Someday I Plan to Backpack Rather than Just Hike

A view towards South Sandia Peak from Embudo Canyon

Me at the top of Peak 7840

Looking down through the canyon towards Albuquerque

Vuyo doing a little bouldering (he is 3 years old this month)

On Thursday I went hiking with the goal of getting to South Sandia Peak.  With more than 2 miles left to go I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make (I had to get to work that afternoon too) and Mark called me on his lunch break.  He suggested another peak just to the south of Embudo Canyon, Peak 7840.  So I managed to make that one. 

On this Thursday, I will drive up to Colorado to meet Mark for a hike up Mt. Elbert, Colorado's tallest mountain at 14,433 feet.  Whew!  Hopefully we make it on Friday and then can enjoy the success of that hike for the next 2 days. 

Today my younger brother turns 30.  And we celebrate my mom (also known sometimes as "mommalupe" or "mommaloo").  Nate and I definitely plan to celebrate her and how much she cared and cares for us next week (May 18-27) when mom comes to Albuquerque!

Being Clement

Whew!  I'm going to try to sum up the last 3 months rather than try to post lots of different updates on all the things that have happened and then move forward.  :)

In February, I made my first trip to New Jersey/New York City - lots of fun.  Mark and I enjoyed it thoroughly (you did, didn't you Mark?).  We had pizza in Hoboken, went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, walked through Central Park, attended Evensong at St. Patrick's Cathedral  St. John the Divine and bought a pair of USA made jeans for me.

The end of February, Mark and I began a competition to see who could reach the summit of the most peaks by September 9 or so.  I hiked to the high point of the Manzanitas (just east of Albuquerque), there was no trail and I made it mostly by compass and map and persistence.  I was winning for a few weeks with that one peak and currently Mark is 5 and I have 4 summits.

In March, soccer started up and two weeks ago I scored the first goal my team had scored all spring up until that point.  I also apparently helped break the drought because one of my teammates scored a goal last week too.  This Sunday is our last game for the season.  The middle of March, I made my first trip to Florida to spend the weekend with Mark and his parents.  We celebrated Mark's birthday and one year of dating.

April -- I took the National Counselor Exam a couple weeks ago and didn't like it, so certainly hope I passed and don't have to do it again. 

Upcoming in May -- May is a busy month for me.  Mark is getting an unexpected business trip to Denver the middle of May and so I am meeting him in Colorado for the weekend and he hopes to hike to the top of the highest mountain in Colorado - Mt. Elbert.  I'm hoping that I am the only one that makes to the top.  The next weekend after that I am helping run a K9 water clinic for my search and rescue team. Teaching dogs to search on the water for people. Then the next weekend, Memorial day, I am flying to Maryland to help my parents pack up all there stuff and move it to Wisconsin and Mark will be there too. 

Just Keep Searching for a Vulneray Weekend

I was in Durango last weekend.  All I am going to say about it is that I went snowboarding, the first time by myself.  So to substitute for the brevity of my words, I'll post ALL the pictures I took from my weekend trip (all of which were taken within the space of the same ten minutes).  The really noteworthy thing to post is that by this time next week I will be holding hands with my boyfriend in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Those Wonderful Day Hikes

On Sunday at the yurt trip, I took a day hike with my friend Jim.  We had a plan to head to a ridge, but the huge blisters on my feet made me decide to just stick to the forest road and leave the snowshoes at the yurt.  Well we weren't were we expected to be and I like to forge my own way, so we ended up in the deep snow trucking through wherever my whims and my navigation took us. 

Made it back to the yurt and had lunch and then strapped on the snowshoes and headed towards Trujillo Meadow Reservoir.  We made it down to the meadow and decided to turn back since we had to climb out of the valley before dark.

The topo of our day hike (all markings are approximations) :)  I certainly do like some of the things on my new computer.  I think I drew too small to read it though...so....the purple is the yurt location, the maroon arrow is the road we thought we were hiking and the black arrow and black route above the yurt was our actual location in the morning and the orange arrow and black route below the yurt is the afternoon snowshoe to the meadow. (click on the picture though, then you get the details).

Barely seen between the two trees is Jarosa Peak, the peak we hiked up last year at Grouse Creek yurt on the other side of the mountain.

Yurt, Yurt, Yurt

So, it happened a couple weeks ago, but here are the details of my snowshoe trip to a yurt in southern Colorado (Trujillo Meadows, just west of the reservoir that my family camped at when I was a child) over MLK jr. weekend. There were five of us that went, compared to last year's 8 in the same size yurt. Imagine all that space we had this year!

I started getting blisters on my heels from the very beginning. :( So I spent Saturday morning with a wilderness first aid book taking care of them. The forest road that we followed out to the yurt had been plowed, so halfway through the hike, four of us took off our snowshoes (the fifth person was on skis) and walked.

I became known as an instigator because I started a couple of heated discussion Saturday night. I'm pleading some innocence because I simply read something from my Outside magazine, I didn't come up with the topics on my own.

