the end of summer and fall

Well to say it's been a long time since our last post would be a huge understatement. I guess when life got very busy we just gave up trying to post about it. Well here is the recap of the summer.

First, Cassie and I got married on the beach in Oregon on August 6th. It was a fantastic ceremony and very chill. The weekend following the wedding we had a reception with friends and family invited for a bbq. The food and drinks were superb and everyone had a great time. There are a thousand more things I could say about how much fun we had, but honestly I just don't think I have the energy to describe it all in detail.

Oregon Wedding Pictures

After that we headed up in the van to Squamish for a few days of granite climbing. Unfortunately it rained a good bit while we were there so we only got in two days of climbing. We did have a great time though and are planning on heading back at some point.

Squamish and Oregon Wedding Pictures

August was a very hectic month and after getting back in Utah we were soon heading to Monroe Canyon for a climbing trip, and then in September we headed to Ohio for a reception that my Mom and Bruce threw for us. It was another great party. (again completely leaving out many details, please ask if you want to hear them)

Monroe Canyon Pictures

After that reception we went to Red River Gorge in Kentucky to go climbing. It was beautiful sandstone and we really enjoyed it even though it rained every single day and was extremely hot and humid. Bruce was extremely kind and let us use his classic VW camper for the trip.

Ohio Wedding and Red River Gorge Pictures

September was over after this trip and October was into full swing when we did a slot canyon trip with the Utah Climbing Club. We did two slot canyons in a single day and had a blast. Cassie's parent's swung through on a Southwest roadtrip and visited with us for a weekend.

Slot Canyon Pictures


Weekend with Cassie's Parents Pictures

Now it's November which means its been almost four months since our last post. We'll try to be be better about keeping up with it. Enjoy all the pics, even though we weren't posting we were still having fun in lots of cool places. If you haven't heard from us in a while there is a good chance we've posted pictures of our adventures to flickr.

Summer is flying by!

I can't believe the last blog post was in May. It really doesn't seem like that long ago. I suppose we've just been super busy with climbing and other fun things.

Well I guess we need to catch everyone up on the news.

First, Cassie and I are getting married in about 2 weeks (august 6th). The wedding is going to be super simple. We've rented a beach house on the coast of Oregon and will be doing a nice ceremony on the beach with our families. A couple of days later we'll be headed back to Portland to have a reception with Cassie's extended family. It'll be a great bbq. We're doing pretty much everything ourselves which means our families are going to be helping out with a ton of stuff. It's so cool that we both have such great parents who understand that we're excited about having a non-traditional wedding. We're going to owe them big time for all the work they've been doing. In april we flew out to visit and got things started, now we just need to drive up to Portland and really start getting things moving for the reception and wedding. We're both really looking forward to getting married, and to having our families meet each other (they haven't even met yet). It's going to be a great experience!!!

After the reception we head to Squamish to do some climbing for a few days. A couple we climb with here in Utah is going to meet us there so we can all climb together. It's going to be sweet granite climbing and bouldering. We aren't huge granite heads, generally the slabby friction climbs require such a  specific technique that our grades for leading are significantly lower than what we'd normally hop on, but I suppose that's the way you get better is to just climb on it, right? 

Second big new: we just bought a VW camper for our big roadtrip. This thing is killa! It's a 1986 Westfalia Camper. The guy we bought it from had almost completely restored it with body work. We completed the project with a new paint job and presto! it looks almost like its new. great new shocks, the 16" wheel package from gowesty, and a custom stereo system with a 10" subwoofer under the back seat. It totally kicks!!! We've taken it down to the Overlook for climbing and camping, and we've been up to City of Rocks for another weekend of climbing. So far it pretty much rules. We're really looking forward to the big road trip (which appears to be about 2 years off) now that we have the van. 

