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Austin Balser

@abalzzzz

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Just trying to navigate my way through a world that seems to value 40 hours at a desk over a week spent in the woods.

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And lastly December. At the beginning of the month, after 6 months of knee PT, I got an MRI to see why I had plateaued, and it turns out I was just making it all up. The MRI didn’t show anything wrong with my knee so I guess I was imagining the pain, instability, and weakness from the last six months. But that means my PT cleared me to start jumping and doing all sorts of other fun stuff so I promptly went out and got a few low keys early season ski days in. I also went to a friend’s baby shower, but having the handicap of being a man without a partner the only picture I got was when Mitch showed off his new snowmobile. My card made the mom to be tear up tho, so I think I get points for that.

I spent a long Christmas holiday at home in NC where I got visit a lot of family, see the nutcracker, show off my dad fashion (really leaning into the funcle role) and I got to visit the Nc museum of art before I headed back to Reno. I think I appreciate the museum offerings the triangle has now that I don’t live so close to some really impressive public collections of art and natural history.

Upon review of 2023 I think it was a year of highlights. It’s easy to forget the things that you’ve experienced over the year, so I’m glad to be able to reminisce as I think about the year to come. Hopefully 2024 is full of great memories waiting to be made. by @abalzzzz

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In November my dad came to visit, we got some classic sightseeing in, I finally got the chickadees at chickadee ridge to land on my hand, turns out you just have to be up on the ridge in pleasant conditions tog get them to come down to investigate your outstretched palm. I took my dad climbing, he successfully climbed up a route outside for the first time in “a long time” I’m guessing more than a decade or two, but he refused to admit he could be that old. Honestly the approach was probably the hardest part of the day, I forgot how steep it was and didn’t think about dragging my Florida dwelling father up and over a mountain at 8-9000 ft. But we all survived and enjoyed the day. Or at least enjoyed it from the car when it was all over.

The start of the month also saw one of the best rainbows I have ever seen, and now I know that what’s at the end of the rainbow is a Trader Joe’s, but unfortunately that picture didn’t come out very well so you’ll just have to trust me.

The middle of the month was the bishop cragging classic! I went down for bishop to camp and climb and party with some friends, and I was so busy having fun that I only got a few pictures. Enjoy my exemplary camp food, which earned me the “chef” award for the weekend, one shot of some climbing, and a picture from a rope rescue course I too with Michaelyn so we’ll be better climbing partners! Even if we aren’t usually the ones at the top of the pitch encouraging our friends to make it the rest of the way up.

Before the month ended I cut a teeny tiny Christmas tree, because my current living room situation didn’t allow for a regular sized tree. And in what may be a lifetime achievement I got a perfect sleep score form my garmin watch and honestly I didn’t know that was possible and don’t expect to ever see it again. If I had to venture a guess I’d say more people have Olympic qualifying marathon times than a perfect sleep score. So I think I’m kinda a big deal. by @abalzzzz

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October saw my first outdoor climb of the year that had more than a 1 minute approach. I was finally feeling up to hiking enough to get after some more rock climbing and went out to castle rock. It was my first visit, and I was sad I hadn’t made time to visit it before. I’ll definitely be back.

After I realized I was recovered enough to hike and climb I spent the next several weekends climbing around truckee. I got some time in at donner, including brushing up on my multipitch trad skills, some harder sport leading and dancing up some ever entertaining slabs. Maybe someday I’ll lead a “classic mixed slab route” that only has 4 bolts for the first 60+ feet, but not this year.

The month also held a cleanup at gearhut’s newly adopted park, driving out into the middle of Nevada to eclipse watch, and ended with a great Halloween party hosted by Pablo, and an ever greater costume, provided by Lauren’s pandemic coping project, a fully crocheted nude suit. by @abalzzzz

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September started with a private plane ride. Unfortunately it’s not because I hit the jackpot at a casino, but I did manage to befriend a private pilot (Pablo) and got to go for a joyride around the Eastern Sierra and fly to Bridgeport to grab breakfast one morning before returning to Reno in time for second breakfast.

I finally made it out to the great reno balloon race, which while maybe it worth waking up at 3am, it was a great Saturday morning after the sun came out and we could see more of the balloons.

I also got to do the tahoe via ferrata at palisades thanks to alpenglow’s locals day and having a friend (Sami) who is luckier than me when it comes to raffles. It was a super cool morning, but maybe not quite as exciting as climbing rocks and clipping bolts or plugging gear yourself. However my mother would likely never go rock climbing with me, but I think I could convince her to give the via a shot so I haven’t written it off yet.

