Fab Time at Cabin

Self-portrait 2nd Anniversary photo.

We spent the time up at our unfinished (for now) cabin.

Elk Mountain. We never tire of this view.


An anniversary morning visitor to the meadow. For some of you, this may look like a horse
but it's really a moose!

Made in the Shade!

We finally made it up to the cabin for the first time this season. We only stayed for the day since we didn't know if we would be able to gain access. Had time to clean up the place a little bit, start a nice fire, have a little lunch and take a short ride on the 4wheeler. The air was fresh and sweet -- it was nice and relaxing. There was a loud & clattering afternoon thunderstorm as well.

Tending the fire

Still a few snow drifts close to the cabin but all other snow has melted off.

We're going back up next weekend for the 4th and our 2nd anniversary and to finish the work inside. We can't wait. We love it there!

Denied Access - 2010!

Okay so JAKL tried to get up to the cabin on Saturday, June 12 for the second time this season. We were not only denied access, but we also got stuck in a drift due to being high centered which totally sucked! We were on a very lonely forest road and saw absolutely no living soul all day long. These are places were you don't wait for any one to come save you anyway, you just hunker down and get yerself out of the sticky situation you got yourself into. We actually had a good time. It was quite an adventure and it only took us aprox 2 hrs to get out after trying unsuccessfully to use our POS wench system. Ha ha. I guess we had to practice some how, huh?

We had two shovels, thank goodness. One flimsy snow shovel and a collapsible trench shovel that J had in his backpack. The trench digging shovel would not stay uncollapsed as we were digging out and gave us some war wounds. J got 2 chunks of flesh torn out around his knuckle areas while I sacrificed a meaty bit from that tender part between the thumb and forefinger!! Bled like a sieve & hurt like an SOB, but today looks nothing more than a glorified scrape.

Here are some picts of the day. The photos don't do justice though. The situation is worse looking in person. We made it to within 1.8 miles of the cabin after we dug out of the sticky situation, but it was too late in the day to hike into the cabin and stay. One thing that was on our side is that the weather was really nice and it wasn't raining/snowing up on the mountain during that time frame. It started raining as we made our way back down to I-80 though. Whew!

Definitely high centered -- damn it!

That stuff was packed way up in there!

Close up

This was the road 1.8 miles from our cabin. This was AFTER we dug our way out further down the mountain so we didn't want to chance going through. I know this only looks like a little snow on the road, but these were big wet drifts going up a steep mountain road. Oy.

The take-home message for this adventure is to come more prepared with proper tools that aren't POS's or start earlier in the day so that we can hike in and stay the night!!

New Addition!

Meet BillyBob our new used, 4wheeler. . .


Got him to make getting around on the roads up at the cabin a little easier on us! We are going to put Artie in one of those arm rest containers when we go moseying around! This should be interesting to say the least. Can't wait.

First Hike of Summer of 2009

We have been working so hard on the cabin every weekend we've been up there that we haven't had time to do ANY hiking except for the last time we were up there. We made time to do a small 6 mile round-trip hike to Deep Lake, which is on the back side of Brown's Peak for those of you in the know. We had a wonderful time and encountered a porcupine (in a good way) and saw lots of flora & fauna along the way. Here are those picts documenting the moments.

Really cool mushrooms are growing like crazy up there.

These are poisonious. . .just sayin'. Don't eat them.

Here's me and Art-man bushwackin' thru the meadow

(BEFORE I fell in the stupid river)

Here's me drying off my socks & shoes once we made it to the lake.

I thought this was a pretty setting with the trees all around.

Good job, J, on the picture taking.

Deep Lake. Just like the sign says.

Very isolated. We saw only 2 other people up there fishing.

Niiiice.

Deep Lake with Luke looking across the waters.

Ah, we hope to get more hiking in while we're up there the next 4 weekends in a row. However, we still have tons of work to do on the cabin shack. Hopefully next year will prove more fruitful in the hiking and fishing departments!

Moose. . .Meese? Anyway More of Them!

Okay, because I *know* you're just dying to see more of the pictures we retrieved from our wildlife cam: moose1 I'll post these. These pictures are pretty interesting though. Judge for yourself. And leave comments, would ya?

This first picture freaked me out a bit.

I couldn't quite make out what it was. . .

Looks like a human head, tilted to the left.

Really not a human head, but a freaky ZOMBIE head tiled to the left

with a weird ear sticking out on the right.

Just waiting to jump up turn around and eat our face off!!!

(okay, I know, I know I've watched way too many horror movies when I was young and

it warped my measley brain!)

BUT never fear!! The "head" turned out to be the rear of this feller:

And yet a better picture of the same visitor.

Flash didn't seem to phase him.

Awesome pict of this moose cow on our "walkin' log". Goofy lookin' critters but so amazing at the same time.

