Leadville: a shudder for the shutter

The photos of the Leadville 100 that Jeff Best took are live and ready to view. Click here to view all 141 of the photos. Here's a sampling of a few of my favorites!

Last turns of the season (perhaps) ...

If anything should clue me in to the fact that it just might maybe be time to hang up the skis for a couple of months, this should ....

This is coming down off of Glory last week with Kevin and Karen ... Yes, we chose to forgo hucking the cliff, and took off our skis to hike this section.

Hangin' out in Hangin' Canyon

Karen, Kevin and I had a brilliant plan last week ... go ski Hanging Canyon ...

According to our usual habit, we failed to heed a key piece of conventional wisdom ... this time regarding skiing in Grand Teton National Park in spring and early summer ...

Get going at the crack of dawn ... we're talking 3 a.m. ... so that you're at the top of the mountain and descending by 9 a.m.

We, by contrast, didn't even meet until 10 a.m. ...

By the time we hiked along Jenny Lake, through a forest and up a wide avi gully to the base of a series of waterfalls ... fed by the snowfield we planned to ski ... it was well past the noon hour ...

Clouds puffed and darkened ominously, reminding us that despite the skis strapped to our back, early summer in the Rockies had descended, and with it, afternoon thunderstorms ...

Unwilling to risk being caught above treeline with metal-edged boards strapped to our backs, we ended up playing at the base of the waterfalls for a couple of hours, before lugging skis, boots, poles, helmets, beacons, etc. back to the car ... laughing at the fact that we didn't make one single turn.

Our standing joke: If anyone asks us how the skiing was, our standard response would be: "The skiing is always great."

On our way out I learned an important lesson: when hanging out with Karen and Kevin be careful what you say.

"Anyone want to go swimming?" I said, totally off the cuff. Clouds fully blanketed the sky and the wind was blowing hard enough.

They paused, looked and me, looked at each other, and in that moment I realized they were taking me seriously. Before long we were pinky swearing ...

"I'll jump in first if you pinky swear that you'll get in too."

And so it was, we finished our day by jumping into a creek dancing with recently melted snow.

Needless to say ...

it's been a good month or two.

From powder in May to hotsprings and bike excursions at the base of the Tetons, I've fallen in love with my new backyard ... and the people who like to play with me in it.

This year the so-called "off season" in Jackson has been anything but "off" ... it's either been dumping buckets of freshies or bluebird skies and 60 degrees.