And I finally managed to complete my mountain triathlon after talking about it all summer. I swam in donner lake, biked to the summit, and rock climbed on school rock to put together three different outdoor activity that I enjoy, without having to run, which I do not. Hopefully I made it look fun enough to get people to join me next year because I definitely open on doing it again. The fresh baked pizza afterward may have gone a long way to convince folks to join next time.

And the month closed out with a great night at black rabbit’s anniversary party, even tho the majority of the group missed the blue steel memo and smiled like scrubs. by @abalzzzz

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August saw more sunsets, more Friday open water swim parties, some sights around the neighborhood, more paddling, and Reno’s environmental scandal of the summer. The humane society hosts a duck race every year, but apparently real ducks don’t work well so they use a dump truck full of rubber ducks that get dumped into the river and then caught a hundred yards downstream or so, but this year, due in part to the high flows, and maybe some poor planning, the ducks escaped and flowed freely down river. You can see the moment the swift water rescue team from the fire department decided hope was lost and dove out of the way to escape the tidal wave of ducks.

In other things I didn’t think I’d see in Nevada, Reno was solidly in the path of a Hurricane foe the first time in a hundred years, maybe ever, and visiting the national hurricane centers website from the desert felt very weird. Thankfully a hurricane in northern Nevada is not as bad as one in NC, mostly on account of the storm dying most of the way up before it made it all the way to Reno.

The month closed out with a surprise presidential motorcade that turned my 30m commute to work into an hour and a half, but also another good sunset and the first taste of my home grown kombucha. by @abalzzzz

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July, part 2, because it was the peak of summer. There were a lot of paddleboard days, a lot of paddleboard yoga, some real yoga, live music, both wonderful local talent and traveling bands of punk folk appalachia string bands. Reno put on some more good sunset shows, and I got a few bike rides in. I also tried to take a thirst trap for the apps, making good use of our weekly tahoe swims where I had fun while my friends trained for a triathlon that involved an open water swim in the lake. The thirst trap didn’t work, just as single as beforehand.

Another surprise in the month, a euchre game to join at a bar. by @abalzzzz

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July seemed to be when summer finally started in earnest. There were a lot of paddleboard days, a lot of paddleboard yoga, some real yoga, live music, both wonderful local talent and traveling bands of punk folk appalachia string bands. Reno put on some more good sunset shows, and I got a few bike rides in. I also tried to take a thirst trap for the apps, making good use of our weekly tahoe swims where I had fun while my friends trained for a triathlon that involved an open water swim in the lake. The thirst trap didn’t work, just as single as beforehand.

Other smattering throughout the month involve finding surprise summer snow plant, attending the washoe county pride parade, hanging out at the lake, and taking in panoramic firework displays from half a dozen different shows around town all seen simultaneously from Rusty and Leah’s roof. by @abalzzzz

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June started with a wonderful consequence to something I said a year ago. When Grace and Matt came out to visit me in Reno in winter of 2022 I might have convinced them it was worth getting married so they could celebrate their relationship and commitment with friends and family, even if they didn’t want to have a big church wedding. Because who doesn’t like to throw a party right? Well as thanks for my suggestion they asked me to officiate their wedding, and that was definitely another highlight of my year. At this point I think 2023 will be the year of highlights. There were a lot of high points, and of course a few postponed plans and things that maybe didn’t go the way I hoped, but looking back on each month there were some pretty great memories. Also from Grace and Matt’s wedding we have a few photos of the rest of the party.

Outside of the wedding, Reno put on some great sunsets, I really worked on solidifying my position as Winnie’s favorite uncle, I remounted my flag pole with structural screws into the garage door header, and caught some friends in their natural habitat (Lauren and Michaelyn). by @abalzzzz

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May started out with a bang, literally, but thankfully not a snap, as on my first backcountry outing on my own gear ended with a very low key wipeout that happened to also injure my meniscus. Looking back a compounding series of several sub optimal decisions preceded/led to the situation that got me injured, but thankfully it was pretty minor and after an x ray confirmed what I told the doctor (that nothing was broken, I set out to start PT for an indeterminate amount of time.

