getting back to whats important

Well I finished my instrument rating last week....finally! Feels pretty good, but that again, I should have done it a long time ago. Anyway, after the big checkride I jumped in my truck and drove home from Las Vegas. I arrived at 1:45 am. I woke up and went to breakfast with the Borlings and lovely wife of course. Then we went to Sedona for some world class mountain biking. Single speeds shredded by all.

Wupatki National Park Antelope Capture with Arizona Game and Fish

Two days before the big Turkey day I flew out to Wupatki national park to do a antelope capture with the Arizona Game and Fish. This is probably some of the most fun you can have with a helicopter. Antelope are the fastest animal in North America and you can definitely verify it when you look at your ground speed on the GPS while flying next to them. We capture the animals with a net gun. This involves flying low level (about 3-5feet off the ground) and having a net gunner sitting in the back shoot the animal. Once the animal is in the net we send in a wildlife biologist to go process the animal. This involves a blood sample, hair sample, and then they get a wonderful ear tag and GPS tracking color so these guys can study them from the comforts of their own offices. Here's some pics of the guys doing there thing. Sorry, no action shots.

been a long time

Well, it's been quite a long time since I updated this sucker, sorry. The last time I made a entry was June 25th. I guess I win the blogger slacker award. Been busy, but here are some good pics of the Supai flash flood this last summer. Our crew had to shorthaul 16 people off the side of a cliff. Here we are prepping for the big operation. Also, some good pics of both Mooney and Havasu falls cranking out the muddy brown water. Pretty awesome, the muddy spray turned all the vegatation brown for about a half mile down stream.

More photos of the great dory extraction an Dubendorff

A few weeks ago I landed at Roaring Springs and was approached by a hiker. She introduced herself and explained that she had taken a bunch of pictures of the dory extraction. Apparently, she had been camped upstream of the rapid and hiked down to take some photos. She really got some good ones of the boat pinned as well as the grand canyon river adventure team at there finest moments.

Idaho

Kris and I just got back from 10 days in wild Idaho. The snow pack this year was140% of normal. We arrived with very high flows on all our favorite kayak runs and still plenty of snow up in the high country. We drove up to the seven devils in hopes of spectacular views and high mountain lakes filled with brook trout and made it to within a mile of the trail head where we ran into snow and downed trees. Many of our adventures ended up this way. Having lived in Arizona for so long. It's easy to forget that summer starts much later for the rest of the country. None the less we still had a great time.

Flagstaff weight loss program

It's been a pretty unathletic winter for me and I've decided that I'm growing boobs. Instead of the traditional diet I chose to ride my bike more and drink less beer. I could probably keep drinking the same amount and pedal harder. I guess I'll figure that out when I get rid of the training bra. Kris and I spent the day cruising around up on the peaks. The trails are awesome and the best part is all this is in my backyard. Rye likes it too!

2 weeks of work....i'm pooped

I just finished a 12 day hitch at work. Very glad to be getting a break. The MD900 has just been approved for rappell making it the ultimate wildland fire assault vehicle. Here are some photos of the crew making the first rappells. Also, on more interesting note. I had a pretty cool mission last week. A dory got parked on the right side of Dubendorf rapids. It was pinned against a rock for over two weeks. We had to fly the river rangers in with all there extraction devices to get it off. It took three loads at 1000lbs each to get all there gear in. The next day they called the helicopter in to fly out the old boat. I guess you could say the whole job was somewhat of a cathartic experience having been a dory boatman and leaving such a fun job to be a helicopter pilot. None the less, still an awesome time. here's some pics.