More Catchup

     Once again I have delayed quite a bit in updating this site - as you can probably tell, writing is not my favorite activity in the world.  The following weekend after mountain biking in Fruita, I headed to the mountains with my new roommate in an effort to bag a couple 14ers.  Though I had done both Bierstadt and Evans before, I had not previously done the combo on the same day, traversing the aptly named Sawtooth connecting the two in the process.  We started early in the morning in order to have enough time to get up and down before any afternoon storms rolled in.  Getting to the top of Bierstadt was quick and painless, as we were able to summit in around two hours.  The next task at hand was the Sawtooth.  Looking down at the ridge from atop Bierstadt, I instantly wasn't too sure I wanted to attempt it.  There was not much of a route that I could see from my vantage point and the first portion of the traverse required crossing decently large snowfields on somewhat steep angles.  Despite the view, we decided to trudge onwards.  The Sawtooth was not quite as difficult as I envisioned while atop Bierstadt but it did not pass without some unique sections.  There were snowfields to cross, rocks to climb (with our hands as well as our feet), cliffs to avoid, and views to take in all along the route.  By the time we crossed the Sawtooth, we still had quite a ways to go to reach the top of Mt Evans.  Eventually I reached the top and was greeted by the many tourists who drove to the top via the highest paved road in North America.  The return trip down to the trailhead ended up being a feat all of its own.  Rather than exposing yourself to the Sawtooth again, most people return to the Bierstadt trailhead by taking an alternate route.  This route funnels into a ravine and eventually into the meadows below.  The problem is that the meadow is really just one giant wetland in the spring and if you attempt to avoid the water then you are required to bushwhack through extremely dense willow bushes until you reach the original Bierstadt trail a couple miles away.  While I was warned by a coworker of this last portion of the day, I did not envision it being nearly as bad as it ended up being.  For literally hours we bushwhacked (without machetes, mind you) through the brush before finally making our way to the trail.  If I were alone during this time I probably would have cried... I had long ran out of water and food and there was a storm in the distance that seemed to be rolling in.  Eventually however, we did make it back to the car and promptly drove home where we indulged in great amounts of water and pizza.

Looking back along the now conquered Sawtooth route

    The following weekend I headed out to Breckenridge with a few of my friends to take part in Demo Days which is where different bike makers will set up tents and rent out mountain and road bikes for free to the visitors.  So we got to Breck early and rented mountain bikes to take up the ski slopes (no longer covered in snow).  The downhill riding on the slopes was alright... nowhere near as awesome as Fruita had been a couple weeks before.  The trails had too many switchbacks which slowed you down from barreling down the mountain at any decent speed.  It was only when we left the trail to get down to the parking lot that we encountered any true downhill.  Regardless, we had a great time and proceeded to have a late lunch in town.  While the rest of the group walked around Breckenridge, Cale and I visited the Breckenridge Brewery in order to gear up for the World Cup group match between the USA and Portugal.  For the actual game, we met back up with the group at a sports bar in town.  The game was a roller-coaster of emotions as the US saw itself go down 1-0 early in the match, only to score two unanswered to put them up by one in the second half.  Portugal then scored a heart-breaking goal on the game's final play to end the game in a tie.  A bittersweet ending to an otherwise great day.

     The next weekend I was itching for another 14er and so my roommate, his friend, and I ventured out to the mountains to conquer Grays and Torreys Peaks.  I had completed this combo before last year but this time was a bit different.  The night before, a bit of snow came through the area and left a dusting over the mountains, making them even more majestic than usual.  The weather system must not have moved all the way out of the area either because the wind whipped throughout most of the day and made me regret wearing shorts.  We were able to keep a solid pace between the three of us and before we knew it we had completed the combo in no time at all.  Here are a couple pictures from our journey...

     Fourth of July weekend was up next and the three day weekend lent itself to being a prime time for my friends to leave town.  While others were away, Cale and I were left to fend for ourselves.  After meeting up with some work friends Thursday night downtown, we headed back towards the center of the city Friday afternoon in order to catch some of the World Cup matches at an English pub called Three Lions.  We spent much of the afternoon rooting on Colombia as they took on Brazil, falling 2-1 in the end.  We had such a great time with the Colombians despite the loss that we decided to come back the following day to cheer on Costa Rica against the Netherlands.  That game ended in a 0-0 draw and therefore moved onto penalty kicks, unfortunately resulting in a Costa Rican loss.

