Rob and I went back east this summer to visit family and to help fiberglass the DadSUP! It was great to hang out with the grandparents, swim, and play some ping pong while taking a break between fiberglass coats! Plus, the board looks fantastic! What do you think?
Can’t beat the NE sunsets
You have probably heard me swoon over the lodge many times. I love everything about it. I love that every surface (the roof, the fireplace mantle, the railings, the chandelier) is treated like a giant jungle gym. I love the history that is so thick you can practically taste it as you explore. I love the sense of calm and excitement you can see transform every face that comes in through the front door. I love the fact that a single student chef makes food for each meal, making each visit a culinary adventure. I love the red dance floor, in my mind the best dance floor in the world. Most of all, I love the people that live, speak and breath the lodge.
Unfortunately, there is the other side. The lodge is 75 years old. When it was built, it was the biggest ski lodge in North America. It was the birthplace of american alpine ski racing, and with all that history also come a lot of wear. The floor has been reinforced with extra beams because it bows when people dance. Flushing the toilets is a bit like putting up a prayer. Who knows if the plumbing gods will answer. Logs are rotting out, and each time we need to lift the entire building to replace a log, it becomes harder to find logs that are wide enough to match the originals.
Needless to say, the lodge needs a 75 year update, and the college plans to do that starting this year, so we needed to make one last visit to the hallow ground. We decided to visit during one of the lodge’s many awesome parties. To no one’s surprise, a ton of other recent alums had also made the trip to visit the lodge, so you can imagine how the night went. Dancing, bonfires, swimming in the river and good food all ensued, with the best of people. Here is to lodge 2.0!
When I’m not out adventuring, I am engineering projects for Square One. I help design and test positioning systems for cryo vac or “space” conditions.
Our project is building a ‘robot’ that can move a sample from point “a” to point “b” not only at room temperature, but also in extreme cryo conditions, -333 degrees without oxygen. The complicated part is that materials change with temperature. Material properties such as brittleness and size change; each material of the robot changes size at different rates. Figuring out the tolerances so the system can run smoothly at both room and ‘space’ temperatures is the hard part. Only a thousandths of an inch is the difference between a working system and one that fails with the bushings clamping onto rails.
We went to Tennessee to test our positioning system in one of the Space Institute’s chambers. It was great to see our work actually performing in the intended environment!
Teaching mountain biking at Dartmouth was one of my most rewarding experiences. Giving other people the means to escape the craziness of a college campus in a constructive way that also encouraged them to pass the knowledge along was really empowering and fun. After college, biking every day in Jackson was great, but I really missed teaching skills and leading rides.
When we moved to Park City, I was excited when an opportunity to lead biking came up. White Pine Touring sponsors Thursday afternoon group rides, and I volunteered to lead the beginner group. If you are ever in Park City on a Thursday during bike season, join us! They are really fun rides.
My group was pretty damn good for beginners, and that was due in some part to the fact that the ride has been adopted by the Veteran’s group Continue Mission. I have never met a group of better people. Not only have many of them survived the injuries and shock of war, but they have made the best of returning home. Many of them know people who died overseas, but worse, many know people who have committed suicide after surviving war. I don’t feel like I can fully appreciate the depth of their experience, but I am glad that I can share the skill set to enjoy an endorphin charged, beautiful, and accessible sport.
