August 26th, 2009
The Sunday after the dull sick Saturday, I was feeling far better, so I jumped on the chance to go climbing with Sam (the one with dreadlocks and who I attempted to climb spearhead with) and his friend from trail crew-Dave. We had an early start-around 5:00, because we wanted to have a full day of climbing, but we had about an hour-1.5 hour drive. We were off to Boulder Canyon! My second time there this summer, all in the same weekend.
This time, I went to this wall called Sherwood Forest. I didn’t battle any sheriffs or fake Kings, but I did flash a 5.11d (on top rope though) and I did complete (not cleanly, but still got all the moves, after many tries on some parts) my first 5.12 (b). I really need to start leading harder-my goal for the end of the summer-to lead a lot more trad routes and to lead some 5.11-to break through my mind barriers. Oh and then we went to Bell Buttress and did this neat 5.9+ trad route. We also met this famous rockclimber there-I’m afraid I’ve already forgotten his name, but what’s new? I never paid attention too much to famous, popular rock climbers.
The next day I went to work with a little, belated surprise for Christina and the rest of the crew. Late Sunday night, I made a dark chocolate cake from scratch (ok, I’ll confess, I cheated on the frosting. But I did decorate it myself in true backpacker’s style-using cashews, almonds, dried papaya, banana chips and craisens to create flower and other designs). The cake was for Christina’s birthday and an apology (long story short, the week before I accidentally set my watch time 15 min ahead instead of my alarm-so when I awoke in the morning, I thought I was running late, and when I went to pick up Christina, I thought I was 10 min late and she had given up on me and left-but no, she chased after me, yelling and screaming and I somehow didn't see her as I drove away-didn’t know the truth until I got to the cache..oops). The cake turned out to be delicious and everyone loved it. Unfortunately, the day of climbing and late night baking probably brought a bit of the fever back, for I was feeling a bit sluggish and off in the morning. But I still had a good time helping to tear apart an outhouse and burn the unpainted pieces.
That evening, Scott arrived soon after I got back from work. We went out to dinner at the Italian Restaurant Sweet Basilicas. Then we packed for our backpacking trip the next day for m work.
Tuesday, we hiked with Christina and Mister from Cow Creek, to a campsite where we replaced a rather sketchy privy platform. After replacing it with Scott’s help, we headed up to Lawn lake. The next day, there wasn’t really much to do, so Scott and I headed up to the Saddle and Crystal Lake, before we all packed up and headed out via the Long Lake trail.
After work, Scott and I headed to Loveland for food shopping and then to Fort Collins for dinner. We ate at this Middle Eastern Restaurant (Lulu’s?). I decided to be adventurous and tried these sushi rolls-made of eel and avocado. Actually, it was surprisingly delicious. And I tried this dish called Koko chicken and Thai iced tea, both were fantastic (I really need to start experimenting with making Asian dishes-they are so good).
The next day, since Scott couldn’t join the crew on a traversing hiking for orienting ourselves to the park, we left a day early for our weekend road trip. First we headed to Boulder-where I picked up my climbing shoes, and we checked out El Dorado Canyon for a couple of hours-a famed climbing area-though we just walked around. After, we head to the Lund’s house on Sugarloaf Mountain. There we spent lunch and a few hours afterwards. We spent some time talking with Sally and Walt and took a nice leisurely walk up to the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain.
Unfortunately, we were not able to stay very long, for rush hour was not a time we wanted to get stuck in Denver. So mid afternoon, we made our farewells and headed to CO Springs. When we arrived, we went out to dinner with Scott’s Grandmother. Kind of a funny story actually. She asked us where we wanted to go, saying she had this one place in mind, wasn’t sure if we wanted trout (Scott had informed me she was obsessed with this restaurant-more particularly, their trout dish). We asked what was around, she mentioned again the trout restaurant, then off handedly mentioned a few other places. She asked us what kind of food we were looking for. Scott said how we were aiming for local restaurants. “That’s it,” she exclaimed in all seriousness, “We’ll got to the Mason Jar, there’s a classic local place.” This of course turns out to be that famed trout restaurant (someone’s mind wasn’t already set for where we were going). It turned out to be a decent place though.
After dinner, we headed to the Garden of the Gods. We walked around there for a little while. The rock was oh so tempting to climb, though sadly you need a permit unless you want to pay a $500 fine. The rock was pretty cool to see though in the sunset.