     The subsequent weekend I decided I would try to knock out some more 14ers.  While my original goal was three for the weekend, I did not nearly end up with quite so many by the end.  All day Friday at work I was watching the weather and debating whether or not to carry through with my plan to drive out to the mountains and climb Mt Sherman that night.  When I got off work I went back to my apartment and debated a little longer than I should have, for by the time I made up my mind and made it out to the trailhead it was 9pm and the sun was pretty well gone.  I brought a flashlight though and went ahead with the hike.  About a third of the way up the mountain, I looked out in the distance and saw some dark clouds which seemed to be heading in my direction.  I initially decided to keep going; however, I kept second-guessing my decision.  Finally, after seeing multiple lightning strikes in the distant clouds I turned around to return to the car.  Early the next morning I met a buddy at the nearby Mt Massive trailhead in order to climb the second highest mountain in the state and third highest in the continental USA.  Four years earlier I climbed this mountain with one of my co-counselors at the camp I worked at and remembered it as being my favorite 14er I had yet climbed.  This time around we took the non-traditional route which, though shorter distance-wise, was much steeper and I think probably harder overall.  There seemed to be no letting up as the trail crept higher and higher with not even a level section of trail to rest on.  We reached the top in two and a half hours: a very respectable time, considering the length and difficulty.  The view from the top was magnificent and we were able to see the mountains out by Aspen, Mt Sopris, the Flat Tops, and numerous other mountains with clear skies to boot.  After the hike, we spent an hour or so in nearby Leadville,getting lunch at a pizza place in town.  I then returned to Denver exhausted and fell asleep on the couch while watching the second half of the World Cup third place game.  The next day I returned to Three Lions for the World Cup final, where Germany was victorious over the Argentines.  Despite the USA not making it past the first knockout stage, I was satisfied with the World Cup because if the USA wasn't going to win then I wanted Germany.  With the tournament over, I'm going to have to figure out how to make it through the toughest part of the sports calendar: the month or two before NFL/College Football begins.  The good thing though is that with the mountains calling me on the weekends and plenty of sports leagues and pickup games to take part in during the week, passing the time between sporting events on television can be quite easy out here.

Ramping It Up

     A little over two weeks ago I was at work when I received a message from my friend Cale informing me that some guys we know were planning on heading out to Fruita, CO to go mountain biking.  I was instantly intrigued and committed on the spot to join in the adventure.  The rest of the work week seemed to go by at a snail's pace as some of the best mountain biking in the world awaited me four hours west.  When Friday finally came, four of the group headed out to Fruita while Cale and I planned on heading out in the morning.  We were able to take advantage of our open Friday night by scoring cheap tickets to the Kendrick Lamar concert at the amphitheater right by our apartment.  The next morning I woke up at 2:45am and we were on the road by 3:30.  Four hours later we were at the trail head in Fruita and ready to embark on one of the most well known mountain bike trails in the world: Zippity Do Da.
     Zippity Do Da was a rude introduction to legitimate mountain biking: tough climbs, steep downhills, miles of terrain all beckoned.  Being from the flat midwest, I never really HAD to switch gears on a bike; it was always more of a way to change up the difficulty of my straightforward pedaling.  Here, it was a different story.  If you didn't switch gears correctly you would easily fall behind or get burned out so quickly you wouldn't know what hit you.  While this was tough to get used, the biggest obstacle for me was the fear of the intense downhill on some parts of the trail.  I can't remember being so scared before as I was atop one drop in particular...

It may not look like much, and it fact the picture leaves most of the downhill out, but when I was atop that hill it took me many seconds to overcome the jitters and go for it.  It was white-knuckle riding at its finest and my hands were firmly gripping the brakes for about the entire way down.  Somehow I didn't crash, as the intense braking I used probably made it a lot worse for me... I fishtailed quite a bit and nearly lost my footing on the pedals because of it.

     By the time we completed the ten mile or so trail, I was exhausted but two of the guys insisted on doing another run (thankfully on a different trail).  While one of us decided he was too tired to complete another circuit, the other three and I went onward to a trail called PBR.  If I was tired before, the climb on this trail nearly killed me (and not because it was a particularly steep or long climb).  While the other three charged ahead, I slowly but surely made my way up the trail... two hours of sleep the night before, four hours of driving that morning (while Cale slept in the passenger seat), not enough food (my fault), not enough water (also my fault), and the ninety degree desert heat really began to catch up with me.  I am pretty notorious for not bringing a whole lot of food or water on hikes and while I usually am able to get away with it while hiking, mountain biking was a different story.  I ran out of water by the start of the second trail and needed every ounce of effort and concentration to make it to the start of the trail's downhill section.

