Field Trip!

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.