Sanitas with JJ

On Saturday JJ and I hiked up Mount Sanitas. It was his first time up this iconic Boulder peak. It was a great day, just a little haze in the plains. He did great on the steep sections!

SoBo & Bear Take 2

After hiking Shadow Canyon up to South Boulder Peak and Bear last weekend, I decided to run it today It was very cloudy, but not raining at the trailhead. However, that changed the higher I got. In the canyon I was fairly protected from the rain. The dense trees kept the trail dry in spots and just damp in others. Once I got close to the summit of South Boulder, I could really feel the wind blowing and the rain was pelting me. Actually, when I looked more closely I noticed it was actually graupel that high up. After the quickest summit rest ever (I literally just turned around), I ran over to Bear. Again, the trail was fairly covered, but once I got out in the open is was awful. Nasty winds, rain, sleet...it was awful. I quickly scrambled up the ridge and turned right back. On the way down the rain seemed to be picking up. The sour weather wasn't deterring any hikers, though. There were tons of people coming up Shadow and the lower trails. Surprisingly, many of them were in cotton sweatshirts and jeans. That makes for a soggy day! Stats: 2:47:28 overall--Mesa to Shadow and back.

Hooter Lookers

For a few weeks each spring many people come to look at the owls that nest and roost in our neighborhood cottonwood tree.

SoBo and Bear with JJ

Today JJ, his friend from work, and I hiked up Shadow Canyon to summit both South Boulder and Bear Peaks. It was a pretty good day--a bit overcast, but the clouds parted a bit when we were on both summits. There were tons of flowers blooming on the trail, but otherwise an uneventful outing.

Walker Ranch

Ran the loop at Walker Ranch.

Betasso Preserve

Hiked Betasso.

Colorado Springs

I love serving on this state committee. We get to meet in the coolest places. I spent the last two days in Colorado Springs, and boy did I have fun! (Ok, the work part was cool, too.) I drove down Tuesday after school and met Melanie for an evening run. We ran from her house down to Garden of the Gods, around some trails there, and then back. I love GoG! The rock formations are outstanding and I had no idea there were so many trails down there. I had a blast catching up with an old friend and running in her neck of the woods. Afterward we went out for dinner at yummy Marigold's. They have the best chocolate moose cake ever!

Wednesday morning I woke up and drove to Red Rocks Canyon Park and ran a couple of miles. Again, some of the neatest rock formations. The colors are so unique with the brilliant red sandstone. I quickly got ready for my meetings and then snuck out again in the evening, back for Red Rocks. That night one of my colleagues hosted us all for an awesome homecooked dinner.

Thursday morning I woke up early and drove to Manitou Springs. I parked at the base of the Barr Trail (what we ran up for the Pike's Peak Ascent) and found my way to the incline. This remnant from the mining era is a great hill workout for Springs residents. Essentially it's a mile long staircase that climbs 2,000'. That's an average grade of 41%. I made it up in just under 38 minutes and then cruised down the Barr Trail to the car. What an awesome work trip!

Sugarloaf

Hiked up Sugarloaf with Donna, JJ, and Zoe. Clear day, great views.

President Obama

We saw President Obama's motorcade as he left the Boulder airport headed for a campaign speech at CU.

Twin Sisters hike/run

We hiked/ran up Twin Sisters on Earth Day. Great views of the Diamond face of Longs Peak.

Breckenridge

I got to go to Breckenridge for the Colorado Content Collaboratives. Fortunately, there wasn't a big snowstorm while I was there--just an inch or so over night. I drove out there after a concert on Tuesday night. I got in around 10:00. The next morning I was up early enough to explore some of the roads and trails behind my hotel. I discovered a reservoir and some neat neighborhoods. I was really surprised that I found nice trails less than five minutes from my hotel room! After working all day I went back out to explore some more. I ran across the melting ski slopes and got away from town on some meandering trails.

Thursday morning everything was covered in an inch or two of newly fallen slow. I was making first tracks everywhere. I started off by heading downtown and running along a pretty creek. Then I ran up some more ski slopes and hooked up with some other trails. Thursday afternoon I had to leave early for yet another concert, but I made the most of my time there.

Foothills runs

We biked to the Gregory Canyon parking area. From there, I ran the Mesa trail (11.1mi in 2:17) and Laurel did a steep run up Green Mountain (4.4mi in 1:52). We met back at the trailhead a couple hours later and headed home. Great day except for the spill I took on a downhill that ripped my hand up pretty bad (it's healed by now).

