The Winter Months

So, for any old readers of this blog who happen to stumble on it again, you may notice that some months are missing and Matt has disappeared. We ended our historic fall trip in San Diego in early December and Matt made his way to South America, where he still roams, chasing the wave. In June we are scheduled to guide a Chilkoot Trail/Yukon River trip together, so I expect some stories. I spent December, January and most of February in California, visiting some schools and adventuring here and there. It was a particularly snowy winter in southern California, so the skis and snowshoes got some use. On a college tour in the LA region, I picked kumquats at the Tenenbaum house in the morning and skinned up the San Gorgonio mountains in the afternoon.
Another weekend I went with my wonderful and patient girlfriend, Kristin, to the little mountain town of Idyllwild. We stayed in a cozy little cabin and christening our new fondue pot, then went for an epic 10 hour snowshoe ascent of 11,000 ft. Mt. San Jacinto the following day, getting up high on the escarpment and looking out across the desert to the Salton Sea.