Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all and please enjoy one of my favorite songs of all time!

Ho Ho Home for Christmas

Sunday afternoon I made it back home to Georgia for an extra long Christmas break after travelling through Salt Lake City and JFK in New York on stand by. It was so awesome to be able to get home amd see my whole family at the airport. Then going to cut down a Christmas tree and put it up before going to our churches Christmas program that night. When I left three hills Alberta it was -30 F so it was kinda nice to step ouside in Georgia even though i do miss the snow. Ill be home untill January 12th so if your around here lets get together and hang out and eat some pumpkin pie or go fishing or something.

Happy Thanksgiving - Enjoy some Pistol Shrimp

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! I sure do miss some good home cookin, but most of all, hangin out with my friends and family around home. I am so thankful that I do in fact have that to come home to in less than a month now. I ran across a sweet creature of the sea and thought you might wanna check out how the Pistol Shrimp gets its Thanksgiving Dinner

PS Go Carly for being in the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade - Your awesome!

Taste of Heaven

Last weekend me and Vanessa got to go visit our friend studyin in Calgary. We were all excited to get out into the mountains after being in the plains for such a long time. So we headed to Johnston Canyon in Banff and had an amazing hike. The sights were so breathtaking and awesome. It was just a little icy on some parts of the trail which made for some fun. Also we got to go down underneath one of the many waterfalls and and then had lunch right downstream from it. Hearing the power of the water and seeing it shape the canyon was too cool.

We also got to go with John to his church, which was started by Iranian Muslims - most of which were now Christians. A man we met translated for us the service which had to of been so hard, I was really appreciative of that. Then at the end the last song they sang had both English an Farse on the screen. I had never heard the song before but i started to try and sing the English version while they sang the other one and it was amazing. I thought about the disciples in the book of Acts when they started speaking in all the different languages and how cool that would be. I also thought about being in Heaven and singing with everyone from all over the world. Could we still be able to hear the beauty in another unfamilair language but in some way be able to understand it at the same time. It was quite a cool weekend with two tastes of Heaven. To see more pictures, please click HERE

When we got back to Three Hills there was a group at our church here from Ukraine and before they left we all sang How Great Thou Art, they sang in Ukrainian and we sang in English. How cool was that!

BIG Thanks to Vanessa and her photography skills for providing the pictures on the last two posts.

My First Solo

Hot Dog!!! Thats what i remember saying after I cranked up the engine, taxied to the runway, kicked up the throttle, and took off. Then I remember thinking oh man...I gotta bring this thing down now. Then a couple more screams, excited yells, and an excitied song praising God - after all no one was else in the plane with me : ) So many nerves in the weeks before lead up to pure excitement the day before. I would not be here without the love of so many people from all over, I cant begin to express my thanks! I know its just one step in this process and Im just begining, but its all too exciting. Click below to see way too many pictures of the incredibly beautiful sunrise and me flying solo for the first time.

Click Here

The Time Has Come

If everything goes smoothly in the morning this guy...and this guy...(nervous smile?)

will be taking their first ride solo together from 7:30-9:30. If you are in the town of Three Hills Alberta I would caution you to stay inside and pray. If you are elsewhere then you should be safe but prayer would still be a good idea.

All kidding aside things have been going really great in my flight training and tomorow morning after getting checked out one last time by a different instructor I will hopefully be soloing. No need to worry about anything just thought the funny face would be good for a few laughs : ) I just wanted to share this exciting time in my training. And by the way, prayer is always welcome.

Praise the Lord for Freezing Wind

Its been a long process for my school as they looked into purchasing an additional airplane sense before I was around. After raising enough money and prayers they found a "newish" Cessna 172, equipped with the Garmin G1000 "glass cockpit" navigation system, down in Florida. Very long story short, the new plane landed at the Three Hills airport on Friday afternoon. Basically it is the schools fourth 172 which will provide more oppertunites for flights now, sense the schedule board stays very booked up. In case you are like me and wonderingare mission group going to be using this new kind of technology and will it be dependable in the bush. The reassured me that indeed this is the way things are moving towards, and it will make everything safer as well. By the way Freezing Wind is what we sometimes the name we call the plane, sense it registration letters are FWIND. W actually had an article written up abou the program and the plane and you can check it out along with more pictures below.

