Gail D. Storey's Blog

The minute we got our COVID vaccine second doses,

we drove two days to Saguaro National Park in Tucson. We hadn’t been anywhere in a year, not even to a restaurant or grocery store!

We were overjoyed that our vaccinated son, Philip, and his lovely girlfriend, Annabelle, joined us for a few days at our Airbnb with a view of the Rincon Mountains.

Hiking the Cactus Forest Trail, we saw the biggest cacti we’d ever seen, including this saguaro:

How big was it? It was so big it was dwarfed only by this RV, the Tucson winter palace of our long-time friends Peggy and Gary.

We’d love to know: what did you do, or plan to, first thing after your COVID vaccination?

To celebrate Philip joining the practice of Austin Retina Associates in Texas as a retina surgeon (after eleven years of medical training!), we took a family trip to the challenging Wind River Range of Wyoming right before he started the job of his dreams!

Spiritual Gangsta that I am, I set up meditation camp in a tiny log cabin in Pinedale, and drove Porter and Philip to their trailhead at Elkhart Park, where they commenced a week of backpacking, first into a blizzard.

It was so windy in the Winds that Porter had to hang onto his seventh chakra!

For the rest of the week, with Island Lake as basecamp (one-pound green tent in the center below), they sloshed all night on melting snow and hiked all day, to Titcomb Basin, Upper Jean Lake, and other highly inaccessible destinations.

Amber and I meditated, practiced yoga, and sent good vibes toward the Winds.

May you all traverse your own mountains inner and outer for the benefit of all beings.

The blooming high desert of Utah calls to us in the spring. Porter took off on a guided mountain-biking week out of Moab for a tour of The Maze, the least accessible district of Canyonlands.

I spent the week by myself on a silent meditation retreat in a cabin on the Colorado River, with a glorious view of the red cliffs.

The mountain-biking over challenging terrain, up to 35 miles a day, was so technical that Porter and the other five guys took a “rest” day to hike down a canyon to see petroglyphs and climb out again.

Each day I  hiked high up into the hot sandy hills, where I meditated under the shade of Utah junipers.

No one else was up there. Or so I thought, until I happened on Amber in her prayer shawl, meditating with the utter stillness of the red stone.

May each of you bloom in your own way, wherever you are.

Okay, we’ll share! Two months after my open heart surgery and subsequent complications, my docs agreed that a week-long yoga retreat at sea level would help my healing, so Porter and I went to the Bodhi Tree Yoga Resort in Nosara, Costa Rica, with our Yoga Loft yoga teacher and forty students from our class. 

Here we are with nine-pound sandbags weighting our legs.

Our yoga shala (studio) was high up a hillside in the jungle with a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean. Porter and I counted 100 stair steps from our bungalow to the shala, so we got an excellent cardio workout as well. Here we all are resting after class. 

Our retreat was organized and led by our superb yoga teacher, Jeff Bailey, who with his wife Lori Kemmet owns Yoga Loft’s two locations in South Boulder and Gunbarrel. Jeff taught our two and sometimes three 90-minute classes a day, 7 a.m., noon, and 4:30 pm, in the style he created called Avita (which means “for a lifetime,” for all ages and body types, for movement, healing, stability, and peace). 

One of the best parts of the retreat was getting to know other students from our yoga classes better while dining in the open air at community tables. The food was fantastic–fresh fruits, vegetables, seafood, etc.–plenty of healthy options to suit every taste.  And yes, there was dessert and a bar! 

Between our yoga classes we had ample time to go to the beach, read by the pool, and meditate on our private patio in the jungle. 

We all went down to the beach to watch the sun sink below the sea’s horizon. It was a great place to reflect on the power of our yoga practice, individually and in community, for the greater good.

Amber adores Avita yoga. Here she naps for inner peace while practicing an asana of her own invention. We wish you many transformative experiences of your own, of body, mind and heart.

