Summer in Suburbia

Ah summer in suburbia. The twinkle of the ice cream truck. The smell of fresh cut grass. Tooling around on your bike with the other townies. Hitting Cumby's for a Chill Zone. The good life, am I right?

After a brief interruption in my usual summer programming, I'm back to the eat.train.eat.sleep.eat.train.eat.sleep repeat life, living at what will quite soon be an empty nest (lil' bro Henry heads off to college in two days!! They grow up so fast...) The rest of my internship went well, but flew by faster than I expected. While still in Boston I got to spend some quality time with ski alums (@thetanrussian) and finally learned my way around the city. But after one too many Littleton roller skis (CSU peeps know what I'm talkin' bout), I was glad to return to the Becker homestead and get my summer vacay on [cue this on repeat].

Run views. Bonus points if you know where this is @lucy @braden

Tbh, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how my poor family managed to survive this summer without me. I mean, now that I'm home, my dad (aka Patagucci Paul) finally has a partner in crime to tag team Patagonia outlet sales, and someone is around to eat mow down our garden. True story though, my mom thought something was wrong with our tomato plants because every time she went out to our garden there were no tomatoes. She came to me all upset, and I as the tomato thief, had to sheepishly explain that no her plants were in fact fine, I was just going out to the garden and eating all the ripe tomatoes. Everyday. Oops, sorry mom.

"More than a hustler, I'm the definition of it / Master chef, lord of the kitchen cupboard.": kale salad with roasted purple potatoes, sungold and big beauty tomatoes, and eggies. Plus a mason jar. Cuz I'm so hip and cultured. 

While I'm still flying solo for a lot of my training, it's been fun to get out and explore some new[ish] turf. Ran a new loop this morning and check out what I found!

Easy week means stops for blackberries

After doing mostly running in Boston, I've loved getting back on my road bike. And back to roller skiing. Duh.

Typical Becker wall decor (hard week motivation)

After a big week of training last week, I'm looking forward to some down time, and am planning to spend this week catching up with friends, eating my weight in watermelon, and attempting to correct my tan:freckle ratio. I'm also going on a tasting tour of Portland's new kombucha brewery! Gotta balance out all that DD iced coffee somehow. 

Rest day chillin'

Hope everyone is doing well. Sending big love to you all! 

xoxo,

Becker

Summer Roxx

Ok so my photos are probably not quite as quality as Jack’s, but I have been up to similar adventures in the mountains of Washington, aka the state that’s even better than Alaska. I’ve been trying to tick off some of the more classic alpine rock climbs in the area with mixed success, but loads of stoke. I’m starting to daydream about being dehydrated and semi-lost in the mountains after dark, which is probably a helathy(?) sign. 

After getting surgery for chronic compartment syndrome in April, I've been making slow but steady progress to regain my strength and fitness. Rollerskiing has been no problem, but I've had to slowly work back up to running. Last week I finally got the go-ahead from my PT to go on a 45 minute trail run. Life is good, friends. Life is good. 

Except life in the valleys isn't so good at the moment because we are dealing with smoke from not one, not two, but three wildfires. Word on the street is that the town where I work has the worst air quality in the nation! Good thing I have lungs of steel by now and enjoy a strange love for treadmills. When I’m not intently monitoring the local air quality, I’ve been working in a lab at a tree fruit research center where I do sciencey things I don’t quite understand, but I trust are important somehow. 

This face post-climb describes it all. 21 hours car-to-car, 7 hours of hard scary climbing whilst dehydrated and verging on heat exhaustion. 

Sun was setting and we still had a loooong way to hike back to the car. 

Topo from the aforementioned epic. Still have PTSD just looking at it.

They look cute, but don't be fooled. Quote from guidebook: "be prepared to throw rocks and yell if they start running towards you."

Crazy smoke plume from a nearby fire witnessed from Washington pass.

Sunset from a pretty stellar bivy. 

Needless to say, I slept with my ice axe.

Good ol' Washington granite

Part of an upcoming series titled Ivy Napping and Eating at the Top of Cliffs. Stay tuned for more exclusive footage. 

Central WA is not the place to be right now.

Cheers,

Ivy

Ahoy from Adventurous Alaska

Greetings from the best state on Planet Earth. 

With practically unlimited mountains to climb and even more glacial lakes to swim in, there's really no way you could possibly dislike it. All stately bragging aside, this summer has been a busy one, training included. Here's a list that has some, but not all, of the activities I have been doing:

• Mountains have been climbed
• Glacial lakes have been swam in
• Runs have been ran
• Trails have been rollerskied on
• Glaciers have been skied over

Now you may be thinking, "But Jack, these seem like such short descriptions of your seemingly amazing adventuress! I would like to know more!" And you're in luck. There is more. I have carefully handpicked photos from my summer adventures, and they are below, for your viewing pleasure:

Climbing the second tallest peak in Chugach State Park

Swimming in one of the many glacial lakes Alaska has to offer.
This one is coincidentally our city's water reservoir.

Camping food is a must. Not pictured is my drone, due to a poor accidental landing
on the other side of the ridge. Sad.

Set a new fastest time on "West Goat Peak". Of course the one time
I forget a shirt it decides to snow at the top. In late June. 

Did some prolonged walking for 4 days in Denali National Park. You could say it was a good time, and you'd be right. Except for the 8 miles walking out along a railroad track. That was not a good time. 

More Denali 

Brief jaunt with the mother to the Italian Dolomites for 8 more days of prolonged walking and climbing in the mountains

Not a bad place to wake up at 5am 

Again, not bad. 

I spent a week living in this dark-green box with 10 other people.
To the right is the glacier that we ski on.
To the left is a 4000 ft drop to another glacier. 

A sun-dappled day on Eagle Glacier

The Man Himself.

Best,

Jack "Connie" Consenstein

Greetings (again) from Idaho!

Happy August! The summer is flying by!

As you know by now, Carmen and I have been having a grand old time out here in the middle of the nation's most underrated state. Great company, beautiful views, awesome training, and supah cool work! (I somehow ended up snagging an internship after just deciding to walk into this place called Idaho BioScience?! They make antibodies for research labs! Cool stuff! Just don't ask about the mice...) Since it is so freaking beautiful here, and since a picture is equal to a thousand words, here is my summer so far in images:

Super stoked to be arriving in Idaho after three long days of driving! Even more stoked to not look like a chipmunk anymore after wisdom teeth removal!

Trekkin up Galina Peak with some of the training squad on a mountain bike/hike adventure. 

Some cool viewz of some gnarly trees on a mountain bike OD. Mountain biking is my new favorite thing.

I FINALLY GOT TO SEE HAMILTON!!! Here's me and my bro on the San Fran stage (!!) because somehow our uncle knows the show's drummer and got us a backstage tour after?!?! The obsession is more real than ever. I cried lots and almost fainted.

A couple weekends ago we went backpacking in the Sawtooth mountains. Not a bad view for a lunch break, eh?

Cookin some dinner. It was a freezing night but the stars were incredible!

Tryna get that perfect shot. Such incredible scenery!

Facetiming with Sarah! Bad quality wifi, super quality company.

Out for a ride with the Bangonator. Stopped for a view break.

The Bangonator reading some Hemingway. Seriously- what a gem.

I'll be sad to leave Idaho at the end of the month but I'm super excited to see everyone again and make some new friends too! 

Keep rockin the cow!