Click HERE for the article and picture

My Birthday

Why yes that is a lion in our lap - thanks for askin. This is a picture of us at the town Guzoo. Follow the link below to get caught up with pictures on extended birthday fun. There is also some pics at the bottom of a Native reserve that I like to help out at a couple hours north east.

Click MEE

Week of New Things

Last week I finally got started into school and had a week of a bunch of new exciting things. I got to move into my basement apartment, which is the first time living away from home for me outside of dorms. It was really weird. For the first week or so I felt as if I was sneaking up on somebody else’s house. I’m still trying to unpack.

I spent more money than I ever have at the grocery store at one time. I went on 10% Tuesday and I think almost everything I bought was also on sale before the 10%. I was feeling pretty good, it took me a couple of hours to get to the checkout to hear the total $110….dang! Then looking at the number of bags it suddenly hit me, I have no car and I live about a mile and a half away from the grocery store. Luckily it’s a small town because I was left with no option but to walk to shopping cart to my house on the side of the road. After about an hour, and a bunch of laughs from neighbors later, I made it.

Last but not least I got to go up on my first flight here at Prairie. I get along with my instructor really well and am learning a lot already. I usually spend 8 hours a day at the airport doing some kind of work, its super crazy but really rewarding already. My second flight was exciting because we had carb ice before we took off and frost on the wings so we had to pull the plane into the hangar and crank up the heat. When we finally got up the sky was clear so I got a clear view of the beautiful snow covered Rockies as I looked out over the prairies flying 2000 feet above the ground. It was awesome.

Dang I Wish I had a Picture

I was wondering what to read from the bible two days ago so I asked God, What do you want me to read. I hear Job 37 in my head and think uh oh was that just me saying that, I dont know if there is even 37 chapters in Job. So I turn there and read this: ( actually starting in chapter 36)

26 “Look, God is greater than we can understand. His years cannot be counted. 27 He draws up the water vapor and then distills it into rain. 28 The rain pours down from the clouds, and everyone benefits. 29 Who can understand the spreading of the clouds and the thunder that rolls forth from heaven? 30 See how he spreads the lightning around him and how it lights up the depths of the sea. 31 By these mighty acts he nourishes the people, giving them food in abundance. 32 He fills his hands with lightning bolts and hurls each at its target. 33 The thunder announces his presence; the storm announces his indignant anger.
It continues on in chapter 37 and says, 13 He makes these things happen either to punish people or to show his unfailing love.

I thought man that is awesome I sure would love to see a good lightning storm up here in the Prairies. Last year we saw the very end of one at the beggining of the year and then nothing. So then last night rolls around and this is were I wish I had a picture but hopefully I can paint it for you. The volleyball game stops suddenly when we hear thunder and a blur of lightning. We stop not swo we wont get struck but so we can go watch the action. So its down to the train tracks we go to watch and hope and on the way there we can see the most beautiful sunset. On top of the layer of colors sat a layer of dark. The thunder continued to rumble in the distance as our eyes stay peeled looking for bolts of lightning. YEAHH I yelled out when I saw the first one split the sky, and then another and another. Pretty soon we had a good seat on top of a pile of railroad ties with an incredible panoramic view of a lightning-set, sunsetting over the prairies with lightning bolting in almost 360 degrees. Man, God is huge, and what an awesome gift He gave us that night. Id say definately one of the top 10 sights ive ever seen

Float Plane Landing

I'm back now in Three Hills, Alberta at Prairie Bible College. I had a very unexpected, yet very awesome summer this year. I cannot thank Vanessa's family enough for everything they have done and did while I got to visit. I had such an awesome time there and will miss the place and the people there alot. Ive tried to post some pics of the beautiful country surrounding Vanessa's house so have a look.

http://www.tabblo.com/studio/stories/shared/27314/8kyxs9jmn0ezug2

Ontario

I left Georgia a little early for school so i could visit the great state of Ontario and see where Vanessa lives ( I mean province). My time here has been amazing so far. To my excitement she lives away from everything where i can hear cows while i sleep and look out the window laying in my bed to see a ton of bright stars. And by my bed i mean her room because i took it over when i came her and now she shares a room with her sister just like when they were growing up ( thanks Alex).

