Welcome to the long-awaited (by a few) inaugural post of Senior Ripper. My wife, Gail, and I have been planning and plotting this blog for well over a year. Our friends and family have been waiting so long for it to launch, that many have given up hope that it would ever go live. For the genesis of the name, please click over to our About page.
Finally, here it is!
Our vision is, as young 60-somethings, to share our adventures and encourage others our age (and younger and older) to continue pushing themselves, and exploring, and engaging in activities that are generally not associated with people our age. Given our location in Park City, Utah, the home of “Life Elevated”, we may not be unique. But a search of blogs, podcasts, websites and YouTube channels reveals nothing that focuses on adventures and the active life for our age group, but plenty about 20 and 30-somethings that tell stories of activities that we can’t (and shouldn’t) aspire to. And while the title of this post suggests “danger”, fear not. We have no interest in risking life and limb, but we do want to push our limits.
As a tease of the kind of adventures you can expect, in March of this year, I participated in the Silver Summits Challenge at Park City Mountain. It involved, in their words, navigating their “most advanced terrain from edge to edge in one day…This challenge is for you skiers and snowboarders who want to hit the whole mountain wall-to-wall, hike a handful of peaks, and discover the best powder stashes and advanced terrain we offer, all in one day.” The pictures above are from that day, including the opening hike up Murdock Peak, and the closing hike up to the top of Jupiter Peak from McKonkey’s chair.
The day was an adventure, to put it mildly. The youngest of us was 57, but most were well into our 60’s. We covered 20,000 vertical feet of skiing (including lift-serviced), of which over 2,000 feet required hiking, and carrying our skis in some fashion. We started at 9 am, and ended at 3:45 pm. A long day for sure. We experienced sun, wind, snow, fresh powder, crust, the whole gamut. An incredible accomplishment for all of us.
This blog will, hopefully inspire you to join in, take the leap, don’t say no. We will recount with words and images our adventures. We hope you will join us in our journey, and share your own with us.
Congratulations on the launch of the blog! The website is beautiful. I look forward to hearing about your adventures.
Wow, that looks awesome Larry! Can’t wait to follow yours and Gail’s adventures!
Hooray for Larry & Gail! This is going to be fun reading.
More more more !
My Dear little Cousin Larry, if you’re a senior, what does that make me? Love to you and Gail from Santa Fe where life is an adventure every day.
Love it. Larry and Gail,
I hope I get to take part in these adventures and not have to read about them.. I don’t like being left out! Fun hanging out with you.. looking forward to more fun with you guys.
Yay! You did it. Quite an accomplishment.
Very cool folks, we hope to join you on your adventures ! Not older just better !
You inspired me to roll off the couch and swing my club 10 times! Terrific work at that altitude!!
Met you at The Bridge, with the Ungers, the day before you attacked this challenge. It sounded inpirational, but exhausting to me at the time, and the pictures do not dissuade me from that initial reaction. But WOW, what an adventure.