Iowa Medical school reunion in Utah!

Rina and I hosted a few of my medical school friends last week. Brent, Michele, and their 5 year old boy Ethan, were the first to arrive, just in time for a 4.5 mile slog up to the Millcreek yurt. It took most of the day to get everybody's gear sorted out and I had to work until early afternoon, which meant that we got off to a late, late start. Big surprise, eh? Unfortunately for the group who arrived at the yurt earlier that day, we were the ones responsible for preparing dinner that night.Everybody started out all smiles and carrying full packs. Odds on Ethan making it beyond 1/4 the distance to the yurt were running high, so I towed an empty sled for him to sack out in when he tuckered out.

Michele, Ethan, & Rina starting out (note the fading daylight already). It wasn't long before Michele's sea-level home routine had her panting. Don't forget it was only her second time on X-C skis! Ethan, however, was defying the odds and running around, asking us to make him snowballs, chatting up a storm. It seemed he had endless energy (between brief collapses to his knees, claiming he was tired).

After ditching his oversized backpack in the sled, the little dude kept on going. I think the novelty of snow had something to do with it. Despite the fact we were hours & hours behind schedule, we had to stop so Ethan could build his first snowman. He wouldn't allow us to continue until the snowman was complete with arms, face, buttons - all to scale.

At about 1/2 way, Ethan turned to Rina and declared that he was just "too tired to talk anymore". As the punters collected their winnings, he climbed into the sled and promptly fell fast asleep. And when I say he was asleep, I mean he was sleeping so hard through the noisy sled on the cold hard snow that I could hear him snoring all the way to the top of the canyon.

Brent, 'the mule', carries a double load the final distance to our destination. In this pic, he's obviously really glad for packing the titanium sporks. Really saves weight, you know.
After unloading packs, we got dinner going and finally sat down to eat sometime shortly before 10PM! Our Mexican surprise seemed to fill up all the hungry yurters.