Our last day in the tetons

Here are some of the pictures from our last morning in the Tetons. These first two shots were taken from Colter Bay, near our campsite. Wonderful morning! These next two were from Jackson Lake Dam. Which one do you like better?This one was taken from Willow Flats. One the way home we decided to drive though Yellowstone. We had never been in the southern part of Yellowstone. Each area of Yellowstone is so different. We had to stop at Old Faithful and have our lunch there. While we were waiting a huge buffalo decided to run through the parking lot! Boy, did that set the rangers to scrambling and yelling for people to get out of the way. The old boy was just passing through, no trouble at all!Do you see me?Then Old Failthful faithfully spouted off it's excitement.

Then we drove home! Thanks for stopping by!

Where have we been????

Well, most of you probably know that this fall was pretty busy for us as we decided to move yet again. We are now located in Seattle WA and Erik got a good job working for King County there. Me? Well, I'm at home right now, getting us unpacked and settled in. I'll be looking for a job soon enough! We'd like to wrap up this blog since we really aren't the Montana Peters anymore and start a new blog. But I don't want to forget to share about our last few months in Missoula! I think Erik left off on our trip in the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. So, I'll continue there and hopefully over the next week or so bring this blog back into the present and get you all updated!

We left off with day 2 of our trip and the Cascade Canyon trail hike. Now we're onto Day 3 and the Garnet Canyon hike. You can check out a map if your interested here. Click on maps and look in the area near Jenny Lake.

This morning we got up early because our goal was to climb Middle Teton and we knew it would be a long day. So we were up and out of the campground by 6am. On the way we saw a ton of elk, our first sightings of elk in the wild. We even heard the males bugle it was pretty awesome. No picture because the camera happened to be out of batteries at the time! Here's Erik eating his breakfast at the trailhead.

So off we went into the wild blue yonder! I can't remember all the details like the miles or exact time hiked but I know we started around 6:30am and got back to the car around 4:30pm.

It took us about and hour or so to get here. The peak on the left is Nez Pierce and the peak in the center that's a little washed out is Middle Teton.Awwww, So cute and smiley!Tonya on the trail. Middle Teton continues to loom large!Tonya just about the enter the non-trail portion of the trail. We're headed into the south col and over our first small snow field. See the little snow field in this picutre. That's where I was standing in the last picture. It's hard to get perspective, just remember everything is WAY bigger than it appears on screen. Here's a view of the next part of our climb. Ahh, to climb the snowfield or climb the boulders??? Well the ranger recommended ice axes which we don't have, so we went without. Smart, not ro sure but at least we didn't die. Although I thought I was going to at one point during this portion of the climb! We took the left side of the snow field for a while but it was too icy so we "jumped" off (over scary boulder crevices!) and tried the boulders instead but ended up way off the unofficial trail in a loose boulder field. Even Erik got a little nervous, I think. So here I am thanking Jesus that I didn't die yet! Although heaven will be wonderful, I just wasn't ready to go there that day! This was our lunch spot and my get the feeling back in my legs spot. After this it was a steep climb but we found the "trail" again for it was easier going. Here is a picture that Erik took from the saddle of Middle Teton. I didn't make it, I was about 200 ft lower sitting on a rock shedding a few tears cux my legs were too woobly to go on and be safe on the descent. Erik also took this panoramic shot below from the saddle looking west. I'm not sure the name of the lake. Looking back down the way we came from my resting spot. See how far down the valley is?All smiles on the way down. It was getting warm again (it was cold up near the top). Se the people behind me on the snow field to the right? Goofing off!We did enjoy some pretty views!And pretty flowers!Almost down. I love this shot for some reason!Here's a shot of two lakes at the "mouth" of the Canyon. You can see where they were carved by glaciers long ago by the berms built up all round them. The darker line out int he distance is the Jackson river or the tree growing up around it. Down the valley to the right is where Jackson Hole is.

Thus ended our hike for the day. It was an amazing experience. Scary and testing of our courage and strength but I think we both passed! I probably could have made it to the saddle or even the top if we hadn't just put in a 14 miles hike the day before and maybe we'd started out earlier.

Watch soon for our last day in the tetons. Adios!

A Visitor!

We had a visitor last weekend! Ginger, Erik's aunt from Arizona, came up for a visit. We had a very good time giving her a tour of some of the best sites in the area.

Her first day we took her to the National Bison Range, which you may remember from here. We had a great day for travelling and sight seeing. Here's a few pics:

Ginger and Erik

Arrowleaf Balsamroot and Mountains

Ginger and Tonya

Buffalo

They just had calving season and this guy was the closest to the road

Yellow headed blackbird:

Pretty view of the mountains:

Stop by later for our trip to Glacier with Ginger!