The next morning (Friday), we stopped briefly at the Garden of the God’s visitor center, and then headed to Breckenridge. When we arrived, we walked around exploring while trying to find a campsite we could camp at. Still not sure if we had a place to sleep (I figured, worse comes to worse, we could sleep in the car) we went to dinner at this really nice restaurant-with both of us of course a bit dressed down with the place (shorts and t-shirts-not too bad right?). I had this delicious curry salmon and Scott and I split two succulent desserts-this gooseberry bread pudding? And dark chocolate cake with vanilla milkshake.
Next, we drove around for about an hour, and finally, just after dark, we found a campsite that was actually open and not full, and quickly set up the tent before we checked on the internet for some exciting activities to do the next day before heading home.
The next morning we went out to breakfast (I of course forgot to bring the stove and pots, so it would have been rather unpleasant to eat uncooked cream of wheat), checked out the biggest snow blower I have ever seen (it was actually a train), stopped by Scott’s family’s friend house, and then headed to Grays and Torreys to knock off two 14,000 footers. Then we began the long drive back, going through Nederland and the Peak to Peak Highway.
Sunday, before Scott left, we went for a short bike ride up Trail Ridge Road and then stopped by the Stanley hotel (supposedly one of the most haunted places in the US and in the Stephen King Movie, the Shining).
Monday to Wednesday this we, Kevin, Luke and I hiked over Stormy peaks Pass (one of the most beautiful hikes in the park), did some tent pad work, and BICAMS.
Friday, August 28, 2009
What is this sickness thing?
August 15, 2009
I hate being sick. I have just come down with a fever late last night, and it’s still lingering now in the morning. So instead of climbing today as planned, I’ll actually be productive with my blogs, resume, laundry, and many other things on my “To Do” list.
Last Saturday, after working on my resume, shopping, and other chores, I did some baking and headed to the annual chili cook off at Christina’s house. I was lame and didn’t make any chili for I’m not much of a cook (and I didn’t want to have to buy all the ingredients), but I did make some cornbread, which was of course needed and brownies which were a hit. It was a fun time-the chili was delicious and “prizes” given for the Hottest, the most creative, the most colorful, the best vegetarian, and the best Carnivore. Even Jim Dougan showed up and a group of us had an interesting conversation on our different views of death (can’t remember how we got on to the conversation and it wasn’t as depressing a discussion as you would think).I then got a ride back from someone who was crashing on our coach that night-Chris, who works in Denver with a wildlife resource management program for the national parks. We hung out the next morning, and he was a huge help with helping me to remake my federal job application, which was completely different from the application I learned to make in college. In the afternoon, I did some climbing with Christina and her boyfriend Jim at Combat rock. I am ashamed to say I bailed on a 5.9+-mainly because the fall would not have been a pretty one and I don’t think I’ve been leading enough lately to have the mental confidence to make the moves.
Monday to Thursday, the whole wilderness crew was out together in the backcountry all four days on Timber Creek Trail. There wasn’t much tent pad work to actually do there for the week, but there was nothing for us to do if we went back a day early since Tara was probably still out. So Wednesday, we devoted a whole day to orienting ourselves to the park by hiking up Ida and this other smaller mountain next to it (so basically we had the whole day to relax and hike). That same night was the meteor shower, and I hiked up to the top of Jackstraw Mountain to watch it for an hour. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to stay up till 2 in the morning for the peak of the shower-it was a little chilly on the mountain top, but I did see a number of gorgeous meteors streak across the dark night sky before I headed down to my warm tent.
Thursday night, in celebration of Christina’s birthday (which is the 13th), the crew hung out for a couple of hours at the Rock Inn. There I met the new climbing ranger in charge of Longs peaks rescues (Jim Detterline’s old job)-Sam. He’s a rather funny guy with a few interesting stories in his background that Tara told us about. I made plans with him to go to Boulder the next day for some shopping and climbing
Friday ended up not being as productive a day as I was hoping. We were supposed to go climbing in the morning and then shopping in the afternoon where I’d have plenty of time to hang out a café to get all the work I need done on the internet and make some phone calls. The weather in the morning ended up being bad though, so Same grabbed a breakfast and got his car registered which ended up taking him an hour and then finally we headed down to Boulder. At least down there I got my food shopping done, finally got a new pair of hiking pants for cheap and dropped my climbing shoes off to be expensively resoled (it probably would have cost just a little more for a brand new pair of new shoes through pro-deal, but then, I didn’t have time to wait for a brand new pair of shoes to be mailed before I break through my “new” pair of climbing shoes- besides, first pair of climbing shoes, you grow sort of attached to them and their broken in already-which saves me from a slow, painful process).
