First Trip to Utah

Salt Lake City

It's happen again. I'm seating in a half empty airport while family and friends are gathered around enjoying the American holiday Thanksgiving. To most people, this day is full of family, eating, and football, but to me, it’s another adventure. The holiday gives me a break from school and the Midwest culture, when I can escape into the mountains. Allowing me the oppunity to travel where I can immerse myself into the wilderness and clean out my head of all that doesn't matter. Over that last two months, I have averaged working 70 hours a week with teaching during the day and working on skis in the evening at the Alpine shop. To make my full schedule even busier, I am also enrolled in 6 hours of grad school. 

Las Vegas Airport

The other day I was asked why do I do so much, and the simplest answer is for what lays ahead. This time tomorrow I will be on the slopes enjoying the sun and pre-season conditions of Salt Lake City. So to say the least, I am thankful for full rocker skis and the fine people at Southwest Airlines, who have allowed me to make the trip. Clearly joking, I am thankful for a family that is back in St. Louis thinking of me but who also understand that I need adventure in my life. While I am truly grateful for all that I have, I always need more mountains in my life. As John Muir said "the mountains are calling, I must go"

 

Little Cottonwood Canyon

SnowBird Tram

Snowbird

After hearing all types of stories about Utah and little Cottonwood Canyon road, I finally got to experience Utah skiing. What better place to start then Snowbird, know for its steepness. As we loaded the tram, I noticed that every ski patroler had on an ABS bag; ABS bags are designed to save your life in the case of an avalanche. As the tram ascended, it soon became clear why ABS bags were needed, Snowbird is steep! The days consisted of multiple laps, and with early season snow, it was a great day full of fast runs.

Alta

Today I Finally made it to the skier’s paradise, Alta Mountain. Alta is just up the road from Snowbird and once on the top ridge, you can drop down into Alta on one side or snowbird on the other. Alta was less steep then snowbird but had longer runs. The snow coverage at Alta was the best of the three mountains, and we even found a black diamond in the trees with some POW and a nice 8ft cliff to drop, but as expected, rocks won the battle over my skis with a real nasty core shot. Skiing Alta was a blast and to make it even better they don't allow snowboarders!

ALTA!!

Park City

Park City is known as a park mountain, with a discount lift ticket from Liftopia, I had to check it out. With only 6 trails open, PC was kind of boring, basically they had one long run from the peak to the base. After a couple laps, I headed to the park. On the lift ride up, I saw 7 different back flips; these kids were throwing them off of every feature. The park riders were unreal, as in they threw down. Park City was cool to see but I spent my last day at Alta were I could shred the whole mountain.

City Park Utah

Salt Lake City was cool to see. I didn't really know what the city was going to be like but after walking to dinner two times, I have to say, it might be one of the cleanest city's I have ever been to. I also wasn't sure how the city would be with such a high Mormon population, but it seemed like any other city to me. Utah in general was way different then I had pictured it, much more legit skiing then Colorado, plus only a 35 minute shuttle from airport to lifts. I still can't believe how steep it is. Anyways, a great first ski trip. Hope you enjoy the pictures, until the next adventure.

City Creek Center, Downtown Salt lake

LDS Temple, Downtown Salt Lake

Labor Day Weekend 2013

Driving to the Ocoee after work

Last weekend marked the end of  the summer kayak season. As usual, we were off to the Ocoee to enjoy our Labor Day weekend. After school I meet Rick, Ted and Ted's girlfriend at Rick’s house and headed to Paducah KY where we meet up with professor and continued the drive to the cabin in good ol' Ducktown TN. 

GEAR!!

Packed Cabin

After a late night of driving Cal mike, Professor and I woke up for another 1.5 hour drive to meet Raymond at the Cheoah.  I have paddled the Cheoah a number of times now and I always forget how much fun this river is. From bear creek falls to the take out, it is non-stop class IV whitewater.

Bear Creek Falls

Cheoah Shuttle

Cheoah Put in

mike looking good in his new helmet

 We spent the next 2 days kayaking and shredding the Ocoee with the rest of the crew. I think this trip was the largest crew gathering we have had at the cabin, with a total of 12 people, people were sleeping everywhere. We were missing Nicky due to overseas work obligations;  you could see the fear of starvation in our eyes when we showed up, luckily we were able to fend for ourselves and cook some pretty good meals.  It was a packed house but a great party, surprisingly Nicky supplied the fireworks that added to the excitement. 

We might have a kayaking problem

Rick giving the sign!

Shredding

On Sunday Cal mike and I shredded the middle Ocoee, it was a blast. Clean lines and good boofs. We even brought a body board to try surfing at Moon Shoot. It wasn't the same as at Jaws on the Noli, but it was still fun to try.  Everything was great until powerhouse. We hit the first hole and I was thrown off balance, and the second hole finished me off. Off of the shredder and into the river I went,  for good river karma, a booty drink was required to ensure a good line next time.  Here are some pictures from the weekend and a short video of the cheoah. Until the next adventure.

Rick Surfing

Me trying to get my surf on

Crew

Labor Day 2013 from Curtis Ahlers on Vimeo.

Ireland summer 2013

Peace out St. Louis

Last week I got home from my second trip over seas. This time I went over to Ireland to see Natalie, and the beautiful country side. After a little flight trouble, I finally made it into Dublin airport, where I was met by Natalie and our first adventure, finding the car in the parking garage. I’d like to say my rugged good looks made her flustered and she couldn’t remember where she parked, but let’s be real. After finding the car we headed into downtown Dublin.

Dublin!

 Adventure 2, finding downtown Dublin, after a couple of circles we finally find the parking garage we needed. Dublin was happening, there were people everywhere. Besides the shops and beautiful architecture, the street performers were amazing. We finished off the night with mini pub crawl to truly experience the Dublin lifestyle. 