Tory Murray's Yurt!
The Yurt (yurt, yurt)

A Grey Jay, we saw several and Chickadees

Wednesday Play Day!

So in my efforts to enjoy moments while working on getting things done (I haven't mentioned that I am taking a national exam in April for board certification), I am trying to designate Wednesdays as the play day. I have to be at work earlier on Wednesdays and so not really worth trying to get some things done. This past week, "play!" was the first thing I wrote on my list for Wednesday (how many times have I typed Wednesday so far?). I took my dog Vuyo to the foothills of the Sandias - Embudito trail. Very nice. This weekend (really later today!!!), I am snowshoeing out to a yurt in northern New Mexico.

A view from the trail
Vuyo's love of burrowing into the snow. I was rushing so much to capture it, I didn't take the time to compose it (i.e. getting my hand out of the way)

The top there was my goal. Alas, I had to turn back when it was quite close.

Christmas Organizing

My room in the middle of rearrangingThe final result

Man, oh man, I can't sleep. My computer arrived today and after about 6 weeks without my own stuff on my own computer, the thought of doing all sorts of things, like catching up on my finances on Quicken (exciting, hey?) is keeping me awake. So I have gotten out of bed after climbing into bed just over an hour ago and downloading the Quicken 2010.

I also received a letter from Mark today. I was torn between setting up my computer and sitting down to read his letter. The letter won out first, the computer took second place.

OK, so on to the actual blog post about Christmas:

When your parents come to town just start rearranging the house. I have decided that is a good sort of valid reason for things being messy. So I started moving things around in my bedroom before my parents arrived on December 20.

Mom and Dad were in Albuquerque for one week, leaving the day after Christmas with everything they had been storing at Nate's house. They left their dog behind, no room in the truck. OK, so they also wanted some stability for the dog over the next 5 months while they transition between two states, households and retirement. Three dogs in the house now.

I felt like there was no end to the gifts I received from Mark for Christmas. Christmas Eve, I received a dozen red and white roses, but the card said that wasn't really my Christmas gift. Then a box was delivered that my brother wrapped and put under the tree. That was a dozen jumbo chocolate-covered strawberries Christmas day I was notified of a subscription to Backpacker magazine. Marks says that he received a Christmas gift from his parents that I will really like, but have to wait to see it instead of him telling me what it is (feels almost like another present, just with the excitement and suspense) and then he also said there's more. So the Christmas excitement and anticipation is still around.

Wilderness Clarity. And Snowshoes!

Vuyo at Tree Spring Trail

I knew someone out there would clamor for a picture of me

My new snowshoes!

I'm still waiting for a functioning computer to access pictures about some previous events. And today it is pictures from my cell phone.

I took the week between Christmas and New Year's off and it provided the opportunity to organize my room and my projects, but then I also became engrossed in getting things done, like going through my papers from graduate school (from 5 years ago) to see what is really worth keeping. I kept telling myself I would take a day and go hiking in the mountains, but just needed to get these few more things done.

This past Friday (January 8), I started talking myself into hiking after my clinical supervision. Then I thought, "I'll go tomorrow, I want to get this, this and this done." And THEN my new snowshoes arrived! What better nudge did I need to get into the wilds. When I met with my clinical supervisor, he mentioned a quote he saw recently on a daily calendar:

"Busyness is the rape of relationships." -Charles Swindoll

Sounds harsh and drastic, but i would definitely say that spending time with a friend is more important than reading class notes from psychodynamics.

Time did slip away from me a bit, but I spent an hour in the Sandia Mountains in the snow. I hadn't realized how thirsty I was, it was really refreshing to be out there. Thinking I might need to borrow my boyfriend's resolution from last year to do something outdoors every weekend for the year.

Then I came back home and went to an appointment where I had my eyebrows waxed for the first time (indulgences or self-care?). I say it is part of the overall plan to look even better when I see Mark in February then I did the last time he saw me. Of course, the last time we saw each other, we spent 5 days backpacking in the Grand Canyon, so I don't think I have to work too hard. ;)

The Fun of Slot Canyons

Grand Canyon Thanksgiving

A full rainbow in the Grand Canyon

Well, my computer is temporarily dead (is that possible?), hoping it will be revived, so I my posts will not be chronological. Just going with the pictures I have access to.

So I spent Thanksgiving weekend in the Grand Canyon (just like last year), only this year was 5 days of hiking. Mark came back for this trip, 20 days after moving to New Jersey -- so it was wonderful that we didn't have to wait too long before seeing each other again.

I was really slow, I rolled my ankle in a soccer game in October and so wanted to make sure I made it out of the Canyon. Thursday we hiked from the top to the bottom and camped along the Colorado River, along with the company of mice. Then the next few days were up and down and around - it's a canyon! Word is we hiked a total of around 40 miles.