By the time we were done shopping, the weather had cleared for some climbing and we went to do some climbing in Boulder canyon-got 3 pitches in. I could have lead some trad then, but I was feeling suddenly very tired, so we just headed out after the 3rd pitch. On our drive back to Estes, I began to notice I was feeling really off, and within a couple of hours, the fever hit.
I hate being sick. I have just come down with a fever late last night, and it’s still lingering now in the morning. So instead of climbing today as planned, I’ll actually be productive with my blogs, resume, laundry, and many other things on my “To Do” list.
Last Saturday, after working on my resume, shopping, and other chores, I did some baking and headed to the annual chili cook off at Christina’s house. I was lame and didn’t make any chili for I’m not much of a cook (and I didn’t want to have to buy all the ingredients), but I did make some cornbread, which was of course needed and brownies which were a hit. It was a fun time-the chili was delicious and “prizes” given for the Hottest, the most creative, the most colorful, the best vegetarian, and the best Carnivore. Even Jim Dougan showed up and a group of us had an interesting conversation on our different views of death (can’t remember how we got on to the conversation and it wasn’t as depressing a discussion as you would think).I then got a ride back from someone who was crashing on our coach that night-Chris, who works in Denver with a wildlife resource management program for the national parks. We hung out the next morning, and he was a huge help with helping me to remake my federal job application, which was completely different from the application I learned to make in college. In the afternoon, I did some climbing with Christina and her boyfriend Jim at Combat rock. I am ashamed to say I bailed on a 5.9+-mainly because the fall would not have been a pretty one and I don’t think I’ve been leading enough lately to have the mental confidence to make the moves.
Monday to Thursday, the whole wilderness crew was out together in the backcountry all four days on Timber Creek Trail. There wasn’t much tent pad work to actually do there for the week, but there was nothing for us to do if we went back a day early since Tara was probably still out. So Wednesday, we devoted a whole day to orienting ourselves to the park by hiking up Ida and this other smaller mountain next to it (so basically we had the whole day to relax and hike). That same night was the meteor shower, and I hiked up to the top of Jackstraw Mountain to watch it for an hour. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to stay up till 2 in the morning for the peak of the shower-it was a little chilly on the mountain top, but I did see a number of gorgeous meteors streak across the dark night sky before I headed down to my warm tent.
Thursday night, in celebration of Christina’s birthday (which is the 13th), the crew hung out for a couple of hours at the Rock Inn. There I met the new climbing ranger in charge of Longs peaks rescues (Jim Detterline’s old job)-Sam. He’s a rather funny guy with a few interesting stories in his background that Tara told us about. I made plans with him to go to Boulder the next day for some shopping and climbing
Friday ended up not being as productive a day as I was hoping. We were supposed to go climbing in the morning and then shopping in the afternoon where I’d have plenty of time to hang out a café to get all the work I need done on the internet and make some phone calls. The weather in the morning ended up being bad though, so Same grabbed a breakfast and got his car registered which ended up taking him an hour and then finally we headed down to Boulder. At least down there I got my food shopping done, finally got a new pair of hiking pants for cheap and dropped my climbing shoes off to be expensively resoled (it probably would have cost just a little more for a brand new pair of new shoes through pro-deal, but then, I didn’t have time to wait for a brand new pair of shoes to be mailed before I break through my “new” pair of climbing shoes- besides, first pair of climbing shoes, you grow sort of attached to them and their broken in already-which saves me from a slow, painful process).
By the time we were done shopping, the weather had cleared for some climbing and we went to do some climbing in Boulder canyon-got 3 pitches in. I could have lead some trad then, but I was feeling suddenly very tired, so we just headed out after the 3rd pitch. On our drive back to Estes, I began to notice I was feeling really off, and within a couple of hours, the fever hit.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Time is flying by, I’m running out of time to put daydreams into reality, the pressures of life are starting to kick in. But the mountains still stand
August 7, 2009
My weeks are passing by so quickly! I can’t believe my internship is more than half over already! It’s rather alarming, because now I don’t have any jobs/internships lined up for the winter.
Well, whether I realize and accept this reality or not, I do need to accept the fact that as of now, I have no definite plans for the winter, and I need to get some things set in stone fast: a job, travel plans, an internship, or a study abroad. I just know that sitting around in damp, cold CT is not on the list. This is consuming much of my free time on the weekends now when I’m not off hanging from some cliff ledge, hiking, or some other adventure.
