The Anti-Mom

Mission Aborted, Freebird return to base.

Left the Longs Peak TH at 3am.  Felt great cardiovascularly, a little sluggish in the legs.  I made it to Granite Pass by 4:40am.  Left achilles tendon had other plans for the day and started sending me some cramping and sharp pain, little bit on the right too.  Can't mess with that, especially before you've done anything interesting on the agenda yet...must've kicked the hanging bag a little too hard in tkd.  Took it easy going down, didn't feel like bothering with the poles. Back to TH at 7am.  Drove home the long way down through Nederland with my windows down, the sun roof open and lots of loud tunes...that's fun to do once in a while.  Now I'm here fancyin' a nap soon.  But first:

Time to think though, which is a main reason why I like to solo climb in the first place.  I was thinking about how a lot of people call me a "free bird" or "free spirit" etc...and whether that's actually a good thing or not.  Whether I like the label or not, it's true.  I cannot be satisfied with status quo normal everyday repetitive life.  But what am I after?  Experience.  I like and need to have different experiences in life.  There's not that much that scares me to try at least once.  I think you're allowed to make mistakes along the way.  What's important is that you learn the lessons presented.  The lessons are not usually pretty, and sometimes they are not learned the first time, but to me, it's worth it.  You only have one life.  I mean, we don't REALLY know how this works and you could come back as a Walmart fishing earthworm in the cooler.  Your day to go could be any day.  I have had many reminders of this lately.  One day a person is here with you, the next they are gone.  Who wants to leave this world with regrets?  Who wants to be on their death bed and wish they had more time to go out and have experiences..?  No. When the time comes, yes there will inevitably be a few things I wish I had finished up....but not for lack of trying, and no regrets.  I will not have regrets.  (no I'm not currently dying or planning to so don't freak)

I realize this is a dramatic discussion.  But there is nothing to argue about here.  It's true, period.  You live your life fully or you don't.   Each person's idea of what "living fully" is different, of course, I realize that.  And I realize that my definition is maybe considered extreme or even selfish and wrong by some.  Well, it's just who I am...be self-righteous all you want, but then don't sign up to come along on the ride.  If you think about it, can't anything you want for yourself that would make you happy be considered selfish in some way?  Why do the people who realize what they need to be happy and go out in search of it get labeled selfish?  Everyone is selfish to get what they need to thrive, when it comes down to it.   It's just not the right word to use, in my opinion.

All I know is, you take a person away from what they love, you try to change them or constrain them to fit into other ideals, you get a sad, sad person.  You get someone who feels caged.  Caged is not a way to live.  Feeling this way affects all others associated with this person in some way.  It's a chain reaction, and not a good one. So what it comes down to is: whether you are the free bird or the well-mannered social "ideal", you need to respect the other view.  Figure out what you're dealing with and go with it, right?  Keep the keepers, toss the throwbacks, sort it out.  But do not compromise your happiness to try to fit into someone elses box...it ain't gonna work.  Let your freak flag fly and defend it.

And for those who want to Bible-thump?  First and foremost, you are not God, so you have no right to judge others.  God created free will.  God created forgiveness.  God know's we're a bunch of eff-ups.  Would God want you to waste the beautiful life he has given to you? I....think....not.  Do we need some rules for this?  Yes.  It's simple.  Go to church if you like.  Volunteer. Give to charity.  Pray at night for the strength to be a decent human being.  Do your best to be a nice person.  Do unto others../walk in anothers' shoes...  A majority of the time, everything works out fine. 

Now go get it folks.  And to those who already are...I tip my dirty selfish eff-up freebird hat to you.

The soapbox is now open.  Zzzzzz

Snowmass Mountain (14,092ft) 7-30-11

I decided to write this today, to get pumped for some get-yo-mind-right self-prescribed suffering on Long's Peak tomorrow...

I had a few days in one week off from school and the kids were at g-ma's house.  We climbed Mt. Elbert as a training run earlier in the week.  Time for a Becky Special, alright.  This one didn't seem all that bad, since we got several days to complete the mission instead of cramming everything into one, which would be a normal BS...

So I've been lusting after Snowmass for years.  It's got a permanent snowfield on it.  I..Love...Snow.  I love crampons, ice axes, glissading, everything.  I even love kicking steps...so usually I lead and do most of them since Chad does not love snow.  He's in love with that slut - rock.    It also takes some serious mileage to get up there.  Bonus.  Darwin keeps the faint of heart back in Denver. It's an 8-9 mile approach UP to snowmass lake at the base of the climb.  This, even for our delusions of grandeur, was too much to bite in a one-day, so we decided to backpack in with our camping gear and snow climb gear and fishing gear to see what it's all about up there.