I managed to completely avoid using store bought freeze dried meals for this trip. I borrowed a friends' dehydrator and so had lots of homemade snacks and meals. It worked out really well. What I was most impressed with was making Chili and dehydrating it at home and rehydrating it in camp and marinara sauce (with ground dried tomato), both turned out great. And the favorite recipe though, is making brownies (good thing I planned for two nights of brownies).

Wanderings of a Wayfarer

Cucharo, Co

A view of East Spanish Peak (bottom picture)

And now to update on the summer adventures.

Starting with Labor day weekend though. I drove to John Martin Reservoir in southeast Colorado to meet a friend on Friday. We woke up to a cloudy overcast day and drove to Pueblo for the day.

On Sunday, I drove to Colorado Springs to have lunch with another friend and her husband. Then I drove to southwest Colorado in the Spanish Peaks Wilderness for my first solo backpacking trip. I didn't end up on the trail I had planned to hike and I started a bit late in the evening, so I hiked less than one hour before setting up camp and not much hiking the next day either. I drove through the mountains back to the interstate and had lunch in Cucharo, CO right in the mountains.

John Martin Reservoir (top picture)

My campsite

Colors of Personality

On facebook, people are taking all sorts of quizzes and so i went searching for a couple online that determine the color associated with a person's personality for fun. here are the results:

VIOLET
You surround yourself with art and music and are constantly driven to express yourself. You often daydream. You prefer honesty in your relationships and believe strongly in your personal morals.

White
You value law, order, community and light. You love to protect the social order and the rule of law. At your best, you are just and protective. At your worst, you are authoritarian and dogmatic. Your symbol is a sunburst. Your enemies are black and red.


green
your cool and calm... love nature and having fun .... your also smart and mysterious


You Are a Blue Crayon
Your world is colored in calm, understated, deep colors.You are a loyal person, and the truest friend anyone could hope to find.On the inside, you tend to be emotional and even a bit moody.However, you know that people depend on you. So you put on a strong front.Your color wheel opposite is orange. Orange people may be opinionated, but you feel they lack the depth to truly understand what they're saying



Such a variety, hey? So in the last 2 months [since the middle of March, despite the date, when I took the quizzes and saved them in a rough draft of a post this is really being written May 13], I have done a little traveling, but getting ready for more as I start backpacking again. In April, I went to the Apache Kid Wilderness (apparently no on in Albuquerque really knows where that is), south of Albuquerque for an overnight camping and hike to San Mateo Peak. It was an interesting weekend of weather. Friday night brought in lots of rain and lightening, then a warm overcast day with snow at the peak. I was in Ohio this past weekend to visit a friend and attend a wedding.

This weekend, I am hiking part of the Continental Divide Trail, west of Albuquerque. We are supposed to go 25 miles. Whew! Vuyo is staying home for this one, water is supposed to be scarce, although it would be nice to have him, so that he could carry a lot of the water. Vuyo turned 2 on May 11 and the other dog in the house, Breckenridge turns 12 this month as well.

Winter Aconite (and snowboarding)

I didn't take my camera on any of my winter trips, so not a whole lot to show the audience. :) However I do have one photo of me on my snowboard at Wolf Creek in southern Colorado and a picture of the bruise I acquired on the ice of Red River in northern New Mexico. The bruise actually grew even more after the picture.

And now I am transitioning to soccer and backpacking. My first soccer game of the season was windy and I got to show off my bruise. Unfortunately, we lost 2-0. If all goes well, I will manuever to play goalkeeper next Sunday (the goalie is out of town) :)

Wolf Creek was the bestest snow ever, so we went back the next day. Definitely going to miss the winter and such great trips. However, definitely looking forward to backpacking again and maybe starting to plan some of my own trips into the wilderness.

Off to the Side

On my trip to Flagstaff, Arizona in December, I was looking at a book on volcanoes in Arizona and it mentioned the Grand Falls and so my friend and I took a side trip on the way home to find them. They are located on the Navajo Reservation and few people apparently know about them. They are actually taller than Niagara Falls.

Tripping through Winter

Lots of travels since November. For Thanksgiving, I was on a backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon. Certainly a different experience to climb down into the Grand Canyon.

In December I spent a weekend in Flagstaff and visited a friend in Wichita, Kansas for New Year's. Mom and Dad were in Albuquerque for Christmas and we all went snowshoeing, which was my first time. We also have a new family member. My brother and his wife had a daughter on January 1, named Charlotte Mabel or 'Charlie Bell.'

In January, I went cross-country skiing out to a yurt in southern Colorado, the weather was wonderful and we squeezed 8 people into a space intended for not more than 6 people. The skiing was difficult for me because I haven't skied in over 2 years and never with a pack.

Two weeks later we were in Durango for some snowboarding, another two weeks later in Pagosa Springs for more snowboarding and this weekend we will be in Red River. That is the end of the winter trips planned and then begins the backpacking season, which is the real mission of this group I travel with. :)

I am continuing to have monthly dinner parties, started in September. It has been an enjoyable time of gathering with friends.

The end of January was the end of my first year in my current job, which continues to go well.

Pictures of the Grand Canyon