Hello, It's Been Some Time Now...

So it's March 3rd...6 months to the date of my last post and it has been entirely way too long.  I do have an excuse, however, as my second son was born in mid-September, and well...life with two young kids doesn't provide much free time.  Throw on studying for the CFA exam, and now you see why I haven't posted in a while.  But no one ever accomplished anything blaming excuses, so onward we go.  I'd like to thank Tyler Stuntebeck for the kind words on my first post and motivating me to get back in to posting.  I promise to be more consistent.

In my first post, I had mentioned that the Polite Pirates next adventure would be venturing out west to backpack the Black Hills of western South Dakota in the summer of 2013.  If you have never been to the Black Hills, it's worth the 12 hour trek along I-90 to the western ends of the state.  The area not only boasts the Black Hills National Forest (which contains Mount Rushmore), but also the Badlands, Custer State Park, and some of the famed old Western townships like Deadwood.  And, of course, don't forget Wall Drug.

Despite the beauty that the Black Hills brings, most of us had been there before (some of us a multitude of times), and we figured what's another 3 hours in the car if we could get to some big-time mountains.  So after literally weeks of back and forth emails, face-to-face meetings, and gnashing of teeth, we decided that we would scratch the Black Hills as this year's destination, and head further west into Wyoming and the Big Horn Mountains.

The Big Horns are located in north central Wyoming, just south of the Montana border, and has some of the most majestic and primitive scenery in the Rockies.  Specifically, we will be backpacking the Cloud Peak Wilderness, which contains numerous peaks and granite domes, glacial lakes, an active glacier, and Cloud Peak itself; the third highest peak in Wyoming behind the Tetons.  Erik Molvar, author of Hiking the Cloud Peak Wilderness describes this place as the "Yosemite of the Rockies", which is quite the lofty comparison. 

I intend to get into more specifics of our journey in coming posts, so I'll save the details for that time.  I can tell you our venture into the wild will culminate with a summit of Cloud Peak at 13,167 feet above sea level (assuming snow fields aren't blocking our path) after a couple of days of hiking at slightly lower elevation to acclimatize ourselves for the big push to the sky. 

Hope you'll check back soon!  See you at the top!

    View from the summit of Cloud Peak (Source: BighornMountains.com)