We left early Friday morning, thinking we were going to zip right out I-70 and down into Aspen.  Right out the gate we got a a visit from Officer Fattypants state trooper in Golden Gate Canyon.  Not the start out the gate we were hoping for.  We were talking and I was not paying attention to speed AT ALL, which probably means I was going about 55 in a 35. We then promptly discovered that in the transition from me to Chad paying the bills when I started school, that the 4Runner had not been registered nor did we have our current insurance card.  Lovely, just lovely.  He gave us a break on the speeding since somehow I've managed to stay out of too much vehicular trouble here in CO, but I now have a court date for the end of September for which I will have to miss an afternoon of classes.  After some brief arguing about that we went on our way.  I-70 went smoothly, but I forgot how annoying Rte 82 is and it seemed to take FOREVER.  We both agreed to take independence pass on the way home and that it would probably be faster.  I think we started hiking somewhere between 11am-12pm.

We are not used to carrying 45-50 lbs of crap, and Chad has literally no hips...so backpacking for more than a couple miles is rough.  I was feeling the weight, but held up ok.  Chad was suffering for the last few miles, but we managed to get up there with some time to have some dinner and fish a little.  For me, this is the most memorable time since Chad and I took our first backpacking steps into Yosemite NP in 1997 that I have felt just overwhelmed by the beauty of a place and intense thankfulness for being alive and out there with someone I love.  After the first few miles out of the parking lot, this is serious backcountry.  The weather was great.  Who could ask for more?  Well, I could ask for better pictures but turns out neither of us is very good taking pics with the Kodak Playsport which we bought last year to be our trip cam...

First you go through a few miles of gorgeous giant aspen trees (the way they should be)...Then you get to the pine forest.  Then the beautiful river full of dumb fish/logjam.  Then the big push uphill.  Then the mosquitos and ticks.  THEN Snowmass Lake...awe-inspiring to say the least.

In spots the trail was being consumed by the forest...

First glimpse of the beast (the point is N. Snowmass, Mt. Snowmass is the hump behind it):

This is supposed to be about 5 miles in, but as you can see, we had a ways to go.

Another problem is, I alternated video with pics, and some of the more exciting sights got video instead of pics...and we're really bad at shooting video...but here's a cool spot (we'll see if this works):

 

We got there and were surprised at how many people were there since we only saw two people all day coming up - probably 15-20 up there and all the more cozy camp spots were taken.  We forgot that backpacking is a sport in itself and this lake is a stop on a popular circuit that links to the Maroon Bells drainage.  We picked anything that looked flat, turned out to be a great tent spot, except for the neighbors who stayed up all night smoking pot, playing music on a radio, talking and singing loudly and generally pissing all the climbers who had to get up at 4am off. Chad was feeling pretty dumpy, close to a bonk, so we pumped him some water and made some gatorade and he sat and drank while I set up the tent, etc. I knew he was feeling really bad when he flat out quit fishing about an hour later.  Now that's serious...Luckily he felt better during the night because we had to climb in the morning.  5 miles, 3,100 vertical.  Piece of cake!  Then we were going to pack out. 

In the evening we had surveyed the route from camp.  We were very surprised at the lack of snow. We thought since it was such an epic snow year that the route would still be substantially covered.  But only the top half had snow.  Ok, well, that's a good compromise since Chad and snow don't get along.  Everything started out good.  We got up, I had some coffee (essential) and we got out of camp at about 5am.  The hike around the lake was a lot longer than we thought, it's a damn big lake!  Hit the scree field about 5:45am, it wasn't that bad, except for one little section and we found out later that we could have easily avoided that and did so on the way down.

On to the snow.  Here's our *classic* tard moment that extends the day...we decide we're going to shoot straight for the saddle between Hagerman and Snowmass and then run the ridge to the top because we both think that's what it said in the Roach book and that's what it looked like on the topo map too.  WELL, that ended up being a little off and added about 3 hours to our day.  The route was to go to the point RIGHT of the saddle.  The funny things about this: a) the actual route was printed on the back of the topo map but neither of us looked. b) It is clear that we both need a lesson on reading a topo map. 

