land nav

just finished up the mountain navigator course. no more red rock, sand & sage brush. now aspen, spruce, mosquitoes.

good group of folks. had one guy who was a navy seal. funny to think of him as a student. sea air and land, but as he says, "seals aren't know for their land nav." this course was hard for some, but was like a vacation for him. he also teaches sky diving. had another navy guy, a royal canadian mounted police guy (mountie on a mountain bike rather than a horse.) couple of brits, couple of boss alums, and couple young folk. fun group though half of them quit right before the solo.

had to shadow the students during their student expedition and solos. stressful, but kinda fun. had to work on being sneaky. got caught once because they started ealier in the morning than they ever had and went in a different direction than planned, so i walked right into them. oops. later got better, but few times was sure they'd see me, yet they didn't. amazing how focussed on something they can be that they don't even see you when you're in plain sight only a few feet away.

tweaked my back on the second to last day of the course. not a full blow out, but was hard slogging around the mountain top with a pack on. it's slowly getting better.

have a 9 hour drive ahead of me tomorrow going to denver for the antarctica physical tests (medical, dental, drug, etc.) so time for bed now.