Hurricane Niwot

Dan and I had an adventure today. The weather forecast was gorgeous so we headed into the mountains. Dan plotted out a very cool loop between Ward and Nederland. We parked at the Sourdough trailhead near the CU Research Center. We were the only car in the lot at 9:30 -- a great sign! We snowshoed on the trail for about an hour and a half, then followed a valley towards the summit. About two hours later we finally obtained the summit of Niwot Mountain. It was very cool up there because the clouds kept blowing in different directions so every two minutes the view was different.

To pick up the trail again, we needed to traverse the ridge for over a mile. On a warm summer day, this would have been a very simple feat. Today, however, it was a bit more difficult. The wind was blowing constantly at about 20mph. There were sustained gusts up to 50 or 60 mph. This kind of headwind made things very difficult. Finally, we began our descent into the trees because we couldn't find the trail on the saddle. After 20 minutes heading due south, we finally intersected the trail. We followed this road for another hour or two, and then walked along the road to the car. Eight hours and 11.25 miles later we made it back! In this time, we only saw three other people--and that was only the last hour of the trip. A great (long) day.

TROWEL : CONCRETE :: snowboard : ____

Eldora needs more snow. Some slopes were scraped so bare it was like skiing on smooth concrete. The challenge became finding runs with enough cover. I had a good time staying off to the sides and skiing through the trees. Laurel had less luck. One benefit of such conditions: I had an opportunity to learn how to self-arrest with a ski-pole.

After skiing we went to Ann and Sean's for a delicious dinner.

Biking to the teahouse

Laurel, Donna, and I biked down the Boulder Creek path to Eben G. Fine park, then back to the teahouse for brunch. We saw prairie dogs on the way.


View Teahouse bikeride in a larger map

Snowshoeing with Donna

Today we went up to Brainard Lake. It was Donna's first time on snow shoes and I think she had some fun. We snowshoed up to the CMC Cabin and then back to the car. It was a beautiful, sunny winter day and boy, did the hot chocolate at the cabin taste good!

Powder day at Winter Park and Mary Jane

We skied with Donna and JJ again, this time at Winter Park. After doing a somewhat icy run on the Winter Park mountain, we decided to aim for the Parsenn's Bowl. We had to take a few chair lifts to get over there, but it was worth it -- there was deep fresh powder above treeline that was amazing to ski through. Pretty much everywhere we skied the rest of the day (in the bowl and on the Mary Jane mountain) had better cover than that first run.

JJ and I spent a lot of time in the trees. The powder there was up to our knees in places and when we fell the snow seemed to swallow us whole.

After another great day skiing we headed back to Boulder. Dinner at the Sink then dessert at Glacier Ice Cream.

First Flatiron snow hike

We hiked to the top of the First Flatiron with Donna and JJ. The trail was predominantly packed snow but a few spots were icier. This was a tough hike given the conditions and they did great! It was snowing by the time we summited so there was no view of the Indian Peaks.

Alligator does not taste like chicken

We have had alligator meat sitting in the freezer since the last time Adam visited. I decided it was time to cook it. Since everyone says alligator tastes like chicken, I thought maybe a BBQ "pulled gator" recipe would be good.

I think gator tastes more like bland chewy canned tuna. It made a weird BBQ dish. Especially weird putting it in a taco (I made it the same night Laurel made tacos). Maybe next time it would be better with some mayo as a "gator salad sandwich".

Skiing!

Donna and JJ came out to visit and we went skiing. They flew in very late Tuesday night and on Wednesday we started heading to the other side of the state. On the way to Glenwood Springs we went to Beau Jo's in Idaho Springs for lunch. Yum! We got to walk around downtown in Glenwood and stopped at Doc Holiday's for dinner.

On Thursday we drove to Snowmass and skied all day. It was chilly (high was 20) but we still had a lot of fun. We had dinner just off the slopes and then called it an early New Year's Eve so we could ski again bright and early.

Our early evening paid off because we practically had the slopes to ourselves Friday morning. It was warmer and the skies were a beautiful Colorado blue. We took a lift to the very top of the ski resort boundaries and Dan and I actually hiked to the top of the ski mountain. There were gorgeous views and I wanted to keep going... I think I could have convinced Dan to join me up an enticing ridge had we not been in ski boots! The rest of the day was great and then we headed back to Boulder.

Our pictures and JJ's pictures.