Sense Vanessa has to work everyday during the week I had a list of things to do around their house to keep me busy and earn my keep. I dont want to make it sound too bad though because sometimes that included going into town to catch fish untill Vanessa got off work and then bring her home. So far weve got alot of smaller bluegill, bass, and perch off of docks, shores and in rivers. There is water everywhere here it awesome. This seems like the kinda place that would be so easy to take for granted living here but coming from the outside I cant get enough of it. I wish I had much more time and much less to day besides exploring corn fields, old barns, rivers that lead to lakes, and beaches that no one knows about.

Sense Vanessa has to work everyday during the week I had a list of things to do around their house to keep me busy and earn my keep. I dont want to make it sound too bad though because sometimes that included going into town to catch fish untill Vanessa got off work and then bring her home. So far weve got alot of smaller bluegill, bass, and perch off of docks, shores and in rivers. There is water everywhere here it awesome. This seems like the kinda place that would be so easy to take for granted living here but coming from the outside I cant get enough of it. I wish I had much more time and much less to day besides exploring corn fields, old barns, rivers that lead to lakes, and beaches that no one knows about.

One day her mom surprised us by taking us to the local float plant airport. Ideally i would really really like ending up flying at float plane on the mission filed someday. Up untill that day I had never even seen one. Im not sure how it all happened but somehow, thanks to her mom, me and Vanessa got to go up in the plane and I got to fly it. I was so cool watching the water splash up beside the plane on the take off. We went to two remote fishing lakes that could only be reached by air. My eyes stayed huge with excitement the whole time. We touched down in the first lake and after a while we took back off again and sharply turned around and flew about 20 feet off the ground through a narrow marsh land surrounded by tall trees untill it opened up to a another big lake. After practically skimming the water for a while we headed back.

The landing back at the airport was awesome. We came down over some trees and then into another narrow passageway. Below us some water started to appear under some tall grasses but the lake itself was still a little ways ahead of us as we got lower and lower. We finally touched down on top of the grasses and then floated into the lake and over to the dock to tie up the plane. The pilot said once you fly on floats you never go back. I hope he is right.

Last week I decided I would become a well driller. Actually one of her moms good friends owns a drilling company and was short one guy for a couple of weeks and wanted to know if i would be interested. Wood eye! So I show up monday morning at 7:00 at his farm and we go over to the shop where the fun begins. The day is filled with huge trucks, oversized tools, and everything covered in either grease or mud- or both ( including me). On the way to the first job the owner warned me about this and I was thinking - bring it on! I am not the biggest guy in the world and luggin around the tools and machines and just doing this work has been challenging. Its one of those situations where you ask yourself, do I have what it takes? Without giving up even when I suck at welding, or cant figure out how to move a pipe, or smash my toe, God keeps telling me at the end of the day, yes you have what it takes. Everyday I come home tired and take a hose shower in time for dinner. The owner Dave has gave me this opportunity in a heartbeat without really knowing me and offered to pay me by donating directly to the school. He is an awesome guy to work for. Tomorrow its back out to the Georgian bay to try and find water. After 180 feet down today nothing yet so we are crossing our fingers.