     But boy was it worth it! The downhill on PBR was by far the most amazing mountain biking experience I had ever had.  The trail went up and down and left and right, all at fast speeds that only slightly pushed the envelope of my comfort.  It was AMAZING.  Any thoughts of being tired were quickly flushed out of my mind as I gained speed through one turn to the next until we were awarded with one last quick climb near the end.  As I pushed myself up the last of the trail, the muscles in my thighs instantly cramped up and I literally had to wobble through what was thankfully the last of the riding that morning in order to lay down, refuel, and give my legs a well deserved stretch and massage. 

     From the trail head we drove ourselves to what was our campsite for the weekend at Colorado National Monument.  I had been here a couple times before and had even camped almost at the exact same spot a few years earlier while working at camp as where we set up shop that afternoon.  Probably one of my favorite camps sites ever, the spot overlooks the city of Fruita down in the valley below and at night you can take in the quiet expanse lit up calmly before you.  We were able to pass the heat of the day away in between rides by playing word games that one might encounter on a long car trip.  When the sun finally began to make its final downward journey of the day, we returned to the morning's trail head to get in a couple more runs.  The two experienced bikers charged ahead towards a more advanced route while the remaining three of us went after PBR once more.  Subsequently, Cale and I had a few more miles left in our legs and we took a stab at a route called Kessel Run.  The route started up the same climb as PBR but curled right to take on some furious left/right, often banked turns which tested our control skills.  While the run was a blast, nothing could touch PBR that day and we returned once more to our campsite to eat dinner and sit out on the cliff overlook to take in the night views described previously.
     The next day after cleaning up camp, four of us headed farther west to hit up a couple trails which skirted past the Colorado River (I believe they were in the Kokopelli trail system).  The trails provided some great views, though the weather was quite overcast and even handed us some intense spitting of rain.  My legs took in all they could handle on two solid trails and when we reached the parking lot again those legs of mine were happy to sit down in a car for four hours as we returned to Denver.

Here are some more pictures from the trip...

 

No Lack of Adventure

I know, once again I have failed in my efforts to update this more often, but it's not because I have had a lack of things to talk about...

     During the weekend before Memorial Day weekend I was finally able to tackle my first 14er of the year.  I was set to meet up with some friends from out of state at the trailhead of Quandary Peak at 4am in order to try to reach the summit by sunrise.  By the time we hit the trail however, it was 5am due to late arrivals and longer than expected preparation time.  The trail was covered in a thick layer of snow from start to finish and made for a much harder than expected climb.  Two members of my group were also lugging their skis up the entirety of the mountain, which did not help our progress in the slightest.  Though the hike took much longer than expected, the end result was still a fantastic view at the top and a huge sense of accomplishment at the bottom.

     Memorial Day weekend was one for the books.  Despite not originally planning on travelling back to the Midwest for quite some time, I finally talked myself into it.  The Indy 500 beckoned and I was not about to miss it and seeing my family and friends.  In order to save money on the flight out, I flew into Chicago and spent the whole day Friday exploring the city.  Though I lived within a few hours of Chicago for most of my life, I never really had the opportunity to go downtown and see a lot of what the city had to offer.  The cityscape actually blew me away and exceeded my expectations as I walked over twelve miles all over the downtown area.  I can now say that Chicago is probably one of the most impressive cities I've ever been to.  That night I hitched a ride with some friends down to Indianapolis and stayed the night at my old house before getting up the next morning and heading to the Speedway.  That Saturday was a fabulous time as I met up with friends I hadn't seen in quite some time and my brother was even able to join us.  We played a lot of volleyball and tailgated all day long as you can only do on 500 weekend.  On race day we all headed into the Speedway to watch one of the most exciting races I could remember.  I personally started off with the majority of my friends in the infield of Turn 3 for the first fifty laps or so then went with a few others to go see part of Hardwell's performance in the Snake Pit for a while.  The performance was fantastic and was really great to be a part of before deferring back to the race where I eventually met up with another group of friends in the actual stands of Turn 4.  There we watched the last thirty laps or so from above the track, where we witnessed Ryan Hunter-Reay become the first American to win since 2006.  The rest of the weekend was spent catching up with family, which was of course a great time as well.  It had been quite a few months since I had seen them so it was rewarding to be able to hang out with them, even if for a short time.
     This past weekend was quite the pleasant surprise.  Though we stayed in to kick off the weekend on Friday night, some friends of mine and I made plans to head up to Boulder for some good times.  I had originally planned on meeting a former co-worker for a hike around the Flatirons but traffic and rain got in the way.  Instead, when my co-worker arrived in Boulder he joined my other friends and me as we made our way from one brewery to the next around the area.  Over the course of the day we took tours and sampled beer at more than five different breweries.  It was a great time and we all vowed to do it again in the future in order to see many of the other breweries in the Boulder area.  The next day was a bit more lazy, as one might expect after our previous day's activities; however, I decided that it was too nice a day to waste and so I headed southwest to take on a hike I had my sights set on for quite some time.  The hike was in Pike National Forest and was a trail to the top of a fire lookout called "Devil's Head."  The hike was not too tough, especially for what I have become accustomed to, and I was up and down in quite fast.  Despite the ease, the view was fantastic at the top as I was able to get a 360 degree view of the surrounding area, including Pike's Peak to the south, the plains to the east, many snow-capped mountains to the west and even the city of Denver to the north.  Here are some of the pictures I took on my small expedition.

