Arches National Park

After some incredible mountain biking at Moab (see Mike's description), Rob, John, and I hit up Arches National Park at sunrise.

Oregon Coast and Seattle

This summer I took a trip out to visit my parents on the Oregon coast and we drove up to visit my Aunt in Seattle. You're looking at a WA state ferry, the bridge across the Columbia river mouth in Astoria, a strange plane at the Tillamook air museum, and my favorite haunt, the decommissioned Fort Stevens gun batteries.

Grand Tetons and Yellowstone

It's almost impossible to summarize this part of the trip since it overwhelmed us. Here are some snapshots of the highlights of the trip, particularly seeing the Bison heard with newborn calves feeding away.

Holly Cross Wilderness

As if the Maroon Bells weren't enough, we hit up the almost equally stunning Holly Cross Wilderness for a hike around the Missouri lakes and across Fancy Pass. The 12,400 ft Fancy Pass doesn't even compare to four 12,000ft + passes in the Maroon Bells that we had to hit up in 4 days with 50lb packs.

Maroon-Bells Snowmass Wilderness

Rob, Brian, and I had perhaps one of the most scenic backpacking trips you could hope for in the mountains. It dazzled us with the immense wildflowers and soaring Maroon (literally Maroon colored) peaks. I'll let the photos speak for themselves about the majesty of this wilderness area.

Winter Park Hill Climb Race

I somehow got talked into my first mtn bike race up at Winter Park for their hill climb. It's an uphill 5mile push to the top of the ski area that covers 2200ft vertical as shown in this trail map. Having only seriously ridden trails in Colorado since last August, I was a bit nervous about coming in last place. To ease the fear, I followed some good pre-race advice by friend Mike who posted the whole account of the race on his blog. It turns out I didn't do bad at all in my race class and wasn't last by far. It was inspirational to even compete, but the best feeling was climbing up trail to the sound of clinking cow bells and Mike yelling at my ass to pass at least 3 more riders before hitting the finish line.

State Forest State Park, Colorado

A plethora of moose and snow drifts greeted us at State Forest State Park this Memorial Day weekend. After crossing a bog in search of a geocache, the moose shown in the posted photo decided to mad dog us when we got a little too close on the trail. The weather was chilly, but still great for activities such as spring snowshoeing and 4wd trail riding. All were splendid and I'm looking forward to the hiking season this summer to check out similar parks at higher elevations. Also, I can't wait until Monarch pass opens for mountain biking when the snow has cleared. The photo of the ammo box was the cache at the posted latitude and longitude coordinates we went searching for.

Breckenridge Ski Trip

The ski trip with the house in Breckenridge was absolutely incredible. I'll let the photos do the talking in this post since Kyle took some awesome shots of the group skiing on Tuesday. The shots posted here were taken by Kyle sometime between Saturday and Tuesday during the trip and can be viewed on his photos site. The first shows the insane 50mph winds that shut down the mountain all Saturday and the other shot shows the newly engaged couple Matt and Meri on top of the mountain.

Weekend Snow Report

This past weekend was pretty miserable except for the grand day I had skiing with Mike as shown in the photos. The miserable part was from the flu virus I contracted and the fever I've finally shaken after 2 days of misery (This may account for some delirium in this dispatch from Denver). There were other things that made the weekend pretty miserable but I'll likely only divulge after many libations, and besides it's not the point of this blog, so back to the skiing! Skiing to me is like sex and the day on the mountain in some new bowls I never knew existed at Breckenridge was orgasmic. We found ourselves hiking staircases of ice and pushing across scree fields at the top of the mountain in gale force winds, but once we dropped in it was amazing. To get a great account of the ski day in words I can only wish to muster, visit Mike's blog and read his account on "Yup, We Live in Colorado". On days like Saturday on top of Peak 7 and Peak 8 in Breckenridge, I'm glad I've made the move to a mountain state.

Good stuff in the ipod.

A great thing about being in a new town with new company is that you get exposed to new music which in turn inspires you to find albums on your own. Here's what's been playing in my ipod the last couple weeks:
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain - Hip hop meets David Bowie rock melodies.
The Weakerthans - Reconstruction Site - Think a Canadian Weezer with more provocative lyrics.
Billy Bragg and Wilco - Mermaid Avenue - Woodie Guthrie's massive lyric collection without music gets a treatment from Billy Bragg and Wilco.
Jeff Buckley - Grace - How did I not ever hear this album before? Simply amazing ethereal rock.