Snow is piling up and I'm returning to employment again...

So in the past month I have eased myself back into the working life with a relaxing two weeks on, two weeks of schedule which I could certainly get used to! After the last post I was working and getting trained on the latest and greatest winter good for this season for what seemed to be 12 hours a day 14 days in a row, a slight exaggeration but still exhausting. So when I found out with a little shift swapping I could get nearly two weeks off that coincided with a group of friends going to Joshua Tree I was psyched.

So for the last couple weeks I have been enjoying the often balmy temperatures of southern California in tandem with the granitic pluton, friends and some good ol' rocks climbing. Basically I got spanked by 90% of the climbs there and did not get on anything particularly difficult, I did get plenty of mileage in soloing moderates and rallying up some awesome climbs with a handful of motivated individuals, needless to say it was awesome.

Thanksgiving was spent with many friends at a buddies' house; which was the coolest house I think I have ever been in. Thanksgiving day was spent pouring over dozens of books detailing the climbing history of CA, picture books of climbing around the world, guide books and climbing magazines, as well as chuckin' some hatchets (safely of course), cooking up a feast and marveling at Keanu Reeves acting mastery in Point Break (if you haven't seen it, it might be worth watching).

After thanksgiving we returned to the desert for a few short days of climbing and exploring the desert before returning to Durango and for me Aspen.

I'm now back in Aspen working away and trying to figure out how to stay comfortably warm and ski as much as possible. With a foot of snow on the ground and night time temperatures dropping to -16 F (as of last night) I'm getting back in to the swing of winter van living and taking notes for the next post on tips, tricks and the shortcomings of living in a van in the colder, darker months of the year.

About the photos...I kept telling myself to pull out the camera the whole trip to J-Tree and so I didn't take any pictures but here are a few some friends took. I'll see about getting some for the next post.

Thanksgiving card game (screw the dealer)

 Photo by Taryn Pearce

Figures on a Landscape with Spence

 Photo by Annie Edgecomb

Preparing for the zombie apocalypse

 Photo by Jenna Pearce

Arete slapping

 Photo by Jenna Pearce