Teva Mountain Games

Because we were apart for Grant's big birthday #26, I got him a present that we could enjoy together!  We packed up the cooler:

And took off last Friday evening:

Mountains. are. the. best.

And I couldn't resist taking one of these lovely side-mirror self-portraits.  

We headed up to Vail for the Teva Mountain Games!  We just stayed one night; long enough to collect oodles of free stuff, watch a couple incredible adventure sports, and of course, catch enough UV rays to turn me into a lobster... Worth it.

Among the events we watched were: 

Bouldering. These ladies had some serious skills. They had five minutes to figure out how to get to the top of their "puzzle." That one in the middle is basically doing the splits... on a wall.. holding on to pebbles sticking out of the wall...

Rock climbing seems like it would be fun and challenging.  My main concern would be my total weeny hands.  I can't even do the monkey bars.  It kills.  Something about lack of callouses. (Just call me princess hands...)

The next event we witnessed was the Kayak Freestyle.  It was awesome.  They created a "feature" in the middle of the river where kayakers had 1 minute to rack up as many points as they could doing tricks like flips and spins and such.  

This guy was kind of a "feature hog" during the warm-up sessions.  But he was really fun to watch so we didn't mind.  

We've developed a new language since listening to the silly announcers at the games.  Mostly, we have learned to say, "He totally killed it," after every mildly impressive trick, lap, or attempt.  That girl in her kayak there at the bottom... yeah she was totally killin' it out there.  Totally.

The last event we checked out I think was called the Freeride Dual.  Basically these bikers had to cross a crazy looking course in the fastest time.  I was a bit pooped by this time so I sat on the curb behind the big crowd while Grant got closer and took some great pictures.

There were lots of people.  And tons of dogs.  We had a few free bags of Eukanuba that we had to pawn off on various dog-owners.  

These guys were pretty crazy.  Bouldering: sounds fun.  Kayaking: sounds frightening but fun.  Crazy biker-event-stuff: I'll stay behind the camera... Forever.  I never was good on wheels anyway.

Next up: Grant makes his first attempt at professional adventure sports.  He may or may not have died... Stay tuned.