The Australians Arrive

Saturday the 22nd was the long awaited arrival of the Australian exchange students. They all looked pretty good for having spent nearly 24 hours traveling to get here. Everyone was in high spirits. Jess claims to have been the only Aussie to not sleep at all during the whole trip, and to top that she came home and stayed up another 6 hours. Check out Jaimie and Jess decked out in their uniforms.

Sunday was the welcome picnic, and Jess lived up to her nickname (Hurricane) by kicking off a water fight. Our liason families the Beehlers, and the Gabels were there to meet Jess as well as evidence of the water battle being caught on film. So far Jess has been "heaps of fun" and looks like the next six months with be fairly action packed.

The first week has been not stop parties at various families houses. Cathy drove J&J up to the Winter Park ski resort to give Jess her first taste of the mountains. We are lucky to have this last photo as Jaimie left the camera in a shop before they came home. Cathy got to make another unscheduled trip up to Winter Park to retrieve it today.

4th of July Backpack

Cathy, Jaimie and I went on a multi-day backpack with the Resers over the 4th of July into the Zirkel Wildness. We took the trail into Rainbow Lake, and did some day hikes up to Slide lake. I was hoping to avoid the people but it turns out that is a pretty popular area. It's hard to find a decent campsite too. Most of the good sites are illegal due to proximity to water. We thought we had an OK place but the rangers came though and booted us out. Due to cooperation we didn't get fined but others in the area did. Some even got multiple fines for fires, and illegal campsites. The mosquitos were unbelievably bad up there. We spent most of our time fighting them off, and it caused a lot of stress with the kids. Think I'll have to invest in some of those bug suits.

Saw the cutthroat trout spawning in the stream. Tons of them herded up in pools trying to get upstream. They weren't biting very well although I did manage to catch a few. They were so thick you could throw a hook into the pack and snag them if you were desperate. I was releasing them, but Saturday when the crowds moved in it got ugly. Kids were wadding in the stream trying to catch them by hand, and really churning up the stream. No wonder the cutthroats are having a hard time sustaining in the high country.

There's an amazing amount of snow still up there. Huge drifts 10 feet deep are still common. Guess they weren't kidding when they said the northern mountains got an above average snow pack. Check out Gary demonstrating the frontal chest slide. Lots of cool glacier lillies as well.