SummerTimeSummerTimeSummeTimeSummerTime

This summer has been great. This is the first time in a long time when I dont have a full time job or school which makes me available for just about anything. Its been the best being able to hang out and spend time with friends and family and be there to help out when anything comes up around the house, or at church with the college class or youth group.
We got to float down the Chattahoochee I dont know how many times with several first timers, my buddies, sisters, and even one of those inflatable killer whales for Cinco De Mayo. Our family managed to all be together in one place at the same time a couple of times. One day we camped out in North Georgia before heading out to the lake the next day for alot of tubing and wakeboarding. We also all ended up together for the fourth of July in Pine Mountain Georgia for fishing and fireworks. Years and years have gone by with bread balls and cane poles fishing for bluegill, which I still really like doing. This was the time for one of the elusive Lake Innsbruck bass to find itself on the end of my line...and then under the knife...and then fried headed towards my stomach...delectable. It has been awesome spending time with my family doing new things and old things once again.
Being home also gave Vanessa a chance to come and check out the south for a week. So much to see and so little time. We stuck pretty close to home and did things that I love doing. We checked out stone mountain and the super partiotic lazer show which did not disappoint with the usual song like Dixie, Devil Went Down to Georgia, and other favorites. Of course we went to the Hooch and did a little fishin and tubing. One of my favorite days was probably Sunday. We wake up get to go to church and meet everyone there and she got to see some good southern Gospel singin. After churhc we ate lunch and relaxed on the couch while we watched the Braves game on TV. After that we hopped on the John Deere and rode to the end of the creek up for a little back yard fishin. I guess it had been a while for her so I got to kinda re-teach her how and we both caught fish while wading in the water cold water under the Hot Gerogia Sun. That night we went to the fox theatre to catch a summer movie and get a chilli dog from the Varsity. Thats a good day.
One week I got to go be a counselor for the youth group in the North Carolina mountains for a week which. It was so much better than I expected. I had several revelations in my own life as well as really getting to connect with the kids there. The last night there I was asked by Chad, the sepaker, if I would mind speaking about what I was doing, the whole mission aviation thing. So I was like what no way thats tonight What am I gonna say. Then instantly several ideas come into my head of what it would be. I didnt have much time to work on it with the busy schedule which turned out to be good. I got to see God big ways there. That Sunday night when I got home I had the night service to give my testimony of what has been going on in my life. I found it most hard to narrow it down enough to fit in the time period. It was awesome to see alot of people show up and to know I have there support. I feel lucky to have an incredible home church like that as well as awesome friends and family here.
PS when shootin the Hooch, River Rats or tractor tires work much better than those pool floats from walmart or the killer whale. Ask Mario if you dont believe me.

Graduation

We made it through the first year!!! I wasnt really excited about walking in graduation when I heard about it. After all we were only doing a one year bible program in Wilderness Leadership and we where walking beside other people who were completing their 4 year degrees. As time grew nearer and We fought to finish the year well, something that is especially hard for me, I began to look forward to the closing time and the ceremony. I realized that yeah, this was a stinkin hard year and alot of amazing things have happened and it was indeed something to celebrate. 

I was super excited that my mom got to come up and experience those times and see the places behind some of the stories and pictures. We had an awesome time checking everything out. She got to experience some Canadian "flurries" which usually mean like 3 or 4 inches of snow - not like our flurries down here in the south. She stayed with my impact family and Ulrich had to help her scrape and brush off the car. Little did she know that those brushes come stnadard in rental cars in canada. We even got to check out the airport that hopefully ill be getting to spend alot of time in. 

Im home for atleast the rest of this week. Everything that I thought I was going to be doing this summer hasn't been working out so far. Even after searching and praying and thinking it was so right. God only knows what is going to happen. Right now I am seeing if I can get a work permit in Canada and we'll see if that goes through.

 In my devotions I read 1 Corinthians 15:58 which I had previously underlined and it says " Therefore , my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give your selves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." I remember that I liked that verse before because it encouraged me to work hard, which i like to do but it is hard sometimes. The part that really hit me in the face this time which i never noticed before is when it says" you know that you labor in the Lord is not in vain." This hit me all over the place on so many different levels. Im still trying to figure out His will and get to spend time with all yall here, Ive been loving it! As we watched the last sunset for that year at Prairie I praise God for it all. 