Since our last blog post, Porter has had three camping expeditions in the Indian Peaks and James Peak wilderness areas, first over Pawnee and Buchanan Passes, second up the Middle St. Vrain to Gibraltar Lake, and third up South Boulder Creek towards Rollins Pass, with Gail and Amber as support.

Porter had forgotten his trekking poles, essential for getting over 12,500-foot Pawnee Pass, so he borrowed Gail’s. Gail did fine hiking solo around Long Lake sans poles.

Fall in the Indian Peaks Wilderness:

Porter continues to develop his ultralight winter camping skills, snowshoeing solo into the James Peak Wilderness at 10,000 feet. Here he is with his winter tarp, which we named “Snow Mahal” for its whopping size and weight of 1.25 lbs. 

He cooked just under Snow Mahal’s edge on his alcohol stove.

Collecting water for cooking and drinking was a challenge, lest he slip down the snowbank into the icy creek. He devised a water collecting bottle on a string, but his water filter froze. Oh well. 

Meanwhile, Amber worked through her existential angst by discussing the absurdity of ultralight winter camping with her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Moose, who stay warm by hugging when its cold. 

Stay warm, everybody!

Porter has been eager to learn Tenkara fishing, to supplement his diet with fish on his solo outdoor adventures. Tenkara is a simple form of Japanese fly-fishing that uses no reel, just an extendable carbon fiber rod, line, tippet, and fly. Imagine the lure of a whole new set of gear that takes weeks to make by hand to be even more ultralight! For his first multi-day fishing hike, he headed into the Eagles Nest Wilderness in the Gore Range of Colorado, with its high alpine lakes.

Unfortunately, for the first time in our many years of staying in at least minimal touch by satellite tracker on the Continental Divide Trail, Great Divide Mountain Bike Trail, and others, I didn’t receive a single message with which to follow his progress and safety. I fretted that the photo below would prove to be our last together.

I was on a solo meditation retreat in a mountain town below, as I usually am during Porter’s rigorous adventures. I watched my mind move from concern to worry, worry to fear. Porter was unhappy about not being able to hear from me by return satellite tracker message. He camped at Gore Lake, and although he caught his first fish by Tenkara, didn’t have the heart to eat it. He released it, in an act of compassion.

Compassion for my worried mind gave way to trust. I sent Porter “heart mail” that I was fine and that I knew deep down he was too. He sent me heart mail back. We released one another from the circuitous thinking of fear. Whatever happens, there’s only and ever love.

Porter made it over Red Buffalo Pass and down, having hiked over the mountains of the Gore Range from Vail to Silverthorne without mishap. Amber and I met him at the trailhead.

“Guys! Mercury is retrograde!” Amber said. “Of course the satellite tracker went kaput!”

In June 2018, our son and his triathlete friend Constantine joined us on the Bicycle Tour of Colorado, a strenuous multi-day ascent and descent through the Rockies. Here are our son, Philip, Porter, and Constantine in Leadville at the start. From Leadville, the guys biked to Aspen and Carbondale, but on the way we were […]

The post High Drama on the BICYCLE TOUR OF COLORADO! appeared first on GailStorey.com.

Porter, Gail, and Philip Storey, with Constantine Mavroudis, hike and camp in the Grand Canyon while Amber Storey rides the free shuttle from snack bar to snack bar.

The post Hiking/Camping/Eating in the GRAND CANYON appeared first on GailStorey.com.

Porter Storey snowshoes to solo winter-camp in Rocky Mountain National Park, while Gail Storey does a solo meditation retreat by the river.

The post RMNP #1: Winter Camping in Rocky Mountain National Park appeared first on GailStorey.com.

Porter is so done! We’re  home from our Great Divide Mountain Bike Route adventure, after 2,700 miles through five states and two Canadian provinces; 82 days; 41 hotels, cabins, and campsites; four sets of tires; more glasses of wine than we care to disclose, and a lot of ice cream cones!  The final 701 miles […]

The post GDMBR #13: Colorado and HOME! appeared first on GailStorey.com.