Mid Winter update

Boy, this winter is lingering on and on!! WE were starting to warm up here in Missoula. Spring was on the way and Old Man Winter shook his head and yelled, "No Way!" It's cold with snow flurries the last couple days. I don't think it would be that bad but for the fact that it had really warmed up here for a few days so it lures you into thinking it's going to stay that way! Uggggh! Well, at least we can continue skiing! ;-) We've been to visit to friends and ski with them in Feb. One is west in Sandpoint, ID and on is east in Bozeman, MT. We had great times of skiing and fellowship with our friends. Heres a few pics:

This is Picnic Point on the x-ctry ski trails at Schweitzer near Sandpoint, ID.












Here we are at Bohart Ranch x-ctry ski trails, Bridger Bowl downhill ski area is in the background. Gorgeous, huh? This is outside Bozeman, MT.









Laughing about something on the ski trails.













Erik pulled our friend' Jennifer's daughter, Eva in the sled. He did great, only dumped her once, HA! Jenifer is in the rear of the picture. We had turned Eva around so that she could talk to her mom.
Well, That's all for now! Until next time!

Recent photos, Christmas and more

Hello all!
Well, we've been having a good winter so far. We were able to make it "home for the holidays" back to good ol' MN and we saw lotsof our friends and family while we were there. We have finally begun to x-ctry ski out here. We have yet to make it downhill skiing. Not that it's far away, cuz it's not. But it's soooooo much cheaper to x-ctry ski! Like free in many areas out here! Anyhoo we're still just waiting to hear that we've been picked for an adoption. God is good while we're waiting! Your prayers are welcome though! Here's a few pics from the last couple months:
Me, Mom and Tara:














Me and Erik:














Here we are digging out our car at the Spokane Airport: (It was a couple feet of snow!):













Now it's 2009 and here's me skiing:



















Erik and me:














Well, Happy 2009! Drop us a line and tell us how you're doing!

Banff/Jasper continued!

Sorry it's been a while again since I've posted. I've been working hard. Both at home and work. I have some top secret stuff that I'm working on at home, but the fun part I can share is that Erik and I closer and closer to being on the "ready and waiting" adoption list. We've recently gone through our homestudy and now will be awaiting some final paperwork items. While we've been waiting we've also been doing lots of good research on strollers and car seats! Fun stuff I'll tell you. I'm appreciative of the wide range of the internet for research purposes. It sure does get you to lots of info, almost too much!
So backing up to August and our Banff and Jasper trip. We had to make some changes to our very loose itinary due to weather. The third day we woke up and did an early hike on one of the most popular trails in the parks: Johnston Canyon. It's an easy short hike up a steep walled canyon with good views of some waterfalls. We went all the way up to some ink pots about 5 miles or so from the trailhead. Here's just a couple pics from the hike.
Here's me in front of Lower Falls:
Here's Upper Falls:


Here we are in the valley by the ink pots: (no pictures of the ink pots, they didn't turn out so good. )
Here's a view of the walkway clinging to the canyon wall. Not scary because it wasn't that high up. Then we headed up to Lake Louise area and it rained and rained. Luckily they have kitchen shelters at the campsites becuase we hung out there all evening with a family from Winnepeg and one from Germany. The next morning it was still raining. So I couldn't do the one thing I wanted to do besides hike, and that was canoe on Morraine Lake. Here I am enjoying the pouring rain!
So we asked at the visitors center about the weather and they said it was a good day to drive north and go on the Icefields Parkway. Check out the website for specific info and great pictures. Our pics are good BUT it was a partly sunny/partly cloudy day so it made for lots of lighting issues. Here's some of the better pictures from our drive up. We drove most of the day and stopped when we wanted to. All of these pictures are taken from the side of the road literally, you didn't have to go on a hike to see glaciers, lakes and huge peaks!
Tonya in frint of Waterfowl Lake, not sure the names of all the peaks in the background.

We did stop to hike, of course. WE hiked up Wilcox Ridge to have a birds eye view of Athabasca Glacier which is part of the Columbia Icefield. It's huge and amazing!!

Here's Erik on the ridge when we popped out of the trees. You can see the small glacier (forgetting the name) and then down in the valley that's the road we were traveling on!

Here's another view where you could see both glaciers and part of the visitor center in the lower right hand corner. Here we are with Athabasca Glacier over Erik's shoulder. Great view!After we hiked the ridge we hiked the trail right up to the edge of the glacier. But it was a COLD wind near the glacier!!So that's just a few of the pictures. Hope you enjoyed them! More later.......