Big long post - Pics are Here

Skills have long been over and what and the world have I been doing all this time in Montana still? Well...
After skills we jumped right into a class called Adventure Business and Management. I thought it was going to be a breeze and similar to other management classes I have taken but boy was I wrong. Our teacher said the real class title was God what do you want me to do with my life? Adventure was the unknown outcome of anything, business was how that thing operated, and management was keeping those things in line – sort of. It was really an intense and amazing class that I learned a lot about both my life and how to run it, and also creating a vision, mission, and values for a company and how to run that. There was so many connections between the two such as who the “customers” are, and following the values that are pre set, and customer service and non of it was that lame Christian, how is this connected, kind feeling. It helped process experiences in my life this far and challenged me to examine where I am now and what lies ahead.

That next weekend we had our first practicum that we planned for every moment between skills and the time the youth group got to camp. We set up a three day camp for a youth group that came in from Washington. We were given the opportunity to plan everything from meals, to activities, to chapels, and debriefs, and everything in between. The staff was here but they became invisible unless we needed some extra helping hands. We were so sick of planning and having meetings and during the first day we thought to ourselves why in the world did we set bed times so late, we wanted to go to bed because we were beat. Man was it ever worth it. I made several connections to the kids and the events seemed to be very impact and beneficial for them. It was hard to see them leave so soon after spending all day and all night with them but Ill never forget that time.From there we had our Wilderness First Aid class which I was really looking forward to. We went through three days of intense training and scenarios to prepare us to handle a broad base of things we may encounter in the backcountry. It was a ton of fun and I learned a lot from it. The last scenario included a wrecked jeep with a fire beside it and people scattered all over with blood, burns, wounds, and hypothermia. As we went on they became more and more realistic and were very helpful to know how to react in real life.Then came practicum number two which was on the other end of the spectrum. No planning but lots of manual labor. To me and my buddy Jason delight the town of Plains Montana’s fire wood supply had been stolen and we were faced with 2 splitters, a lot of mauls and axes, an older town men with chainsaw to cut rounds for us. Two days straight of swinging all day and my muscles were tired and we were loving it. I love chopping wood but we have had no wood to chop at camp this semester so I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity. One of the local church’s supplies wood to the people in the area and it was all stolen so we built a fence and chopped wood to replenish the supply. After it was over they needed a couple of volunteers for the next day to go logging up in the woods and so my hand went up. This was a day full of 4 wheelin through dirt and ice, felling trees, and a little more chopping. We had the chance to chop some for the pastor who looked absolutely burnt out. He explained how every year this minister just drains him because he has to chop wood for 150 people each year and then himself to. The town was just overwhelmed with our service and it was awesome to be able to give back to the town that we go to church in. We also got to go to Anaconda Montana to a juvenile center to play basketball with the guys there. It was a lot of fun and but challenging to connect with them. They were pretty shy and we had limited time. It helped making fun of ourselves sense we lost 12 to 97 or some ridiculous number like that both games.Next was our search and rescue class. We got to use a lot of our wilderness first aid skills in different searching operations that were set up for us. We even had a retired survival instructor from the air force come in and teach us for one day about surviving. Everyone was forced to make a fire that night without a lighter in the windy or snowing conditions or nobody was gonna be eatin supper. The last day was an amazing day and it started out with a search and rescue helicopter landing at camp and then a surprise rescue operation right when we sat down for dinner that lasted till one in the morning and had to 5 different people carried out on litters, broken femurs, gun shot wounds, drunk guys with guns that were hypothermic in the creek, and the plains community ambulance talking to us on the radio and waiting for the patients. It took many hours to organize and search this dense section of marshy creek woods with headlamps. At the end of it we got to ride in the ambulance and finally eat dinner at one oclock that morning – best pizza ever.The next weekend we had our orienteering challenge. We car camped out in a wilderness area and woke up at 6 to have a good Friday service around the campfire next to the river before we went out. We split up into groups of three with a compass ans a map and got clues at each checkpoint of how to navigate to the next point. It was long day of hiking that you hoped you didn’t shoot a wrong bearing or that would mean backtracking and not finding how to get back. In the end it was a ton of fun and it helped solidify the skills of orienteering for me.At the end of March we had another practicum opportunity back in Anaconda. Our group was actually able to go back and play basketball again before heading off to a roofing project. It was amazing. We were warming up and our back was turned to the door when one of the guys came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and he was smiling and his hand was stretched out towards mine. Man it was so awesome, my heart was tugging that day as I really got to connect more with those two groups of guys and hear the chaplain speak of how God has opened up his ministry there. As he would always pray for us “praise God and kick the devil, Amen!” The roofing was a lot of fun and hard work. It was really cold and windy there and usually started snowing for the last part of each day. It was an old Victorian house that they had turned into a kids home that couldn’t find foster parents. The roof was so steep that we roped in with climbing harnesses to finish it. Any day hangin from a chimney and shootin nail guns through shingles is a good day. We also got to stay with a local family that had a cabin out in the woods with Moose tracks in front of their house in the 3 feet of snow, 3 wood burning stoves, amazing food and conversations, and a basset hound named Harvey to wake us up. It was a good trip.We got back and its time to pack and leave for tema challenge trip. Our last horay trip of the year that the junior interns plan for us. We actually decided to hike as one big explore team which was so much fun. It was filled with incredible sometimes sunny snowshoe hikes through beautiful woods and over frozen lakes and up a peak called Baldy. Every night we set up camp with a fire pit dug into the snow. On the last night we camped beside the frozen lake and dug out a couple of feet of snow on top of the lake to have a fire on top of the frozen lake. It was amazing with beautiful stars.Its Sunday today and everyone is packing up to head back to Three Hills Canada to go back to Prairie. It’s a very confusing and intense time of leaving this beautiful place this time for good, and then getting back to Prairie for a couple weeks of an intense theology class and seeing friends that we have been missing for a long time. And then leaving all that for good. Several people are coming back for a second year but they will be gone a lot of the time. Its been an amazing year that is such an awesome gift from God that I never ever expected. This whole time I was kinda thinking I cant wait to get through this first year of bible school so I can start flying next year at Prairie, that is until I signed up for the explore program and I have made more best friends, had the best and most valuable experiences, and learned and growed more than I ever hoped for.
Yall have been an incredible support for me back home and I love it. Apparently Im not getting much better at keeping this up to date but im still workin on it. Im not sure whats in store for the summer but Im excited to see whats next.

