Never Summer

I've been meaning to post these pictures for awhile. A few weeks back, C, K and I spent the night at Ruby Jewel, a yurt in the Never Summer Wilderness. Yurts (the Russians call them kabitka) are round dwellings made famous by the nomads of the Central Asian steppes. It's only fitting that we are drawn to temporary structures, given our penchant for moving.

The weather did not disappoint; it snowed on the short trek into the yurt. We've been storm camping since we first backpacked together in the dusty desert town of Tucson, Arizona. The scent of the monsoon rains rolling across the Sonoran Desert would signal us to grab our packs, head for the Catalinas, and set up camp. This time, however, on our snow-filled hike into the Rocky Mountains, we had a comfy Mongolian yurt to welcome and warm us.

Casey is ecstatic at the prospect of living off the grid someday, so he's as ardent about yurts as he is about solar panels and windmills. Kiwi was just happy to be around the snow.