This one looks a lot like a Clydesdale, don'tcha think? Not sure if it's the same cow or not.

That's all the wildlife pictures til next time. Hopefully, we'll have other species to post for you! Hope you really enjoyed these!

More Moose CAM

Boy yous guys are gonna get sick of seeing moose on this blog! We were up at the cabin with a different set of awesome friends who helped us get most of the sheet rocking done with minimal physical damage to my poor body! Took a good elbow shot to the bridge of the nose and didn't even pass out (saw stars but didn't fall). That's pretty tough in my book! Ha! Anyhoo, a big hearty thanks goes out to Klan Kohrmann! What a fun weekend it turned out to be, friends! Sorry about all the blood suckers!


Here is the main attraction for the week on the moose1 Wildlife Cam up at the cabin. How cool is this dude? You need to understand this is right outside our cabin.


In fact, just a few days later, I was walking that log with my great niece. We hadn't looked at these pictures yet . . .the time stamp on this camera is about 5 hrs off, just fyi.

Even creepier, from the same point of view where we were walkin' the log earlier, a set of eyes are just off in the distance. We were still sitting at the campfire and we remember that Artie was having a coniption fit around this time. I guess he was seeing something we weren't. . .THIS SCARY WHATEVER IT IS ATTACHED TO THE GLOWING EYES!! I'm guessing Sasquatch!

Until next time, my lovely readers!!! Au revoir!

Moose Alert. . .Moose Alert

We hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend. We did! We were up at the cabin all weekend working hard to fix it up. J saw a buck our in the meadow during the day on Sunday, but that was about the extent of life viewings.

Our wildlife camera, however, captured a few pictures and one of a late night visitor! Nothing like deer & moose butt! Enjoy!

This deer showed up about the same time we saw the ones

in the prior weeks.

We think the flash scared this baby moose away.

Hopefully, we'll have more to share with you as the summer goes on.

Visitors & Helpers

Have I ever mentioned how awesome our friends are on this blog before? Okay, well if I haven't yet, I'm going to say it now loud & clear: WE HAVE THE MOST AWESOMEST FRIENDS IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!!

We are truly blessed in the friend department, that's for sure. This weekend one set of our awesome friends (ya know, the ones who bought us a white water rafting trip for our wedding gift) drove up to the mountains with us to help us with a ton of work we needed done on the cabin. Here is a list of what was accomplished, most of it in one day:

*Insulation almost completely installed (we still need to purchase a measley 2 rolls)
*Water system figured out and connected
*Wildlife camera mounted & left on tree in area where we've seen deer, etc
*Messy wood pile left by prior owner stacked & organized to dry
*Some fallen trees left by previous owner chain sawed & stacked in newly organized pile
*God-awful, ugly, flea-bag of a 5,000 lb couch left by previous owner removed from interior
*Bathroom ceiling & walls painted

That was quite a lot more than we were expecting to finish so we were all very happy. Along with the work, there was plenty of time for playing and relaxation by the fire.

Our friends' teen-aged daughter (ALF) loved hanging out at the fire with us, except no matter where she stood, that's where the smoke would blow. Right in her face. Poor kid. She did however manage to create some pretty cool rock graffiti (or fire art!) in between ash chokings.

Nighttime was a fun time for us girls to walk the dog down the lane and scare the boogers out of each other. While I was trying to scare my friends, the combination of the dark wooded night & illumination & shadows created from my head lamp started playing tricks with my own head. I got myself all freaked out & we all started screaming and running back to the cabin (which seemed miles away -- it was maybe 50 feet). Artie, being the good protector that he is, assumed that one of my friends was the cause of my alarmed state and as we were running back to the cabin screaming, he ran up to one and tugged on her shorts and almost pulled them off her body! It was quite hilarious!

Here's Artie the next day being especially needy towards me. He's so cute and I love him to pieces but Holy Moses he needs to lighten up a bit!

So, along with all that work, like I said we got some play time in too. We played our cheap-o version of Chuck-O and were doomed to stay at the cabin playing until someone dethroned Carrie from her morning-long winning streak! Finally ALF defeated the evil one in a close game of 18 to 16!! w00t!

Last intense minutes of the Chuck-O Finals!!

ALF brought her pellet gun and since I forbade her (or her dad) from shooting at the small wildlife and since we didn't have any actual target paper, we modified and made up a cute little new game that we'll probably forever play from this day forth. Since I have tons of outdated fashion magazines stashed at the cabin for my reading pleasure, we found the cutest girl in one of the ads, ripped out the page, stapled it to a stump and we all ensued playing round after round of "Shoot The Bimbo"!! We all got off good shots. I mainly liked to make her dance (meaning I rarely hit her but the area around her feet) but the ones that did connect were more surface shots that would keep her from running, e.g. legs and hips. ALF & Carrie were more cruel with shots to the head, throat and one to the boob. The guys made less damaging contact, but I don't think they had as much anamosity towards the gorgeous woman (read: poor waif) as we girls did. I assure you, however, that we were all aiming for a head or crotch shot for sure!

