I made the annual trip up to Jackson to meet my old friend Mark this year solo. Everyone had something to do and Martha was on call so I just had to go alone. Seeing Mark is always great and going alone just meant we could talk about skiing as much as we wanted.

We rode a new trail in Phillips Canyon on Sunday. It rained lightly intermittently all day, but we managed to avoid the full on deluge that arrived just before dinner. It started raining again just after I had zipped up my tent for the night and didn't quit until Monday morning.

Then it quickly turned gorgeous -- you have to love living in the West. We went trail running from Taggert Lake to the base of Garnet Canyon arriving back at the car at around 4:30 with tired and painful legs, knees and hips. I suffered greatly in the following days from this outing, but it was still worth it.