Winter Camping Specialization

I choose to specialize in winter camping this semester which meant for days in a quinzhee and lots of exploring around the area. Over night isnt tooo hard because you know that the next day you get to go back and dry out your clothes and everything so no big deal. But 4 days is another story.
The snowing tradition continued for the whole four days. We built this quinzhee the night before and woke up to about a foot of new snow everywhere ( dont leave anything flat on the ground or youll never find it). To our surprise we did not only have a ton of snow but also hurricane..well okay more like intense blizzard force winds non stop. I was sitting up and putting on my shoes in the morning and snow was blowing into quinzhee from outside! Trying to cook breakfast in this weather was ridiculously hard it it became apparent that our ridiculous idea of building a ginaormous quinzhee big enough to walk into and fit an indoor kitchen was well worth a try.
And we did it! A full day of shoveling later and it was complete. Pictures will never do it justice but you can get an idea. This shows about half of it with a circular center counter. A walkway that two people could pass through, and bench seats that linned the walls and could comfortably fit 15 people even though we didnt have that many. You could almost stand straight up when walking in the door and I could stand all the way up on top of the counter and not hit my head on the roof it was so high up.
This is entire group on top of it. It was so big we had to huck snow up as high as we could and then there was someone on top that picked up that snow and brought it to the top of the hill. It was totally worth it though. It provided an amazing place to hang out, cook, and talk. Over the four days we talked alot about investing into other peoples lifes and asking questions. Overall just purposefully making it a practice to talk about eternal things that matter. How often does that happen even hangin out with all your Christian friends?
It was an awesome four days. Being out there we soon realized that it was also hard to do something else in that terrible weather. So we built an indoor toilet. We built a miniature quinzhee and used the toilet seat that we had strapped to out backpack and put it in there. Then we used a ski pole a sppon and our hands to dig out a deep and narrow hole. It worked beautifully. We also got to do some backcountry snowboarding, a night hike with snowshoes under the stars and lots of other fun in the snow stuff.