Other than that, May was eventful! I went to two weddings! My dad got married in Florida a week before a good friend got married in Wilmington, so I got to enjoy a trip home with two weddings for the price of one! One of the highlights might have been playing air hockey with the brides still in her wedding dress, at the bar-afterparty, and while I don’t remember who one (pretty sure it was me) it was a great end to a great trip.

I also got to see Stormy in person and while it took her a minute to remember me, after she finished barking at the stranger at her door (me) she was excited to see me. Not pictured are all the other friends I got to see while I was in Wilmington, including those who made time to visit me between the travel and wedding and all the craziness of my visit.

After I made it back to Reno spring had finally poked its head out and my rose bush started to show off after the wet winter, and we celebrated the classic start to spring, Memorial Day. by @abalzzzz

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April. A personal favorite month, definitely not because it’s the month of my birth, it’s also the month of the perfect date.

But in April we get a common view of one of my favorite places in Reno, Mesa Rim, the climbing gym I spend many hours a week at. The Mesa parking lot always seems to have spectacular sunsets, one of which is on display here.

I also skied Palisades for the first time in years, I got passes for winter wondergrass, I thought for skiing and the festival but it turns out just for skiing. So I got to ski with some friends who don’t have epic passes and enjoyed the concert from the parking lot with some new best friends. I also got a dizzybat home run, better than any showing I ever had in college.

I got a birthday package from my mom, with some new kitchen towels, which honestly were a very appreciated gift, along other more traditional gifts.

Later in the month I also skied, celebrated my birthday with Reno friends, and closed out the season at kirkwood by lapping the wall, one of kirkwood’s classic experts faces. I worked up the courage to hit a couple cornice drops and gap one of the snow cracks that opened up on the face, but honestly only after watching 8 year olds do it with their eyes closed. Hopefully some of that confidence caries over into this year. by @abalzzzz

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March was another epic ski month. After talking about how we should ski/ride together for a year, I finally got out with Mitch. And let me tell you, in a year full of days full of stoke. There was a lot of stoke that day. As evidenced by our smiles we had a rippin time lapping gunbarrel for the trees and hogsback at heavenly, I scouted the drops so Mitch could hit cliffs and flips and all sorts of nonsense, and it was a highlight of the season.

The rest of the month saw more skiing, winter scenery, a surprise puppy pic. Stormy is enjoying life in NC where spring comes in March and there’s plenty of mud to roll around in. I witnessed Milky Way bowl at heavenly groomed, likely because there was too much snow for them to ignore, because heavenly doesn’t like surprise cornice drops on blue thoroughfares. They also may have needed somewhere to dump snow after digging out some of the lifts. March also held one of my most amusing wipeouts, after hiking up to thimble? park at kirkwood I decided to come down some untracked snow, but it turns out it was untracked for a reason and ate it after hitting a surprise change in the snow surface. Apart from not being able to turn my head all the way to the left for the rest of the day I was fine.

For the end of the month it turns out all that snow has to go somewhere, and when it melts everything south of Tahoe and north of the Walker river drains into the Carson, which then becomes our problem at work. The record setting snowpack meant record setting flows in the river, and into the reservoir we manage which sent us into food operations in early March. We were expecting to see somewhere around 3 times the volume of water Lahontan reservoir can hold to come through between the beginning of the melt in March/April and the end in July/August. Thankfully decision making is above my pay grade and I just did a lot of modeling to let other people make decisions, one of which was a new weir to prevent flooding in the City of Fallon. by @abalzzzz

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February started out with more stellar ski days, fresh tracks, and visits from friends. Kirkwood put on a show with some solar rings, and maybe even sun dogs if you look closely. Leah skied some fresh powder for the first time (ever?) and had a lot of opinions about it. Jake came to visit and though we skied 5 or 6 days during his visit I only found one picture of us snowshoeing, probably because we were shredding too hard to take pics on the slopes. Matt and I went to Yosemite for firefall, where he indulged me in a rather long snowshoe because I was convinced the vista at the end was going to be worth it. (It was.) And we finally caught a solid firefall display, after several times trying. We also upgraded to a headed tent cabin in the park instead of an Airbnb an hour away, and let me tell you, it was with it. The only downside was that the tents were clearly meant for more luxury travelers, and you were expected to buy meals at the dining facilities, and not cook your own, so we had to drive around and find a picnic area to cook our dinners at. I ended out the month with more skiing, surprise. And in the lay photo you can just barely see the top of a 10-15’ high snow fence (buried) that usually marks the edge of the trail. by @abalzzzz

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