So last weekend (Sept. 22-24) Diesel and Denver and I made a trip into the Wallowa mountains of North Eastern Oregon. Lindsey was unable to attend as she had some professional duties with her department (http://www.agls.uidaho.edu/fcsed/). For those of you who don't know about the Wallowas....good...but seriously, they are a very little known range that house the Eagle Cap Wilderness. These mountains rise above a plateau above Hell's Canyon. The plateau is dominated by ranches and sits at about 4000 feet, the peaks rise to about 10,000 feet. It is truely spectacular. My favorite part, they are only a three hour drive from Moscow. During the winter this range recieves a TON of snow, and due to it's location on the Eastern side of the Oregon drylands the snow that falls here is light and fluffy. So this trip was in preparation for that snow. Each fal the u of Idaho takes a trip into Aneroid basin (named for one of the peaks, and shown in one of the photos) and we cut wood for a guide service (http://www.wingski.com). In return we get to make a trip into the huts in the winter to ski. These huts are part of a private inholding in the wilderness area. They were an old mining claim that was grandfathered in, and are now run as a summer work camp, and winter ski huts.

This was another PHENOMINAL weekend in the Wallowas, it always is. There was good people, good weather, and lots of good work accomplished. We have been invited back for the next couple of weekends to do some more work at another one of the company's facilities in the same range, another work for ski exchange. This time Lindsey gets to go, more on that later.

So school is back in session, Lindsey is teaching at the University of Idaho, I am still working towards a graduate degree in Forest Entomology.

We both worked this summer, Lindsey for the U of I (the good one) and I on my research. However, we did get to play a little. We took a 4 day river trip down the Lower Salmon River, and yes the dogs came too. Here are some photos. River trips are one of our favorite things to do together now. They are right up there with ski trips, but almost better because the dogs can be with us on these trips.

These are some photos of us on the 18 foot cataraft that we spent most of the time on, and one from the 16 foot stern frame raft that we were on for the last day. Our friends Johna and Katie were on the raft with us for the last day, Denver was obviously very happy to have Johna on board.

In an attempt to communicate more freely with friends and family spread across the country (or is it us that spread?) we are setting up this page to communicate our life happenings. Because of course everyone cares what we are up to....