Telemark Skiing Class

Telemark skiing is dang hard! It is the best form of back country travel because you can hike up hills and ski down them. On the bottom of the ski are scales that grip the snow in one direction allowing you to go up hills easier without slipping down. Of course we push ourselves and go the craziest routes and try and summit the hardest peaks around so it makes things a little more tricky. Basically your toes are clipped in with you heel free to go up and down and when you do a telemark turn you lunge down and then pop up the other direction. Its a killer leg work out and a tough skill to master. I learned to really like it and enjoy the trip up the mountain instead of viewing it as a lot longer and harder version of a chair lift. If you go for a hike in the winter you can do it with tele skis on and then when you get to the top instead of hiking down you get the added benefit of skiing down.
All of a sudden all of our avalnche class training became very real to us when we all heard a loud echoing explosion sound that bounces off all the mountains around us. We were quickly told that that was the famous "wump" sound and to be on the lookout. Someone then spotted on the face across from us a slide where an avalanche had just occurred. It was actually really cool because of someone just saying "ya wear a helmet when you ride a back...safety safety blah blah blah" the danger was all of a sudden very real to us. We were constantly digging pits to do tests and picking our routes very carefully based on snow pack, degree of the slope, and other things like tree cover.

By this time in winter skills they came to a realization that we were spendint o much time going up and down the mountain are speding lots of money on diesel gas, a broken thumb from the sterring wheel, and lots of time shoveling and hiking. So the decided we would just go up once more and stay up for the rest of the four days. This was a surpsie to everyone and an added challenge to be sure. The warm showers after ward feel so amazing. This last pic was the sun shining on us in the morning after waking up before heading to the summit. That was a good gift.

Winter Camping Class

I really liked winter camping even though it was a challenge for me. The way it was described to me was that its not about how to survive in the winter time its about how to thrive in the winter time camping. We have had record breaking snow fall this year and even the big 6x6 military truck with chains on the tires was not able to make it up the hill like normal. So we spent the alot of the day hiking with snowshoes and shoveling out the road for the truck to get up. All through Winter skills i dont think it ever stopped snowing but very breifly a couple of days. Mostly it was snow all day and night long. The hikes were especially beautuful when the sun did decide to peak out.

When we got to the spot we were going to camp at we had no time to rest because we had to start building our quinzhee. This is kind of like a iglo but instead of block s of ice that you cut out it is made form a big pile of snow that you shovel. You first stomp out the ground to pack it down and then start piling a huge pile of snow in that area. After you have a good dome shape you let it harden for a couple of hours then you get to "mole" it out which is a blast but you get snow all over you.


With about 8 feet off snow everywhere all you need is a shovel an imagination and some muscles ( got that covered) and you can build anything you want. Me and my buddy scott built a couch with a foot rest and drink holders after our quinzhee was done to relax on and then we started on the kitchen. It was nice not having to worry about how much water we had because if we needed more you just fire up the store and melt some snow. Warning: you can burn it and that is some nasty tasting water. We eat pretty good out there. This is us testing out the noodles (ramen) for our spaghetti dinner that night. We used sticks that we found laying around and they worked quite well.

We were all pretty exhausted and couldnt wait for dinner to be ready so we could just go to bed in our new shelter. It actually sleeps very good in side all that snow. It blocks out virtually all sound from outside and everything around you is white snow. Just beware the dreaded "wump" while the snow is settling which could be ugly if it collapses on you.

