and more...

Too many pictures means two posts!

 Wonderful Wyoming adventures of Amelia and Nora:

First off, I do have to warn people of the slightly longer length of this update. I got a bit carried away...

   Amelia Schurke and I (Nora Gilbertson) also headed to the west about a month ago, but we ended up in Wyoming to visit Elise, a friend and former St. Olaf skier who now skis for the University of Wyoming. We hadn't seen her for over a year, so this was a rather exciting trip for us to see one of our best friends and get a chance to explore dancing and Denver, concerts and co-ops and climbing, and mountains and more. We flew into Denver, where Elise met us coming out of the airport like lost ducklings, and were promptly treated to breakfast cooked by her grandmother, since our flight got in at 7 am. We followed this up with the Denver Botanic Gardens, which had an exhibit by Dale Chihuly (the glass blower/sculptor who made the giant sun at the Minnesota Children's Museum), where the glass creations had been tossed into ponds and woven into the gardens themselves. 

Black and gold for Olaf! One of the Chihuly sculptures.

While still in Denver, we also went to an Avett Brothers concert at Red Rocks, where we had a picnic in the rain under Elise's car, ate cherries and chocolate wafers in the rain not under a car, and saw a double rainbow from way up in the amphitheatre. Early the next morning, we drove to Laramie to meet some of Elise's team and her coaches for a run (hike for us lowlanders) in the Rawah Wilderness (the trails of which Allie maintained last summer!), and got to be a part of the maiden voyage of Clifford their big red van. This was easily one of my favorite parts, because frankly, Elise's team reminds me of Olaf's team. They're funny and made us feel like we were always part of their team and they just know how to make things enjoyable. After three-plus hours of aspen mountain meadows, fern glades, and wading in an ice-cold stream, we had a potluck picnic with the team and, that night, went dancing at Laramie's Jubilee Days with a few of Elise's teammates, where Elise showed us how to swing dance and we attempted to learn. 

View along the drive into Laramie.

Rawah Wilderness Trail.

Our next day was quieter, with some rock climbing in the morning with Sindre and Wil, both part of the U-Wyo nordic team, and watching the last half of the World Cup final between Argentina and Germany in the afternoon. Elise gave us a tour of the student-run farm where she is working this summer, and we snagged some chives and herbs that went into an incredible chili we made that night. As a skier, I highly value food, and this veggie chili made me very happy indeed. Adding to the deliciousness, Sindre made some chocolate chip cookies that were pretty darn tasty too, even if we did make him add vanilla to his vanilla-less recipe.

Elise picking chives at the student farm.

We only had one more day out west now, and Elise had saved the best for last - climbing Medicine Bow Peak. Our freshman year, Elise and I went out to Senior Nationals in Soldier Hollow, Utah, and even though I had been there before, I was still oohing and aahing at the mountains. Elise, having grown up in the mountains, was amused by my giddy amazement and frequent cry of "mountains!" - she can't deny it. This time around wasn't much different for me. I am still astounded and goofily happy whenever I am in or around mountains, and though Amelia held it together far better than I, we each took about 200 photos before we even hit the mountain proper. 

Looking along the ridge of the Snowy Mountains.

Elise was having lots of fun showing us her mountains and country, though, and we were highly enjoying the tour. Amelia was getting over having the flu (and was an absolute trooper the whole trip), and we were unused to the altitude, so we took the ascent fairly chill, through both the few snowy sections and the much trickier and harder rock paths. We even met an older couple from Rice Lake, WI of all places, who were back in Wyoming after having gone to college at U-Wyo. After about 2 hours, we summited the 12,013 foot mountain and had celebratory Kit-Kat bars, and then began the descent. By comparison, this took barely over an hour, including detours to find the steep sections where we could slide down the snow, do yoga on the rocks, take pictures, and admire the views again.

Amelia and Elise on a stretch of snow just before the summit.

The summit!

360˚ panorama from the summit of Medicine Bow.

We stopped to get pizza, packed up, and were off to Denver to fly out that evening. It was definitely hard to leave Elise, but hopefully we'll be seeing her and her team again at Senior Nationals in Houghton, MI this year or at USCSAs this spring, and we're seriously considering going back out next summer...multi-team training camp?

Hopefully they'll eventually see this, but Amelia and I would like to offer a huge thank-you to Elise, her grandmother for housing us and being generally wonderful, and her team and coaches for welcoming us and letting us join the fun. This is one of the things I love best about the ski community - it doesn't matter where you're from, if you're a skier, you're an instant friend. 

Pretty soon, we'll all be back on the hill, training and having a blast with each other, but until then, the summer adventures continue!