 

End of Winter

A couple weeks have passed since my last post and though not much has changed as far as my weekly activities go, the weather is sure starting to.  In the first weekend since my last post, Robb and I spent Sunday in Breckenridge getting a solid day of snowboarding in.  It had been months probably since our last trip to Breck and we had yet to ride the new Peak 6 so we felt the need to audible from our prior plans of visiting A Basin in favor of new ones in Breck.  The next weekend was Easter weekend and considering it was closing weekend as well for many of the Vail resorts, three of us headed out to a deserted Vail on Easter Sunday.  Though the snow wasn't the best because it was so warm, we still had a fantastic full day of riding.  It was great to get one last day under our belts before preparing to turn in our boards until next season.  With hopefully the last of the cold weather behind us, this past week was one of transition as we spent Friday night out on the town and Saturday at a local park playing basketball and throwing the frisbee.  Hopefully these posts will start to get a bit more interesting as the snow melts on the mountains and I am able to get back in my hiking boots but as of right now it's a lot of playoff basketball and hockey being watched on the weekends as I cheer for the Pacers and Avalanche to make extended runs in the playoffs.

Quick Catch-up

     So it has been about a month since I last posted and I have been telling myself I need to catch up soon or run the risk of forgetting the last four weekends.  As I can't quite remember a great deal of specifics I'll more or less do an abridged rundown of what I've done this past month.  The weekend of my last post Robb and I went out to Keystone for an epic day of snowboarding.  We woke up real early on Sunday in order to beat any and all traffic and made it to Keystone in time to be one of the first to the top of the mountain.  With only the two of us, we were able to board run after run, racking up about 30,000 vertical feet (my personal record).
      The next weekend was St Patrick's day weekend and so of course we had an eventful Saturday.  The following day, I went with a buddy to go bike shopping.  Having gone to a few shops over the course of the week, I had an idea of what I was looking for and upon stumbling on the largest bike sale in Colorado I was able to find a suitable bike for me.  It was a 29er mountain bike (2013 Raleigh Talus to be exact) and the following weekend I was able to use it for the first time.
     Before I reach my first ride, I'll detail the preceding days of the weekend.  Though Robb had just left for Italy, Cale had a friend in town and so the four of us went out on the town Friday night.  Saturday Cale, his friend, and I went for a hike near Golden.  The weather was quite terrible as you'll see in the following pictures...

     Despite the crummy Saturday weather, the next day was much warmer and there was no sight of snow.  I took advantage of this decent weather by loading my new bike onto my new car bike rack and heading just Southwest of Denver to Deer Creek Canyon where I had hiked once before.  There is a seven mile lead-up to the start of the Colorado Trail (~500 mile hike/bike trail from Denver to Durango) that runs through a pretty cool canyon.  I road this seven mile stretch out and back for a fourteen mile total journey where I saw plenty of bighorn sheep and a good sized hydroelectric damn near the end.  Though it wasn't any single track or rolling hills for mountain biking, the dirt/gravel road served as a decent introduction for me and my bike.

     

                   

         

     The next weekend was the weekend of the sweet sixteen of the NCAA tournament and a college friend of mine was in town visiting DU and CU for law school with her mom and uncle.  So I met up with them downtown to watch one of the games and catch up before meeting up with my Denver friends for a fun night.  The rest of the weekend was pretty lazy with a lot of college basketball watching.
     This past weekend we started Friday night off going out on the town with other work friends.  The next day we watched the final four games and played some poker at night before getting some sleep in preparation for a long day of snowboarding the next day.  Leaving at 6am, we once again beat traffic and were able to get on one of the first lifts up to the top of Keystone. ~28,000 vertical feet later we were ready to head home.  The rest of the Sunday consisted of resting in the hot tub and then gearing up for the season premier of Game of Thrones (a show which Robb is obsessed with and the rest of us are kind of guilty by association).  Overall, it was a jam-packed weekend which made for a good break from my accounting life, where I'm stuck with month and quarter-end close processes.
    Hopefully I'll update this more frequently but no guarantees as life tends to get in the way.