The next day we got up and decided to make some sled runs for our air sleds that we hiked up with us. At the bottom of the run the was a small drop off that we made into a ramp which launched us into the air. Luckily there was plently of powder for all the ugly landings. It was a great time as long as you can keep clothes dry and have fun to keep your self warm which can be tricky at times.

Mountaineering Class

This was our first class and it was two days long. It was soooo much fun. We got to carry around ice axes and not only look cool but through ourselves off the side of the hill into endless amounts of snow and then lean how to self rescue ourselves using the ice axe. We also learned how to set up c rigs and z rigs to use pullys to help pulling weight up.

We also learned how to build anchors in the snow for climbing rapelling and rescuing team member on our rope team. We built a big anchor and put all 7 of us on the rope got a running start and then jumped down the side of the hill. I guess we had enough momentum that it ripped out our anchor and we caused a mini avalanche on top of ourselves as we slid down the hill. I ended underneath the snow with no idea how much was on top of my face so i immediately started trying to uncover myself to breath. Thankfully i wasnt to deep but when your covered up it all feels the same, its a freaky feeling
During the self rescue training on the way back up the hill i fell into a tree well. I didnt hit the ground and i was head deep in snow. I decided to stay in the whole and scare one of the instuctors, it was hilarious.
We were wearing harnesses and were roped into each other with climbing rope in case one of us should fall. When you do fall you are supposed to say "falling" so to practice we had to randomly while walking run and jump off the side and scream falling while the other guys jumped to the ground and jammed in their ice axe. When we established that everyone was solid the last man in the crew would get up and run over to build anchors.

2 Weeks at Prairie then back to Montana

Well it was easier to pack this time but I found out its still hard as heck to leave! It was however good to be back and see all my friends again. Sadly there was less snow there than when we left to come home for Christmas but I knew that in a couple of weeks Id be in Montana covered up in snow. We covered a full semesters class in less than two weeks with 4 – hour and 20 minute classes a day, it was a killer. The class was called Biblical Theology of Mission and it was amazing. You know it’s a good class when it takes the whole first class just to explain what the title of the course means. Basically it was this, Gods mission is to Glorify Himself, and we are created as was everything else to glorify Him. We talked about the prologue of the story then dived into Genesis all the way to revelation seeing Gods mission revealed and learning about various characteristics of God and we should make application of those. It was in this class that I realized that many of the immeasurable goals that I had set for myself were coming true and that was really exciting. There was several sunny days even though it was it was nice to play outside and see some good sunsets. There wasn’t much time for anything except for class but we are all looking forward to going to Montana back to camp bighorn and the discover group is looking forward to going to Guatemala. Pack my bags again and say goodbye for 3 months and head towards camp.

Man is it good to be back at camp now. The staff here is amazing and the food delictable...as was the first semester. They have been giving us all the things that I missed the most like enchilladas, baked oatmeal, hot wings, resses pieces cookies, and hot chocolate with mint tea in it

This semester we have even more gear and the same 6 guys living in a cramped up space so we traded two of our dressers for two more bunk beds bringing the total to 6 beds. Our room looks like a submarine set up but its pretty sweet. Now everyone has their own bed and there is some organization going on.

All these pics are from a couple of days ago here at camp it just poured snow all night and we woke up to this. I guess thats what they mean when they say that down at camp they dont get much snow down in the valley. I cant wait to see the waist deep- up to 6 feet of snow up on the hill. Me and Scott decided it would be a good time to hike up to the cross behind camp. It was absolutely beautiful. At one point we both ended up on our butts at exactly the same time...part of the trail was covered in ice hidden by a bunch of fresh snow. On the way down we found a good tree to do some pull ups on. If the 6x6 military trucks get working then we are planning to start skills tomorrow(Thursday). Our green team gets to do Mountaineering first and I cant wait.