River Ridge By Resortquest Ketchum

Aug. 24 Arrived in Ketchum for a visit with Tim, Susie and Jake (aka Sam). After a gorgeous drive through a long and wide valley into the Mountains that create Sun Valley and Ketchum, famous for the skiing, we pulled into Timmy and Susie's driveway to find a note taped to their door. The note says the perfect welcome: "We are at the river swimming, will be right back!" It was about 85 degrees so Andy and suited up, took our bikes down and headed out to ...

We stopped right outside of Sun Valley to spend a couple days routing our next stops. First annual invitational for NADRA Western Office Golf Outing has been established! (NADRA does not yet have a Western office, but after this trip we are considering it!) Mike Beaudry and friend, Lance Meller hit up the greens of "The Big Wood".

... not everyone grows up with a world class ski mountain in their backyard. The mountains are diverse enough for the beginner to the advance. As Ski Magazine puts it "Sun Valley lets you ski like water flows. " One reader calls Bald Mountain "the monarch of skiable mountains." At 5,920 feet above sea level, Sun Valley takes the winter months to new heights. Powdery slopes give way to perfect leisure activities.

... read a chilly 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Brrr! Being originally from San Diego and living in Hawaii, I had never been that cold in my life! I had four top layers on and two bottom layers on, plus a scarf, hat, gator and gloves, plus a backpack full of booze and snow shoes and poles. I had never been snowshoeing before. It took about 20 minutes to get all our gear together and at this point my fingers felt like they were going to fall off ...

... myself as they headed over to the advanced (black diamond) runs. It was very cold- at least for us and was snowing most of the time. It's so beautiful here with the snow glistening in the light. Next winter we'll have to spend more time in this area. We're pretty pooped, but John wants to rage tonight with some friends. I guess we'll have more relaxation time once we arrive in the Bahamas next week.

... so I had to take a taxi to the condo. Yuck! Anyway, it's gorgeous here and I arrived to it snowing. It snowed about 5 inches last night. We did have a great time last night as we met some of Johns friends last night for dinner. Today we are going skiing. The last time I skied was 14 or so years ago, and I came down on a stretcher. I had been plowed into from behind and blacked out. Hopefully, this week will be much better.

Although we had thought about heading back into Yellowstone this morning, we decided against it following news that the weather was still crummy up there. Yesterday was so cold and the wind blowing such a gale that it really made it very unpleasant. So, this morning Jude took herself off to the museum in West Yellowstone whilst I uploaded some pikkies to this travel blog. It was already aafter 11.00 when we finally got away and head off ...

... skiers summit, a 1500 foot skin from the yurt and dropped into the lower south face of the Williams Peak ridgeline. We received about 5 inches overnight which blanketed our tracks from the day before nicely. We traveled up the basin between Williams and Thompson and snuck around the East side of Thompson Peak. Dropping our skis at the saddle, a group ascended the peak via a mini couloir and some scrambling. After bagging the peak, the group rejoined on the ...

... logs, uprooted trees, rocks, boulders, shadows and other things that all look like bears. We had a number of false alarms. We did eventually see a black bear though which was walking through the undergrowth at a safe distance. We both got rather excited about that. We eventually discovered the best way to spot wildlife. Drive around until you see a number of cars stopped at the side of the road. This technique helped us spot a lot of things including the bear. We've also seen ...

Today we got up and I saw Dusty off because he had to go back to Portland, as he was finishing up a summer school class. I left with his family in the middle of the day, and had a very bumpy flight back to Sun Valley. I used this time to reflect on my short time in B.C., as well as the thoughts of being able to do more travelling like this in the future. See you soon.... Cheers