An Island to Oneself

     Being that this past weekend was not much to speak of - I did taxes a lot of the day Sunday - I will finally do what I mentioned I might a few weeks ago: review An Island to Oneself, by Tom Neale.  While it took me quite some time to read the book this most recent time around, as work and fun weekends tended to get in the way, I enjoyed it nonetheless.  As I brought up in a prior post, I had read the book once before and had been known to make the claim that it was my favorite book I had read.  While I may not be making such a claim after reading it a second time, I still believe it is worth the time to read for anyone with an adventurous side.
     The book was published back in the mid-1960s, and the story itself takes place in the late 1950s and early 1960s which was when the author voluntarily gave up his lifestyle in the "big city" of Rarotonga, Cook Islands in preference of one by himself on an uninhabited atoll in the South Pacific called Suvarov.  I found this book to be exceedingly interesting not only because of how crazy it is to think of someone actually going through with such a plan in order to live a completely self-sustaining life, but also the insight into Tom's thoughts throughout the campaign.  "Perhaps I was a little overawed by the challenge I had taken on.  I was fifty now.  And this dream of mine had been essentially a dream of youth.  Was I too old now to turn this dream into successful reality?" 
     Since reading this book the first time many years ago, one passage really stuck with me and upon reading it again this time around I made sure to take note of its exact wording.  The passage comes about when the author, a native of New Zealand, returns home after being away for a few years in the New Zealand Navy and then many more years while island hopping, taking odd jobs while seeing different parts of the South Pacific.  He was twenty-eight years old upon his return and, being that it was 1931, he had not been able to talk to his family in many years.  "Ten years is a long time, but before long I was back in the family routine as though I had been away hardly more than a month.  Yet, somehow, I remained an outsider in my own mind.  I had seen too much, done so much, existed under a succession of such utterly different circumstances, that at times I would catch myself looking at my mother sitting placidly in her favorite chair and think to myself, 'Is it really possible that for all these years while I've been seeing the world, she has sat there each evening apparently content?'"
     I'm not exactly sure why this quote struck a chord with me, but I think it has to do a lot with a desire to not live a monotonous life and to never be too content.  While most people I know can sit down and crank out a season of the newest TV sitcom or watch a hit comedy movie enough times to easily rattle off a page-long list of quotes, I have always been unbelievably inept as such a thing.  I'm not even very good at sitting still long enough to read a few chapters of a good book.  I prefer to be a bit more active, though if I'm going to take the time to sit down and watch a movie or read a book I almost always try to make sure it's one that I will come away better for having done so.
     The biggest thing I take away from the quote is that I do not want to end up being that person sitting in the same chair ten years down the road and instead would much rather be the person seeing the world and having adventures while the rest of society sits idly by.  But I digress.
     At the end of the day, I recommend reading the book.  If you can't get your hands on a copy then you can find a pdf version of it here: http://www.privateislandsonline.com/an_island_to_oneself.pdf.

Best Weekend Yet??

     Last weekend was one of the most action packed and overall fun weekends I've had since moving to the Denver area.  Over the course of the week leading up to it, I was able to successfully create a plan which included meeting up with three old friends, one of whom I had not seen in about a year.  I opened the weekend on Friday night by picking up my buddy at the airport who flew in from Atlanta and watching some winter Olympics in preparation for the next day.  At 3:45AM I got up to let in another friend that I used to work with in western Colorado a couple years prior.  He had driven in from Oklahoma with a friend I had not met before and they were able to get about an hour of sleep before we all hit the road to Vail on Saturday morning.
     We were lucky enough to not run into any bad traffic on the way to Vail by leaving at 5:30AM or so.  We hit the slopes bright and early after meeting up with another former coworker of mine who still lives out in western Colorado.  The day was full of skiing/snowboarding new runs on the mountain, including my first double black diamond (which was quite hard) and we all had a great time before heading to Glenwood Springs for the night.  Being totally exhausted from a full day of being on the mountain, we got dinner and had a few drinks in Glenwood before ultimately hitting the hay early.  The next day I awoke early to take my Atlanta buddy to the Eagle airport, where he flew out of.  Afterwards, my Oklahoma friends and I headed to Loveland, where I had not been before but had always driven past on I-70 while heading to other destinations.  Loveland far exceeded my expectations and we were able to get in another solid day on the slopes while hitting up the upper reaches of the mountain and tackling more double blacks, which I never would have imagined I would be boarding at the beginning of the season.  I won't bore you with too many details of the day but I will leave a few pictures of our great time on the slopes.  The weekend ended by getting some pizza in Denver before saying goodbye to my Oklahoma-bound buddies.