2 Epic Summits in 2 Epic Days with 3 Epic friends! :)

Hawk Mountain

Jeff on the "optional" slab climb!

Paint pots? In Jasper?

Jeff enjoying a much needed break! ;)

Summit of Hawk on a blustery and sometimes wet day! :)

Temperature reads 3.7degrees on summit of Hawk

Roche Miette: Roche=rock and Miette=crumbling (under our very feet)

The steepest "mother" scramble ever: Roche Miette

Chris, Alicia & Joy perched on Waller's Notch :)

Summit view on Roche Miette

Being goofy

Posing . . . as usual! ;)

Joy, Alicia & Chris in front of the Roche :)

And now to crawl into bed and try not to move . . . until the next adventure beckons! :)

Awesome, I like Bono even more now

   

 

This video came to me courtesy of Donald Miller's Storyline blog on Facebook.  Bono talks about his faith at 43min.  This excerpt is from Donald Miller's blog regarding the interview:

Bono does not claim to be a Christian and in this interview rejects the label while comfortably and shamelessly taking a stand for scripture, prayer and his faith in Christ. I’m with him as I now see Christianity as a word that has come to mean so many different things to so many different people that, in a way, it’s lost its meaning. I think he’s wise, in ways, to steer clear of the term. It’s rare to find a believer who can talk about his faith so solidly without crossing anybody’s personal boundaries and becoming the equivalent of an evangelical “close talker” (by that I mean a person who talks about God in such a way it makes you feel they’re crowding your personal space or in need of you to agree with them because their own identity is threatened.)

New camera, New photos!

Gone are the days of woeful camera performance.  After happening upon a large momma black bear and two adorable cubs playing in a tree and being incredibly disappointed with the results of my pictures . . . out with the old and in with the Nikon 1 J2!! :)  How many ways can you say "Joy is reeeeeeaaaallly excited!"?  Needless to say everyone is waiting for me on the trails as I experiment and figure out all of the settings on my new camera.  The J2 is my first ever camera with a detachable lens, meaning more options, more fun and more money on buying new lenses!  It's also a compact system camera, meaning without the lens it's nearly the same size as your average compact camera.  This means I can take it into the backcountry with me and not have a separate backpack just for the camera!  So psyched!  Here are some of my first pictures and experiments . . . more to come! 

Lac Beauvert . . . looking beautiful . . . and green . . . ;)

On the way to Sunwapta Falls, showing off the depth of green in a Rockies spring.

Sunwapta Falls

Dragon Ridge with Bearberry (Kinnikinik) in the foreground

Mistassini Primrose at Big Bend campsite (Mt Quincy & Quincy glacier in background)

Searching for God Knows What

I'm reading Donald Miller's book Searching for God Knows What.  It's great, thanks Michelle for lending it to me!  Sometimes you need help to think about things from a different vantage point, Donald Miller is just that person for me right now.  Here's an excerpt about our incessant search for something more . . .:

``What we really need is somebody who loves us so much we don't worry about death, about our hair thinning, about other drivers pulling in front of us on the road, about whether people are poor or rich, good-looking or ugly, about whether we feel lonely, or about whether or not we are wearing clothes.  We need this; we need this so we can love other people purely and not for selfish gain, we need this so we can see everybody as equals, we need this so our relationships can be sincere, we need this so we can stop kicking ourselves around, we need this so we can lose all self-awareness and find ourselves for the first time, not by realizing some dream, but by being told who we are by the only Being who has the authority to know, and by that I mean the Creator. . . . I know this all sounds crazy.  But, once again, can you think of any other reason we wear clothes?  Skin is more waterproof than GORE-TEX, you know.``p.110

January "Joy"

Fun, fun shots!

Let the games begin

Keep your eye on the ball

Tuckered out?

2012: Year in Pictures

A couple glitches, but still turned out fabulously.  Here's a look at what 2012 was like through the eyes of Joy O'Haver! :)