home, Russell asked me what my favorite part was, and then he told me his: 

"My favorite part, was when I was walking backwards up the trail and looked at you and you gave me a super cute little smile. That was my favorite."

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Sheesh, these last posts have been nuthin but mush! So now that you're all caught up on how much I'm swooning over my husband now that I finally get to see him... I'll stop with the mush. :) 

Well, on the blog anyway.

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When we got back into town, we apartment hunted, planned out a little road trip, looked for puppies on craigslist and headed out to the park to have a sunday spaghetti dinner with our favorite Warnicks (Kait has a phenomenal recipe for mozzorella stuffed meat balls..too good!) and then ended the night with some card games. Ok, so we played poker. 

And I got destroyed. Serves me right, eh?

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Here's to hoping your weekend was just as brilliant!

That blue eyed husband of mine...

I hadn't seen that blue eyed husband of mine since Monday.

Friday night at 12:34 am, we gathered up every blanket, pillow and sleeping bag in our house and skiddaddled out to Beaver D. to spend the night in our car. 

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On the way, we turned the radio off and wrote a road trip bucket list by way of glove box light...on a napkin.

"This is serious business" I told him, "Sign your name"

and he did. Cursive and everything.

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Then we snuggled in and watched the stars from the window until we fell asleep.

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I love, love, love that blue eyed husband of mine.

Do you know what is happening RIGHT NOW??

Right now, at this very moment, Extravadance is wrapping up 

It.is.almost.over.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!!!!! 

No more late nights for the semester. 

No more begging people to let us know if we need to fix something...before the 11th hour, only to be told something needs to be fixed...from last semester.

No more burnt fingers or headaches form E6000.

No more hearing biketards being called bikatards.

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It was fun to see 200 hours of my work (plus all the hundreds and hundreds of hours of the other girls) set in motion and lit up on stage. 

It was a bummer after putting so much work into the show to only be mentioned as a "costume shop stitcher" I was looking forward to adding that little program to my portfolio with my name on it, but oh well. 

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It is done.