ALF carefully putting the target in her sights and squeezing the trigger while playing a round of "Shoot the Bimbo"

All in all the weekend was a success both work and relaxation wise. I was thrilled to have new friends up that I could show off all the cool spots and create new and lasting memories. Every weekend we go up to the property, it feels as as though the place becomes more ours and our home away from home. I love that little piece of heaven and I love that we have great friends who take time to help us make the place so special for us.

Thank you again, guys! Love you all lots!

2nd Trip, 1st Overnight

The weekend of the 20th we went back up to the cabin to spend our first night! YAY! All the snow from the previous week had melted. We wanted to go fishing, but ended up just cleaning up around the grounds. J took up the ol' Husquvarna and he made short work of some of the fallen trees. We have a great amt of firewood now! While we were hanging out, we had some visitors to the land. See below for highlights!

This flower was growing crazy all over the place. It looks like a Columbine, but it's ginormous and growing close to the ground. I have no clue what it is, but it's gorgeous!

Here's the first vistor who showed up around 7 p.m. on Saturday night.

She stayed for about 15 minutes, was very shy and stayed out in the meadow

and kept a close eye on us.

But something else on our side of the meadow caught her attention. . .

Another younger doe is what caught the older one's attention.

This little girl came within 20 feet of our campfire!!

Holy schmokes to just sit and watch her pass through was so amazing.

Here is film that J was quick enough to capture before she ran off.

The popping & crackling you hear is the campfire.

We hope you enjoyed. I'm sure we'll have plenty more where this came from.

Stay tuned!!

More 1st Access Photos

More from Saturday, June 13, 2009

The lovely lake

(I know you guys are thinking: How many pictures of this is she going to take?)

All the pretty little flowers

Firestarter! All the little bits of wood were SOAKED!!!

J walking the log on our property.

Access Granted (finally!)

Over the river and through the woods to our wonderful cabin house we go! Whoa! Last Saturday, June 13, 2009, the roads were open all the way up to the . Here are some pictures that capture the day.

A view of Elk Mountain from the FR101 road up. Still a pretty decent amount of snow up there.

We saw skittish deer and a porcupine who moved too fast for me to take a picture of him. But this lovely guy stood still and stoic while I fumbled to turn on my dang camera. Awfully nice of him, don't you think? He seemed almost to strike a pose.

Here's the spot in the road on FR105 where we were stopped by snow a few weeks ago.

Now, it's nice and clear.

Remember when I said the "over the river" part above.

Well, here's the river you go over to our cabin.

Here is how close we got to the cabin.

There is this snowfield, it's still pretty deep, but that's it.

We did not complete any projects because we didn't haul any of the supplies in. Since we weren't sure if we could get through or not we decided just to go lite this time. We spent a good chunk of the afternoon up there. Had a fire, had some lunch, poked around and had a wonderful & relaxing time.

This coming up weekend is when the work will begin. Stay tuned for more.

Access Denied . . .for now.

We decided to jump in the Expedition yesterday and see how close we could get to the cabin. The roads were all surprisingly clear and dry for most of the way up. However, once we turned off FR101 and onto FR105, the roads were an entirely different story. We could only drive about 100 feet before we encountered 4-5 foot drifts of snow covering the entire dirt road that lead us to our cabin only 5 miles away. So close yet so far away! :) The weather was a gorgeous 65 degrees and the snow was melting fast, but there was no getting up this without a snow machine. Here are some pictures.

Stuck from going any farther up the FR105

Artie enjoying some running around time.

Our trip was not in vain, however, as we enjoyed breathing in some fresh, piney air. We were able to see plenty of wildlife and the mighty Medicine Bow River rushing by us swollen with the waters of the melting snow. Very pretty. The Medicine Bow River flows by our cabin property as well. If only we had a canoe and muscular arms to paddle up stream with we could have possibly made the trek via river.

Here is the cutest little doe that was just staring at us from beind the aspen. Once she heard the click of the shutter, she bound off farther into the brush but I could tell she still remained very curious. She was molting and extremely scruffy. Amazing! I can't get enough of seeing these animals. I could stare at them all day.

A couple of antelop standing as still as statues.

We will make the journey up again in the next couple weeks. The snow was melting quickly, so I think we'll be able to get in soon. I can't wait!

New Traditions

This is the first Christmas that my mom has lived out of state and J's mom and dad have snow birded. This is also the first Christmas as a married couple. Since times seem like they are a changin', we decided to do something completely and utterly different this year on Christmas Day.