Well anyways, speaking of rather wet weather in CT, Rocky has had some bizarre weather as of late too. Apparently it’s sort of like their fall weather. In the past 2 weeks, 2 or 3 of the nights I stayed in the backcountry for work, we got hit by hale storms and magnificent, rather windy thunderstorm (some of the most amazing lightning I have ever seen-little more thrilling when you’re staying in a small tent). Hale storms one day, 90 degree weather in Estes the next.
Last week, work was not too exciting except for the fact that Tuesday, when driving to “work” up to the Corral trailhead to head to Mirror Lake for an overnight to do BICAMs and tent pad work, we saw a whole (now mom you are paying attention now right? Read carefully) herd of bull moose (about 8 or so probably). That’s right, the 8 foot high, 12000 lb body with full racks. Oh and then the next day, on our drive out, (keep reading mom) we saw a female moose, with her little calf. It’s times like these I notice that my camera can’t take pictures that really capture the moments. I tried my best though, and you can see the result in photo bucket.
Last weekend was basically spent working on job resumes, running, trying to find climbing partners (suddenly, I seemed to have a shortage of them), visiting the county fair with Jim, and then Kelly and Rohan, research and some pleasure reading. Oh! And I did get to go climbing for the first time at Lumpy Ridge with Brian H. He’s a climbing ranger for the park. We climbed this one cool 5.9 crack called Conad’s Gonads (don’t you just love how climbers name routes?). Then this alright 5.9 crack and a burly 5.11c crack/dihedral. It was pretty fun. Then we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner with Andy (the climbing ranger from the last SAR) and his wife, Rebbecca. Afterward, we enjoyed some rock music from a local band at the Rock Inn.
This week at work was a bit interesting. It was our first week without Jim or Terra. Both were on leave for various reasons. So basically everything was left to us to get done. So on the list for Monday was for Ryan and I to replace a privy base for a campsite in Yipslon’s drainage. We hiked the privy base in 4.5 miles with Mister, only to find that the privy base there was perfectly fine (maybe some touchup paint, but no more). So we ate lunch at Yipslon Lake and then hiked out with the new privy base still with us. Tuesday to Thursday we were on the North Fork Trail that leads from Glen haven to Lost Lake. Tuesday was just a six-mile hike in with both llamas and getting a privy base and BICAM done. The next day however, was an unexpected 20 mile day. The llamas, which were kept in the pen next to the patrol cabin we were staying in, escaped sometime in the night. We chased them all the way down to the trailhead and part way down the road. Luckily, the trail crew was coming in that day, and they helped us capture the llamas. Then we hiked all the way back to the cabin and then to Lost lake to actually get some real work done before we headed back to the patrol cabin for dinner and bed. The next day was a bit more leisurely-everyone burned from the wild llama chase the day before. Basically just pack up, clean up and hike out with a couple of quick jobs to do when we got back to the cache.
That evening, after dinner, I went bouldering with a climbing friend Sam who works for the Fire Management department. We made plans for our adventure the next day-hiking in (about 6 miles) to Spearhead, climbing this four pitch 5.10 route called Syke Sickle, and then hiking out. We met at three in the morning. We got to the trailhead, and quickly started our hike. We flew thru the first intersection, making good time. But then we both started to notice-something was wrong. Neither of us recognized the trail and we had both been up to spearhead before. We soon began to backtrack. We went back about a mile to the first intersection, where we discovered, we both had miss read the sign and took a wrong turn (hey, lets see how awake and attentive you are at 4:00 in the morning when you went bed at 11. And hiking be headlamp rather than daylight makes things feel quite different).
So we debated briefly at the intersection and decided to go with a different plan we had discussed last night-a hard day of climbing at Lumpy, on its fun, but oh so painful cracks. So we went back to Sam’s house, grabbed the gear we needed for cragging, another cup of coffee each, and contemplated stopping at the famed Donut Haus before driving to the ridge. We climbed this on four pitch route on the Book. It’s was pretty cool, definitely had some challenges, especially with the high winds. Then we did some laps on these two single pitch crags and went to little twin owls where I burned out quite embarrassingly on a 5.9 (I’m afraid I already need to resole my new climbing shoes, though I can’t blame my failure of the pitch all on them, unfortunately). Then we finished our very long day by enjoying some pizza with Garrett at his house.
My weeks are passing by so quickly! I can’t believe my internship is more than half over already! It’s rather alarming, because now I don’t have any jobs/internships lined up for the winter.
