Winter triathlon day

It was soooo nice today! This morning we biked to the gym and climbed for an hour and a half. When we left the gym, it was so warm we didn't need hat or gloves. The roads and bike paths are still kinda a mess, but they're melting. We meandered over to Sanitas. It was t-shirt weather in the sun! I ran a lap on the Dakota Ridge trail and SVT and Laurel did some hiking, then we biked home for lunch.

Chautauqua Skiing

The skiing was awesome at Chautauqua this morning. I skied Baseline to Bluebell-Baird to Mesa as far as Skunk Canyon, and then back on Kohler Mesa and Enchanted Mesa. Beautiful!

Christmas Snowstorm

We got over 16 inches of snow overnight. When I got up this morning, I put on my cross-country skis and skied the Cottonwood Trail. It was a lot of work to break trail for 2 miles. The way back was a lot easier!

Then, I went snowshoeing with Tanya and her mother who was visiting from Pennsylvania. We hiked some of the Mesa Trail and then looped back around to Kohler Mesa and Enchanted Mesa. It was absolutely gorgeous!

Football!

We went to the Pats game today. It was awesome! The sun was out and it was very, very warm. The high was supposed to be in the mid-fifties, but in the sunshine it felt more like high 70s. We tailgated in the parking lot of the Aquarium and Children's Museum with some other Pats fans. Then we walked to the stadium and found our seats in the sunshine. Tebow and the Broncos scored two touchdowns in their first two drives, but the Patriots responded with scores of their own and then recovered two Broncos fumbles. Though the Broncos tried to come back in the second half with some sacks of Brady, they weren't able to do so. We won 41-23! It was a great day and great fun.

Twin Sisters and Elk

Saturday morning Ashlee, Adam and I drove up to the Park. Unfortunately, Dan had to stay at home to do homework, so he wasn't able to join us. The hike up to Twin Sisters was beautiful in the snow. It wasn't too cold, especially when we were in the sun.

When we summitted, there was no wind at all. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, so we could see mountains for miles around.

When we got down, there was still some daylight left so we went to Moraine Park to see if there were elk. Boy, did we luck out! There were hundreds of elk grazing. It was really cool to watch them all. On our return home we ate elk for dinner, well, I had a bite but everyone else seemed to like it a lot.

Winter Park

On the way to Winter Park we stopped and saw the buffalo eat breakfast. It was very cool seeing them run to the hay. It was another beautiful, sunny day that was just perfect for skiing. We skied some great runs and even got on to the Mary Jane side of the mountain. As we headed home, we stopped at Beau Jo's for some delicious pizza.

Sanitas

On Thursday Adam and Ashlee flew into Denver. That afternoon we hiked Mount Sanitas. It was sunny and warm when we started, but when the sun began set it got really chilly. After we warmed up, we headed to Boulder Beer for some bison burgers and brews.

Run! Climb! Snowshoe!

Laurel and I got up early today to try to catch a glimpse of the lunar eclipse, but by the time we were up and running the moon had set. Oh well, we had a nice run and got to see the sun come up.

After our run we headed to the climbing gym. Climbed a bunch of overhanging 5.9s and a 5.10a. We've just started climbing again this week, after a few months off, so this was a pretty good start!

After that we picked up Donna and headed to Wild Basin for some snowshoeing. We were able to drive down to the winter closure gate and from there hiked up to Calypso Cascades. It was sunny, but we were in the shadows of the trees most of the way. A bit cold but not windy. It took us just over 2 hours to get to the cascades, which unfortunately were completely covered in snow. Round trip for the day was 4 hours, 6.8 miles, and nearly 800' gain.

Skiing, Climbing and Green Mountain

Saturday it snowed a lot, so I skied out the garage onto the Cottonwood Trail. It was beautiful. Dan ran the trail in the snow. That afternoon we decided to go climbing and get a winter membership to the gym. Climbing was a lot of fun, but hard work! It's been way too long since we've done any difficult routes.

Sunday we hiked up Green Mountain in all the new snow. The trails were broken and mostly beaten down so we didn't need snowshoes. My new Asolo boots were awesome and kept my feet toasty warm. Just past the summit of Green we ran into Fred Ecks on his Sunday Church Run. It's always fun to run into people we know out on the trail! It's too bad Dan forgot the camera, because it was unbelievably beautiful with all the new snow.