Osito And A Frog Named Turtle, An Additive Adventure Entry

In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com and Osprey Packs

Baby Turtle, Phase 2. Photo By Peter DoucetteI grasped the hours-old turtle with her white underbelly between my thumb and forefinger. She put up with it. She tried out the cool air and wind-milled her flippers in opposite and unsynchronized directions. She bobbled her head in an effort to see through still unopened eye slits covered in sand. I was in charge of her until I slid her back into the two-foot-deep hole with her dozens of brothers and sisters. She was covered in sand, and left to grow up—hopefully strong enough to leave the hole and join the ocean.

Right about now, I could talk about ocean health and green turtles and all the amazing things they do. But this is not a story about a turtle; this is a story about a poodle. A poodle that I tried to convince to be like a turtle, via a frog....

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The Big Switch, An Additive Adventure Entry

Filing picks down for dry-tooling in the Boulder Rock Club: Ice Climbing Prep 2010.

In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com and Osprey Packs

It’s November 26^th. It’s 5 degrees in the mountains. It’s time to go ice climbing. To be fair, it’s been like this for a few weeks now. But it’s finally time for me to notice. I’m t-minus twenty-four hours from swinging into blue ice. It sounds glorious and exciting… and a bit terrifying. The question is: terrifying good, or terrifying bad?

It would probably be better not to talk about this—online, in a public forum, or even inside my head. It might be more effective to simply forge ahead and forget/ignore this anxiety. But that’s not how I operate. And besides, it takes so much blasted time to switch sports that you—if you are me—are going to have to get close to the deep dark thoughts just by virtue of the minutes spent preparing.

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Bigger This Time

Self Portrait, attempt 13Believe the hype, drink the cool-aid, make the trip. That’s my motto this month. I didn’t start it. My friend Sara did. Actually, an intuitive did. Or, to be precise, my decision to go see an intuitive.

A month ago, while driving through the dark streets of Bozeman, I called Sara in Bend. We’d both lived together in Boulder a few years back. “I’m going to see an intuitive,” I announced.

“You know that’s a psychic, right?” Sara asked.

“No it’s not,” I said. “I’m not all oovy groovy like that.”

Sara laughed. “You’re the worst kind of oovy groovy. You’re closet oovy groovy.”

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Getting it Anyway

Majka Burhardt in Action, photo by Peter Doucette

A Blog in Conjunction with Osprey Packs. Check out their site and great stuff at ospreypacks.com.

Climbers can, as a rule, break rules. We expand our youth, our shoulder stamina, and, most commonly, our seasons. How many people do you know who go crack climbing in shorts in January? Ice climbing in puff jackets in June? Sport climbing in bikinis February? Hyper-mobility and air travel lends itself to this, but so does the split personality of any excessive outdoorsy person.

I’m one of the worst offenders. To make it more interesting (read: personally challenging), I try to be prepared for any activity at any time. This works. Or it does until you have back surgery.

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Hoarding the Collection

It takes two people 94 days to use 36 rolls of toilet paper. This is pure science. This is my life. Or it is give-or-take the two half rolls I left behind in North Conway last week.

My friends Jim and Sarah came over on my last night in New Hampshire to load my van for me. They each went up and down the stairs a dozen times with me trotting/limping after them. I’ve been placed on carrying restriction by my friends, let alone my doctor, pre-back surgery this week. So Jim and Sarah carried big bins and boxes, and even scooped up the poodle when he was making a run for the van. I carried, well, nothing.

“Jim’s having van envy,” Sarah said, on one trip.

I followed her down the stairs to the parking area. Jim’s been climbing twice as long and twice as hard as I have, or will. “Think this looks good?” I asked him.

He harrumphed. The van was chock full of bins, boxes, skis, rice cookers and salad bowls.  “This used to look good,” he said. “Can’t say I envy it now.”

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