3rd Cassie and I both climbed an 5.11d called Heimie the Mexican Gyneocologist at the Overlook after a few tries. It was a vertical climb with cool crimps and small pockets, plus a sick sloper. I usually don't think I climb dead vertical routes well and I tend to like overhanging routes better, but this thing was great. Cassie sent it with style, almost pumped out at the top, but stuck with it and did it! At the overlook our good friends Chris and Emily came with us. Chris surprised us by doing a 10c on his first try after years of being away from climbing and Emily surprised us by getting on a rope and trying a climb. She's quite afraid of heights and we were all excited that she was willing to give it a try. Next time we'll put her on something easier than a 5.9 and get her to do a bunch of climbs. We had such a great time camping with our friends. On Saturday evening Jason and Sam came down with fireworks and sparklers and lit up our evening with much hilarity attempting to build "the perfect firework". We did cool pictures with sparklers and headlamps as a way to celebrate independence day, and even got to watch some fireworks very far away in Parowan. 

So, to recap the last month and a half, we've climbed at triassic (crazy cool weather in june), climbed at Maple (sent an 11d at the pipeline) climbed at the overlook over fourth of july, climbed at city of rocks (waaaay to hot in July), climbed at Little Cottonwood (crazy granite slabs) and have had a great summer. Other than that we've been getting ready for the wedding and are really looking forward to having two weeks off!

Today as our final day of fun before leaving for Oregon we went to the Uintas and did a hike along the Duchesne river. Lots of great wildflowers and beautiful waterfalls were everywhere!

Also this weekend we got to watch a desert tortoise. He was really cool. We'd love to adopt him but alas we simply don't have the yard necessary to allow him to enjoy himself.  Oh well, he was still super fun.

Also, BTW even though we haven't been posting lately, we've been taking LOTS of pictures. Check them out!

The Uintas Hike

The Overlook

Little Cottonwood

Joes Valley and a Sunday drive

Cassie and I are not fishermen. We have either not done it enough, haven't paid a good tribute to the gods of angling or are simply unable to adapt to the necessary laziness of the sport. We lost at least 6 hooks in a single day to snags, rocks, or whatever it is that lies beneath the surface of the water and didn't catch a single fish to make up for it. Luckily our friends Chris and Emily with their mellow techniques managed to catch 3 over the course of the day. Even more amazing was that they were happy to let us eat them. We have great friends. Our crew of fishing consisted of 3 dogs and 7 people. Mojo amused himself with staring at the fish that had been caught. Strangely he was not at all interested in the animal when it was waved in his face, but rather the dark shadow in the water which moved when he pawed at it kept his attention for at least a few hours.

After having our fill of lost hooks and slack fishing lines we headed back to camp, fried up the fillets and enjoyed some dinner and smores. Sunday Cassie and I planned to head out of camp early to get some climbing in at Maple. We had seen a possible alternate route on a dirt road which leads through the mountains that might be scenic and would potentially still get us to Maple. I did say, "potentially". The road wasn't state maintained and in our little honda civic we knew there was a reasonable chance that we wouldn't make it all the way across the mountains on this road. Also, this time of year there is still much snow at higher elevations which can cause roads to be impassable. Our sense of adventure won out though and we decided to try it anyway. We made it almost to the pass which was probably around 9,000ft when we hit enough snow to force us to turn around. It was definitely not a loss though, as we had two great hikes. The first was to a couple of waterfalls and the second was through bright green mountain meadows with wildflowers blooming. We saw deer and elk and traced a little mountain stream down to it's confluence with the larger drainage which was raging. There was so much snow melt in the area that the ground on the hill leading down to the larger draining was completely saturated in some areas. Small streams appeared out of nowhere. These wet grasses soon consolidated into trickles, and the trickles became streams. No small wonder that the grasses grew so green and lush with all the moisture in the soil. Unfortunately the wetness also caused some slippery walking, and i took a nice spill with the camera in my hands. I believe I either yelled a choice expletive or it might have been "the camera!" which as I fell in top of it became covered in mud. No worries though it cleaned up and was still taking pictures. As we neared the end of our hike we noticed the thunderheads building quite ominously above our heads and thunder sounded in the distance. We hiked back to the car before the road became a muddy mess and headed downhill to the Reservoir.

After so much excitement we never made it to Maple for our planned day of climbing, but then we didn't really mind. It was still a beautiful day in Utah.

Photos from this blog post are at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewandcassie/sets/72157618992713595/