Well, whether I realize and accept this reality or not, I do need to accept the fact that as of now, I have no definite plans for the winter, and I need to get some things set in stone fast: a job, travel plans, an internship, or a study abroad. I just know that sitting around in damp, cold CT is not on the list. This is consuming much of my free time on the weekends now when I’m not off hanging from some cliff ledge, hiking, or some other adventure.
Well anyways, speaking of rather wet weather in CT, Rocky has had some bizarre weather as of late too. Apparently it’s sort of like their fall weather. In the past 2 weeks, 2 or 3 of the nights I stayed in the backcountry for work, we got hit by hale storms and magnificent, rather windy thunderstorm (some of the most amazing lightning I have ever seen-little more thrilling when you’re staying in a small tent). Hale storms one day, 90 degree weather in Estes the next.
Last week, work was not too exciting except for the fact that Tuesday, when driving to “work” up to the Corral trailhead to head to Mirror Lake for an overnight to do BICAMs and tent pad work, we saw a whole (now mom you are paying attention now right? Read carefully) herd of bull moose (about 8 or so probably). That’s right, the 8 foot high, 12000 lb body with full racks. Oh and then the next day, on our drive out, (keep reading mom) we saw a female moose, with her little calf. It’s times like these I notice that my camera can’t take pictures that really capture the moments. I tried my best though, and you can see the result in photo bucket.
Last weekend was basically spent working on job resumes, running, trying to find climbing partners (suddenly, I seemed to have a shortage of them), visiting the county fair with Jim, and then Kelly and Rohan, research and some pleasure reading. Oh! And I did get to go climbing for the first time at Lumpy Ridge with Brian H. He’s a climbing ranger for the park. We climbed this one cool 5.9 crack called Conad’s Gonads (don’t you just love how climbers name routes?). Then this alright 5.9 crack and a burly 5.11c crack/dihedral. It was pretty fun. Then we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner with Andy (the climbing ranger from the last SAR) and his wife, Rebbecca. Afterward, we enjoyed some rock music from a local band at the Rock Inn.
This week at work was a bit interesting. It was our first week without Jim or Terra. Both were on leave for various reasons. So basically everything was left to us to get done. So on the list for Monday was for Ryan and I to replace a privy base for a campsite in Yipslon’s drainage. We hiked the privy base in 4.5 miles with Mister, only to find that the privy base there was perfectly fine (maybe some touchup paint, but no more). So we ate lunch at Yipslon Lake and then hiked out with the new privy base still with us. Tuesday to Thursday we were on the North Fork Trail that leads from Glen haven to Lost Lake. Tuesday was just a six-mile hike in with both llamas and getting a privy base and BICAM done. The next day however, was an unexpected 20 mile day. The llamas, which were kept in the pen next to the patrol cabin we were staying in, escaped sometime in the night. We chased them all the way down to the trailhead and part way down the road. Luckily, the trail crew was coming in that day, and they helped us capture the llamas. Then we hiked all the way back to the cabin and then to Lost lake to actually get some real work done before we headed back to the patrol cabin for dinner and bed. The next day was a bit more leisurely-everyone burned from the wild llama chase the day before. Basically just pack up, clean up and hike out with a couple of quick jobs to do when we got back to the cache.
That evening, after dinner, I went bouldering with a climbing friend Sam who works for the Fire Management department. We made plans for our adventure the next day-hiking in (about 6 miles) to Spearhead, climbing this four pitch 5.10 route called Syke Sickle, and then hiking out. We met at three in the morning. We got to the trailhead, and quickly started our hike. We flew thru the first intersection, making good time. But then we both started to notice-something was wrong. Neither of us recognized the trail and we had both been up to spearhead before. We soon began to backtrack. We went back about a mile to the first intersection, where we discovered, we both had miss read the sign and took a wrong turn (hey, lets see how awake and attentive you are at 4:00 in the morning when you went bed at 11. And hiking be headlamp rather than daylight makes things feel quite different).
So we debated briefly at the intersection and decided to go with a different plan we had discussed last night-a hard day of climbing at Lumpy, on its fun, but oh so painful cracks. So we went back to Sam’s house, grabbed the gear we needed for cragging, another cup of coffee each, and contemplated stopping at the famed Donut Haus before driving to the ridge. We climbed this on four pitch route on the Book. It’s was pretty cool, definitely had some challenges, especially with the high winds. Then we did some laps on these two single pitch crags and went to little twin owls where I burned out quite embarrassingly on a 5.9 (I’m afraid I already need to resole my new climbing shoes, though I can’t blame my failure of the pitch all on them, unfortunately). Then we finished our very long day by enjoying some pizza with Garrett at his house.
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