Quickly approaching the anniversary of this website and I'm sure a lot of people have been wondering if I am every going to update this website ever again. The answer is YYYeEEESSEeseesesEEEESSssssss. Yes, I know I am lagging a bit. Relax, it is all part of my Rogue style.

So where have I been?? Answer: CLIMBING MOUNTAINS! Why aren't there more photos being posted? Answer: LOTS OF ANGRY CLIMBERS ASKING THE SAME QUESTION.

I'M BUSY DOING STUFF!! I'LL GET TO PHOTOS LATER!

This year Rich and I decided to progress with mountaineering and took the basic alpine climbing course. It meant a lot of weekday classes, 6 field trips - 3 which where overnighters, midterms, and a whole lot of homework. Many nights were spent in books studying the climber code and bowline knots.

Doesn't this look like fun?! (it actually kind of was)

Alpine Climbing class has been very time consuming this year. But that is how it goes with this kind of thing. We want to climb mountains. We want to be safe. We want to have fun. We wanted to not give the dog abandonment issues. Those were our priorities. We knew that eventually we would get the heavy learning part out of the way and have a little more free time as we approached the plateau of the learning curve. And now after a heavy climb up that curve that is where we have found ourselves. Which means more free time for creativity and poorly written blogs!

"I want to leave the water like you want to leave the mountains!"

We have spent the better part of a year with a fantastic group of hard-working people. We faced some pretty gnarly weather, long days, and in some cases some broken bones. And the attitudes the whole way have been nothing but positive and inspiring. I am so excited to be back and blogging. I am proud to say I am a mountaineer. It is an honor to be among such inspiring and wonderful people.

I have a bit of a backlog for photos. They include basic climbing field trips, scramblimg Ruth and the Steamboat Prowl, camping at high camp on Mt. Baker, Mount Hinman - our first glacier climb, and Kololo Peaks, my second climb. I absolutely love photography and that means spending a lot of time over editing photos to drive people crazy with wacky colors and contrast. It feels good to spend weeks going over them remembering what I was able to accomplish to get that shot. When I am back at sea level it is no longer about posting to show pretty views or show what I did so much as it is about showing how I felt. I enjoy playing with the mood and the colors. It is a way for me to express an experience that meant a lot to me. And force myself to look back and remember how the experience really felt to me.

This is way too pretty and clean for hiking 12 miles with 30 pound bags and preparing to scale a wall of ice.

THAT THERE ARE SOME ROUGH AND TOUGH MOUNTAINEERS.

I post as I go on instagram and facebook. I hope everyone follows and enjoys. After I get them all completed I will do better at getting the high-resolutions photos uploaded here. A lot of cool stuff is coming up. I am very excited to share!

Busy in mountains living the life. I'll get to photos later.

Yeah maybe it is time to go home and edit photos.

Haven't hardly touched photos from this trip and I am already planning the trip back to climb the beast to the right.