We decided to rent snow machines up in the Snowy Range area and drive up to the cabin! Sounds like a great adventure, doesn't it?! Well, it was one of the best Christmases I've had as an adult, I must say.

We woke up and were ready to roll at 730 on Christmas morning. The couple we usually travel with met us at our house for the ride over to Albany. We rented two touring snow machines at the fun and friendly Albany Lodge which is located about 30 miles south of Centennial, Wyo where we were married.

We started our snow machining trip from Albany and took the trail that led us past Rob Roy Reservoir and headed to Hwy 130 via the Libby Flats trail. The trek across this icy tundra was the coldest and most windy part of the trip (2 hrs one-way). I was a little peeved because I thought my snow boots broke because my dang feet were FREEZING! I had 3 layers on underneath my coat, but the wind easily cut through the fabric and iced up my skin. Also, this was the bumpiest (did I spell that right) part of any of the trails. I almost got bucked off plenty of times. Later when I asked J if he heard me screaming for dear life, he said he thought I was just having a good time. NOT!!! Well, it *was* fun, but it wrecked havoc on me poor back.

Here we are taking a break right in the middle of Libby Flats' icy tundra wind tunnel! Don't ask me why we stopped in this god-forsaken area or what I was doing with my arms! Heh, heh, I think I was adjusting my balaclava between my helmet & coat:

Once we got past the Libby Flats Lookout and turned left on Hwy 130, we saw the Range in all her glory. ((GASP, GASP!!)) She looks more lovely, larger & closer to the road and more foreboding in the winter than when seeing her in the summer. I was amazed to see one of my favorite places in the world wearing a different season than I was used seeing. She wears winter like a royal majestic cloak and reigns supreme through the stormy clouds. I love this place.

The drive to the cabin took a couple hours and couple trails (5 different trails to be exact) to complete. For an area I know so well, the surroundings looked so different that we drove right past the entrance to the cabin. Do you realize how hard it is to flip a U-turn on a snow machine on a tiny trail? Oy. Very.

We backtracked to the entrance of the cabin "neighborhood" and snow shooed about 1 mile in to our humble abode. Man, was that hard breaking trail in waist-deep snow! Thank goodness for our good friend Jeanne who did most of the breaking! What a trooper! We got to the cabin exhausted but warmed up from the work out that trompin through the snow provided. My feet finally warmed up so my boots weren't broken after all :), but I did get into my stash of clothes I left up at the cabin this past fall, donned on an extra pair of socks and two extra layers of shirts (1 thermal long-sleeved & a fleece hoodie) for the ride home. Jeanne had made & packed in some awesome turkey noodle soup and hot schnocolate (hot chocolate with schnapps & brandy. . .yuuuuuummm!) that hit the spot.

Here's me at the entrance to the cabin! Whew, I had never been so glad to reach a destination in my entire life:

Since the trek in took us longer than we expected, we had to hurry and close up cabin and get our booties back to the snow machines that we left on the side of the trail. Funny thing is that the trip back only took 1/4 of the time as going in because the trail had already been broken and we had some brandy running through our veins. We were good to go.

I took this picture from inside the cabin before I locked up as J was making his way back down the snowshoe trail:

We got back to the machines about 3:10 p.m. which was perfect timing since we had to be back at the lodge by 5:00 p.m. The air in the area had warmed up so the trip back found us enveloped in a light snow storm which was kinda scary but spectacular at the same time. Libby Flats mogul tundra pretty much sucked as much as it did on the first leg of the trip, but we made it through and got back to Albany Lodge at exact 5:00! We all had a beer in the lodge and reminisced about our day's journey before setting off to make the drive home.

Our round trip mileage ended up being 100 miles which is like driving a snow machine from Cheyenne to Denver. Pretty daunting task when you think about it. What an awesome day!! I hope we do this every year for Christmas. What a fun, adventuresome and invigorating way to spend the holiday. Come join us next time :) Kisses.

To Be Exact

For all you geeks and geocachers out there, here is the EXACT location of our cabin:

41° 26.372 N
106° 21.249 W

Told ya I'd give you more detail. :)

Somewheres over yonder there!

So, many of you readers have been inquiring as to the whereabouts of our new cabin. Your wish is my command and I am now ready to post that information. Said land is located some 9,600 ft above sea level, southeast of Elk Mountain, north of Medicine Bow Peak, east-ish of Turpin Resevoir and west-ish of Sand Lake. If that's too vague for you, keep tuning in for other posts regarding said location. Until then, please enjoy these latest pictures.

Majestic Elk Mountain can be seen some places on the way up to the property.

The pond on Oct 19th and then again just one week later!

J the Geocacher setting some coordinants on the GPS.

Blue skies smilin' on us & unspoiled scenery.