Avalanche Course and The Season of Giving

We finally got to put those avalanche transceivers to use! Last weeek we took a 24-hour Level 1 Avalanche  course through Bryant Mountain Nordic Ski Patrol and Colorado Mountain Club Boulder (Boulder Mountain School). The class had about 30 students and 20 instrcutors. We did 8 hours of classroom instruction and 16 hours of field instruction between St. Mary's Glacier and Berthoud Pass (both in the Front Range).

Sean at St. Mary's Glacier

Our field days were exhausting, but also a ton of fun. And we learned A LOT. More important than learing the search and rescue techniques was learning how to read snow and weather patterns for clues of potential avalanche danger. We know how to take the right steps to hopefully avoid the situation all together. This is particularly helpful since a) Colorado has the highest number of avalanche fatalities in the country, and b) avalanche fatalities are more likely to happen to 20-30 year olds...

Sean and an instructor working on the snow pit

tap test

Saturday and Sunday (the field days) consisted of practicing beacon use, emergency rescue scenarios and digging/analyzing a snow pit. I found the rescue scenarios to be the most helpful and the most fun. The instructors had buried wet suits filled with snow, some with beacons and some without, and we had to find them and dig them out in a timely manner.

We are now certified by the National Ski Patrol and will probably take the Level 2 course in the not-too-distant future.

30+mph winds and snow during Saturday's field day

On Monday night a group of my friends and I prepared dinner for a local homeles shelter called The Delores Project (http://www.thedeloresproject.org/). The Delores project serves homeless women in Denver. It opens every day at 4pm and closes again at 8am. Women are served snacks in the afternoon and morning and dinner. All dinner is donated and all servers are volunteers. A few of us had served dinner for about 50 women in November and we will go back to serve the food we prepared last night. It is always more fun to volunteer in big groups and both cooking together and serving others helps get everyone in the holiday spirit!

baked ziti for about 65 (menu also includes green bean casserloe, brownies, applesauce, clementines and a big salad)

the prep crew relaxing

Deana and I shopped and organized the group- and we're definitely doing it again.

all of us

Giving Thanks

This Thanksgiving reminded me to be thankful...

for great friends to spend the holiday with

for delicious high-calorie food (thanks mom and dad!)

for a cozy 4-season tent that makes the winter nights a little less cold

for my wonderful husband

who stays out in the cold to boil snow

to make hot water bottles for our sleeping bags

and who puts our wet, cold boots (in a tarp of course) in his sleeping bag overnight

while I get to stay warm in my sleeping bag

who finds water for us along the trail in places I would never consider

and who makes me laugh by eating this at 7:30 in the morning

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you're preparing for the next round of holidays without too much stress! Miss you all :)