…if you all recall, he suggested I join him in the Grand Tetons for a few days of climbing.  I declined due to scheduling concerns, but the 150′ rappel to get down kinda’ had me a bit worried too.

From John’s notes:

We had two fantastic days of hiking and climbing.  We went from 6,700′ to 13,400′  just 370′ shy of the summit.  Almost 1.5 miles of elevation gain.

We camped in the moraine and then climbed to the lower saddle and then up to a ledge called Wall Street.  From there we rock climbed several pitches up the upper Exum Ridge.  We had only two pitches to go but decided that at 3:30 PM there was a chance we would be the last ones on the summit and not know exactly how to descend.  We were on the same route as the climbers on Wednesday that got struck by lightning, but we had great weather.

We did a 150′ rappel down to the upper saddle and then hiked down the Owens Spaulding Route to our camp at 10,500′.  Dan Jopp and I had a fast fun ride glissading down the snow field using our ice axes as a brake.  We dropped several hundred feet sliding on our butts in our rain pants.

Notice the ropes and helmets in the two photos below.  Ropes and helmets mean “don’t fall”.  I may not be ready for “don’t fall” hiking and climbing…

John celebrating victory –

Am I the only one to notice the clothing requirements in July?

John nails another one…

…maybe next year for me.

Sami and Jacqui are the proud parents of a new baby boy.  Please say hello to Alec!

Alec’s brother Jack recently took a break from his elder sibling responsibilities to pose for a few pix in his Halloween costume.  I have it on good authority he was back to his big brother duties quickly!

Congratulations guys!  We’re thrilled for you!

I’ll be posting a blow-by-blow over the next few days, but to get things started, here’s a panoramic shot I managed to put together:

There’s no way I can post the full sized photo on the site.  It’s actually 26 individual photos “stitched” together.  If you’re so inclined, you can click this link to open the image for better viewing.  It’ll take about fifteen seconds (depending on your connection speed).  Go ahead and do it — you’ll be happy you did.

The trip was organized by our good friend John Gallen.  He’s a Yosemite veteran, and he made sure we started off slow (this photo) and ended with a bang.  I guarantee you’ll like the bang!

Our group was rounded out by the venerable Chris Smith (a fellow Georgetown alum) and Paul Schmeling (a frequent traveler to China introduced to us by John).  Paul is going on our email list until he begs to be removed…

We based ourselves at Tuolumne Meadows.  Our visit was broken down into treks: Day 1 was Mount Hoffman.  Days 2 and 3 encompassed our first overnight in the wild as we made our way up to Vogelsang and Fletcher peaks.  Day 4 was spent checking out the sequoia trees and visiting Yosemite Valley.  Days 5 and 6 included another overnight as we made our way over Clouds Rest and up to Half Dome.  Day 7 was the pack and repack day with the whole trip being bracketed by travel days.  I don’t know about the other guys, but I’m shot.

So stay tuned!  We managed almost 1,000 photos!  I’ll do my best to pull out a few good ones.  At the risk of sounding cliche, Yosemite is a National Treasure.  You gotta see it to believe it, and hopefully our pix will offer a glimpse into a place I thought was amazing.

More soon!

Okay!  If you have not read the prior post (the one just below this one), please give it a quick read.  You’ll have a much better chance of understanding what’s happening in this video if you’re armed with some background first.

This is a YouTube linked [UPDATE - Flash] video. The quality is just so-so as a result. EXCELLENT! I have a high res version if anyone falls in love with it…which I doubt. I do not claim to be good at this.  I will try to get better.  Bear with me…