Renaissance

In case you missed it, last week on "my house is cooler than your house (subtitle: but actually, I live with my parents so you're cooler than I am)," it snowed. A lot. And it was so awesome.

(footnote: home is Alaska. Anchorage, to be exact)

Except for a brief 6 days last Christmas, I hadn't seen snow since winter '11. I love snow (don't quote me on that four months from now when I'm ripping my hair out because there's TOO MUCH SNOW). Fortunately, I was supposed to go hiking with the group I've been gallivanting around with, so it promised to be a great day. And holy shit, it was.

It started with this:

Hi snow... and mountains... and strange but artsy-fartsy iphone sun effect.

Can't complain about a day like this!

Seriously, insult this-I dare you.

No one had been up here since it had snowed, so it was insanely pristine. Plus, no wind! Rare for this area. Once we hit the pass, a couple of us decided to go up, up, up.

Well, turns out tennis shoes are for dumb assholes who won't admit they are unprepared/unequipped for winter hiking. I was totally fine hiking up to the pass, but once we started the ascent, it became abundantly clear that they weren't going to cut it. I was stubborn, of course, and it took me a while to admit I needed to turn around, but in the end it was the safe choice. Gold star, Jean!

The fact that the view was kickass from all sides made it easier to admit defeat.

I can't stop. It was TOO AWESOME.

Hey, it's me! Just posting this to prove it happened, not because I'm, you know, vain...

We decided that some peak had to be bagged, so we ended up going up something with a gentler slope. It was sick. That's Anchorage down there, by the way.

This was an incredible day, and although I was pretty damn tired when we finished 8 1/2 hours later, my legs felt totally refreshed the next day. Refreshed enough that I headed over to Flattop for some major elevation gain. I'm PISSED I didn't bring a camera for that outing since it was another amazing day, but we'll get plenty of those this winter.

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On a totally unrelated note, remember that time I lived in New York? Well, that's over. Obviously. And remember that time I signed up for a marathon? Well, that's over too. Only I didn't actually run it. Stress fracture! But these are stories for another day.

I'm hoping to get this blog back up and running (see what I did there?). The way I see it, now that I live here all I have to do is take pictures of my immediate surroundings and post them-you jealous lower-48ers will come flocking in droves, I'm sure.

Tomorrow we talk running!