Grand Junction

Laurel had a two-day conference in Grand Junction so I tagged along and worked from the hotel during the days. It was a snowy drive out on the 28th but we made it. So nice to be back at Colorado National Monument -- definitely one of my favorite places.

I worked from the hotel room on Wednesday while Laurel was at her conference. In the afternoon we hiked part of the Liberty Cap trail at Colorado National Monument. We ran out of daylight to make it to the top, but still got to see some amazing landscapes. Hiked 3.5 miles in about an hour and a half.

Thursday morning we got up early for some trail running. We ran the Ute Canyon trail (also at Colorado Nat'l Monument). There was a bit of snow on the trail and more coming down. We made it to our turnaround point from last year when we hiked Ute Canyon from the other side. Ran 6 miles in about an hour and a half.

After finishing our work Thursday we headed back out to the Monument. We hiked a ways up Gold Star Canyon until it got too slippery to continue -- a bit more than 2 miles round trip, in about an hour. The trail gained over 500' in the first half mile!

Friday we both had off. We started by hiking Monument Canyon and looping around through Wedding Canyon. It was a beautiful morning -- about an inch of snow on the trail and some sunshine poking through the clouds.

Our turnaround point was a large monolith:

Following the Wedding Cyn trail on the way back was a challenge! It hadn't seen any foot traffic in a while and was covered in snow. 4.7 miles in 3h20m.

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Friday afternoon we drove to Fruita and checked out some mountain bike trails at the Book cliffs. We were just hiking, but it looks like an awesome place to bike! We hiked about 4 miles in just under 2 hours.

On the way home on Saturday we stopped at Copper for a day of skiing. It was windy on the open slopes, surface was mostly packed powder, but we found some fresh powder in the trees and skied some bumps too.

February stuff

Wow we are behind on the blog! We're still climbing in the gym three days a week, sometimes with our friend Tim. I ran about 40-50 miles this month, not too bad for Winter.

On the 4th we snowshoed from Chautauqua up and over the First Flatiron to the Saddle Rock trail, then back to Chautauqua.

On the 11th we skied at Copper with our neighbor Rachel -- fun day!

January stuff

Haven't posted much lately... we have been climbing a lot at the gym. Lots of 5.10's and sometimes we can struggle up a 5.11a or 5.11b. Some biking here and there when the weather is nice. Some running, whether or not the weather is nice.

Laurel got out to Brainard Lake a couple times to cross country ski.

Jan 14th -- we went on an hour+ long bike ride around town, including a bunch of tough hills. Something like 17-20 miles. It was almost warm enough that we could have climbed outside!

Jan 15th -- we hiked around Mt. Galbraith park (and summited the mountain itself). Just a short 4.5 mile hike down by Golden.

Jan 21st and 22nd -- Donna and JJ invited us to stay at their awesome SkiHaus for the weekend. We had 2 great days skiing Winter Park and Mary Jane. There was 5" of fresh snow overnight Saturday, so we had even moar powder to ski on Sunday.

Laurel's down in Colorado Springs for a few days this week at a music teachers' conference.

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.

Thanksgiving Vacation Week

On Monday Dan ran up around the Boulder Reservoir and I swam at the pool.

On Tuesday we rode our bikes to Flagstaff and ran up the mountain.

On Wednesday I rode my bike to Boulder Valley Ranch and ran the Lefthand trail. Donna cooked a yummy Thanksgiving dinner and then we drove up to Winter Park to stay at Donna and JJ's skihaus.

On Thursday we skied at Winter Park. There were a handful of runs open that were a lot of fun.

On Friday all four of us hiked up at the Roaring Fork Trail near Lake Granby. It was cool to hike on the "other" side of the Divide. There wasn't enough snow to warrant snowshoes, but it was very pretty. Dan and I drove home Friday night.

The roaring fork

Lake Granby

Niwot Ridge Ski

I drove up to the CU Research Center to try my first cross-country skiing of the year. The Niwot Ridge Road had enough snow down low for me to ski right from the parking lot.

As I climbed higher and higher up the trail, the snow got deeper and deeper. I didn't see anyone or anything until a ptarmigan caught my eye above the tree line.

I skied down a nice, deep bowl just south of the trail and then retraced my tracks down to the car. On the way down, I did see a few other skiers who thanked me for breaking trail and I ran into another teacher from my school. Pretty cool!

The snow on the road closer to the car was getting melty and slippery with the warm sun. Unfortunately, I took a turn too fast and fell on some small exposed rocks. I fell so hard that the rocks ripped through two pairs of pants and managed to skin my knee and give me a pretty good bruise (it took three weeks before I could kneel again). But, overall it was a gorgeous day of skiing!

Lost Lake

Today Dan, JJ and I drove up to the Hessie trailhead outside of Eldora. It was 32 degrees, snowing lightly, and the wind was blowing consistently at 30mph with gusts 10-20mph stronger. We layered up at the car and quickly put on microspikes for the icy road up to the actual trail. The wind was blowing from the west, right into our faces until we got into the trees, about a mile from the car.

Much of the trail was also wind swept (and covered in fallen trees), so we buckled down until we got to higher elevations and more tree coverage. Once we got to the Lost Lake turn-off, the snow did get deeper and we had a bit of a reprieve from the wind.

Unfortunately, the reprieve didn't last long, because we soon got up to the lake where the wind had a huge, flat surface to whip across. Here, we also put on our snowshoes to try to circumnavigate the lake. Our explorations led us off-trail and up a rocky slope.

We then carefully side-stepped down a very steep hill to get back to the shoreline. The rest of the trek was uneventful and as we headed back to the car, the clouds cleared a bit, the wind settled down, and the sun started showing its face. Overall, we hiked 6 miles and gained almost 1,000 feet.

View Lost Lake in a larger map

Flagstaff with Donna

What a great day to go hiking with Donna today! We got a bit of an early start but the day warmed up quickly and the clouds didn't show up until after we were done. Our route went up Gregory Canyon to the Greenman Lodge, then to the summit of Flagstaff, before heading down the Flagstaff and Crown Rock Trails. We hiked 4.6 miles in about 3h30m.