Irish Jig

The Best Street Performer

    The next day we headed north to the village of Malahide, where I got my first real glimpse of Ireland’s beaches and their ocean front. Adventure number 3; how to leave Malahide, the road made a loop and after driving the loop 7 times, I said we were missing something. With the help of George, we were able to find the turn, in our defense there were no signs marking it. 

Malahide

 We continued driving that day until we reached the city of New Castle. After a long day of driving we treated ourselves to some fine Italian food and adventure number 4, how to deal with drunk and discussing Americans.  As we were eating a man commented about the color of my shirt, nothing else was said, as we left he said “aren’t you going to say good bye?” Cleary not knowing him, I said “do I know you”? We started to talk and it was clear he only wanted to look at Natalie. Trying to be nice, we talked for a minute and then quickly left. Americans, why do we have to be so stereotypical? 

Mourne Mountains

                 The next day, we took advantage of the hotel’s pool and wonderful breakfast to fuel us for our big day. We started by heading to Tollymore Forest for some nice hiking and adventure number 5. As we were hiking, the bushes, about 5 feet tall, started to shake, Natalie being the brave one, screamed and jumped about 5 feet only to discover that it was only a deer, apparently they don’t have many of them in Northern Ireland. After a picnic lunch, we then got back in the car and headed to bloody bridge in the Mourne Mountains. The trail starts at almost sea level with the peeks being around 3,000ft tall. The trail follows a river that has lots of small pools and waterfalls, which the locals come here to swim, similar to Johnston shut-ins. 

Bloody Bridge

And so adventure number 6 begins here, not really knowing how long we planned to hike or what the hike is like, I only brought ½ a water bottle, which is ½ more than Natalie brought. As we were hiking we kept push farther and farther, the views were amazing and the weather was holding up. So after about 4 hours of hiking, long out of water, and almost to the ridge top, the clouds began to move in on us. Playing it safe we decided to head back to the car and continue the drive into Belfast.

                After hiking so much the previous day, we took the next day to relax. We started off by sightseeing downtown Belfast, followed by lunch with Natalie’s mom, more sightseeing and then as topper, pizza and a movie.  A much need chill day.

Natalie's House and car

Parliament Building

                The next day we woke early, and headed north to Portrush.  Along the way we stopped at the Giant’s Causeway, adventure number 7, and took a look around and hiked up the ridgeline. The Giant’s Causeway is a natural formed rock formation that is just too hard to explain, except that all the rocks are in almost perfect hexagon shape. The causeway is part of Northern Irelands National Trust, similar to our National Parks. That evening Natalie’s Mom and stepdad, Gail and George, stopped by for dinner, and an after dinner walk.

Giant's Causeway

On top of the ridge

End of the trail?

Finally I got to experience the Northern Ireland everyone was talking about, on Thursday we woke up to rain. It was bouncing on and off. With too many adventures to do, we could not stay seated for long, so we head off to the rope bridge, hoping the rain would stop when we got there. Adventure number 8, as we pulled into the parking lot, the rain was coming down hard, so we waiting to see if it would let up, after a few minutes, with no relief in sight, we headed down the trail. After about 10 minutes, the rain finally gave up.  The rope bridge is exactly what it sounds like, a rope bridge that takes you from the main land to an island. If I had to guess, I would say the bridge is about 50ft over the water, and sways very much. As we hiked back, we were no more than 5 minutes from the car and the rain began again. We were lucky since we were able to spend most of the time rain free. 

Rope Bridge

That afternoon we tried to SUP board, but 30 minutes into the lesson thunderstorms rolled in and the beach was closed. That evening we were joined with Ruth and Eddie, Natalie’s friends. Both were wonderful, very friendly and fun. That evening we all went and got Fish and Chips for dinner, it was delicious!

The next morning was another chill day spent with Ruth and Eddy. We spent the morning walking the beach out to a pier and then walked around the shops as the girls shopped and eddy and I got to know each other. That evening we had a late dinner followed by a movie to end the night.

Saturday, Ruth and Eddy had to leave in the morning and Natalie and I retook our SUP lesson but we also did a Surf lesson, adventure 9 and 10? In the morning the ocean was pretty calm, so the SUP was a lot of fun. Both of us were able to stand up and cruise. In our group, there were also 3 younger kids, and they all did excellent. After lunch we took to the surf, it was much harder than I thought. The waves were a bit too small and the boards were tipsier then I would have imaged. Natalie and I were both able to pop up on the board, but by the time we did that the wave was already crashing. It wasn’t the best surf but it was a great starting point to continue on.

I was hot and just needed to cool off

 After a day in the ocean, we headed to Portstewart, were George’s mom was renting an apartment for 2 weeks. After a nice shower, we once again had dinner with Gail and George. Portstewart was having their red sail festival, so the streets were packed and there was live music and even a wonderful fireworks display.

Sunday was my last full day. After breakfast, we headed back down to Belfast to meet up with Rachael and Derek.  It was great to meet Derek and Rachael is always a blast. After having a drink and walking along the beach, we headed back to Natalie’s to hangout and eventually we did dinner and a movie. That evening Natalie showed me most of her art work from university, I’ve seen some of it before but the only way I can describe it is WOW, it is truly amazing. She clearly has a gift.

Monday, we woke up early and headed to Rachel’s parent house for breakfast,  followed by continuing to Dublin airport, and at 12:05 My flight took off and I was gone from Ireland.

Ireland was an amazing experience; I am truly kicking myself for not going sooner. All the people I meet were wonderful and so inviting, and the scenery was unreal. I never imaged it being such a beautiful place. I don’t think I could have asked for a better trip full of adventures. Until the next adventure.

-Curtis