South Boulder Peak

We biked to the South Mesa trailhead for a hike up South Boulder Peak. 17mi round trip on the bikes, 7mi round trip hiking. It was clear enough to see Denver, Pikes Peak, and Longs Peak, and we caught a glimpse of a train going through the tunnel on Eldorado Mountain. We ran some of the way back.

North Table Mountain, take 2!

Laurel and I went back to North Table Mountain today for some climbing. Tim, Adam, and Natalie were all busy instructing and taking the CMC's Basic Mountaineering School (BMS) so we were on our own.

We didn't bring a guide book, since the ones we have aren't very useful, but we were able to get on one of the climbs we were familiar with. I led up Sloping Forehead, which was a more difficult lead than I had imagined it would have been after toproping it last weekend. We both climbed it on toprope a few times, and also climbed Ivory Tower again since it shares the same anchors.

Then we moved over into unknown territory. We found a wall that looked somewhat reasonable and had an easy chimney to the side that I could ascend if the face was too difficult to lead. And that's exactly what I did. I set up an anchor at the top, belayed Laurel up, lowered her, lowered myself, and then we were set for some toproping fun. We both took a few turns on climbs called In Between The Lines and Offline. Supposedly they're 5.9- and 5.8. I guess maybe that's about right, but I don't think I'm ready to lead them, even though I'm leading 2 grades higher in the gym.

Very exciting that we've done so much climbing outside so far this year!

Laurel's 2nd day biking to school!

This has been a very warm end-of-winter and beginning-of-spring! Laurel biked to school on Tuesday the 13th, and again on Friday the 23rd. Both days I met her halfway on the way home. We stopped for ice cream the first time but then realized neither of us had any money. This time we got delicious ice cream from Glacier though! Very nice to be eating ice cream outside in T-shirts in March.

Run with Donna

Donna and I went out for a run around the Twin Lakes on Wednesday. Weather is still awesome, must be outside!!

North Table Mountain

Adam invited us to climb at North Table with him and Natalie. I led a route called Wholly Holey, Adam led Ivory Tower, and then we all toproped the climbs a few times. At the end I toproped a climb to the side called Sloping Forehead. All of the climbs were rated 5.7 or 5.8 but this crag is horribly sandbagged. Or we don't have a clue how to climb this kind of rock! Or both. It was a fun day, but cut short when the wind started to whip sand into our eyes.

Sharin' O' the Green 5k

Laurel's friend Marcia invited us to run on her team in the Sharin' O' the Green 5k race up in Fort Collins. There were a lot of people at the race -- maybe more than the organizers had anticipated, because the start was a bit of a zoo! We had a good time though, and ran pretty fast. I finished in 23:32 and Laurel in 25:54.

After the race we stopped in at the Devil's Backbone, just south of the Horsetooth Reservoir. We wanted to run up to our turnaround point for the Blue Sky Marathon, but we were both kinda sore so we only ran 2.5 miles. Very pretty up there.

Climbing in Eldorado Canyon

We went to Eldorado Canyon State Park (aka Eldo) for our first time to climb! Our friend Tim had been there before so he was able to show us a few routes. We climbed Boulder Direct and Breezy, each in two pitches, with Tim and I swapping leads. It was just the right temperature for climbing and we had a really good time. Adam and Natalie were there also and climbed a few routes over from us.

Mountains!

I got into the mountains a bunch this week.

The day after we got back from our trip (Sunday 3/4/12) was gorgeous -- beautiful T-shirt weather day, blue skies and sunny. I only planned to run up Flagstaff, but once up there I decided to see what Green looked like. There was a ton of snow on the upper part of the mountain and it was quite difficult to run without any traction, but I continued on anyway. Took me about 2.5 hours for the 10-mile round trip with about 3000' vertical. Biked there and back.

The weather continued to be great during the week. On Thursday I did a 3.3 mile hike around Sanitas. Only took about 30 minutes to summit, but the East Ridge trail on the way down had some horrendous ice! Round trip 80 minutes, around 1300' gain.

Still awesome weather on the weekend, so on Saturday I did another big mountain run. This time I biked to NCAR to head up Bear Peak via Bear Canyon. This time I had my microspikes! The trails were decent but it still took a bit longer than expected to summit -- that last half mile is SOOOO steep. I continued over to South Boulder Peak. There were lots of people on Bear but I had SBP to myself. For the return trip I ran down Shadow Canyon. It wasn't as snowy as I expected, but in hindsight it's a south-facing canyon so that makes sense. 10.5 miles, 3h20m, 3400' vertical.