We were having a great time on the snowfield and we finally got to the saddle.  Then we had the ridge to deal with, which we of course thought was completely doable since we thought it was the route...we traversed across this ridge.  I was very tenative since I had my large pack on with weight and also because a kid died on the mountain a few days prior due to rockslide.  Yes, they were all loose.  So we got to the knife-edge area and decided to bail our in the snow couloir below instead of risking it. 

Ridge:

SO, we ended up having quite a tour de Snowmass...our route up is red, down is green, the approximate standard route is blue, little red flag on the summit.  Sorta blurry, but the best overall pic we have for the upper route...its a zoom from down at camp.  We sat for a while on the snowfield contemplating whether to go for it or not.  We were tired.  But, we ate some synthetic food and decided to pay the price and go.  We couldn't decide the best route of attack once we got going up though.  Didn't want to cliff out again. Once you get up to the ridge there's another 45 min-1 hr of scrambling on really loose class 3 on the back side of the ridge traversing over to the summit.  Also anxiety-inducing because that's where the accident happened just a few days before, and I had been leading most of the way on the snow and was pretty spent at that point to be doing scrambling. We dropped my pack on the route to free up what juice I had left. Chad lead me across the climb like the rock jock that he is.

 
So we finally made it, I have no idea what time it was...12?  1? We knew it wasn't any speed record, that's for sure.  We spent a few minutes up at the top and more closely observed just how loose this mountain is.  It's just a pile of giant boulders balancing so delicately.  You can see daylight through the pile in spots.  The original plan was to take a jog over to N. Snowmass too, since it's on the unofficial 14er list, but that was going to be several more hours of scrambling so we scratched that.  Sort of a fail, but we didn't want to tempt fate and we were glad we persevered to get the main summit, so we left rather quickly. 

I usually hate pics of myself, but I had better put this one in...sorta dig it. You know it's a real smile when you weren't even looking. heh.

We found a nice drop-in through the big cornice near the summit (green line above) and near my pack to cut the traverse on the ridge short and glissaded most of the way down the snowfield.  A welcome bout of fun after all the work! But I was naughty and glissaded with my crampons on...big no-no..and my left leg caught and rolled up underneath me once.  Popped a ligament in my ankle.  No biggie, ow for 10 minutes then fine, must have been the last little bit of that ligament left. Thank God my knee held, but it was pretty sore after that.  Then we went down the easy way through the grassy part instead of the rocks. 

We did have to cross the waterfall and go down the lower half of the scree, however, and that's when I started feeling ick coming on.  I started to lose coordination on the sliders and took a hard spill at one point on the scree when my pole stuck in a hole, but my down parka that was stuffed in the sleeping bag compartment of my pack broke my fall and saved my low back from a nasty pointy rock.  Instead of bruised/broken pelvis I landed on a pillow.  Talk about luck.  These days on the Becky Specials, I am much more cognizant of how I am feeling at all times since our little incident at the Crestones when I just about checked out.  So, we slowed down, I drank as much water as I could, and we finally got down and got me some gatorade. Bonk avoided.

We knew we were too tired and it was too late to pack out, so we decided to stay the night again even though we were low on food.  I felt better after a couple hours of lying in the tent and eating and drinking.  We ate most of what was left and headed over for some fishing.  That lake is FULL of fish and everyone, especially the dry-fly-fishermen were catching a lot of beautiful Brookies and a few Rainbows.    We had a good night's sleep with some Vitamin I and the idiots were gone.  Possibly the best sleep I've ever had above 10,000 ft. Packed up casually in the morning for the long hike out.

We knew what we were up against this time, so we paced ourselves...well, plus it was downhill.  We stopped at the logjam area for some great fishing.  Now THOSE were dumb fish! I could see us coming up here someday just for fishing alone...nah, who am I kidding? I still gotta tag N. Snowmass someday!

Download 100_0039

We got about half way down and things were starting to really hurt.  Turned up the speed and got out as fast as we could.  We were satisfied since we caught two groups in the parking lot that had left camp about 45 minutes before us AND we had stopped for fishing.  We drove over independence pass into Leadville instead on the way home.  I do think it was faster than 82, and I always forget how sweet it is.  Seems like one should drive over Indy pass once a year on a nice day if not just for the hell of it. 

Ok packing and getting a cat nap before my 2am date with Long's.  I think I may try for Storm Peak and/or Mt. Lady Washington too.  If I feel shitty, maybe just Mt Lady Washington or just Storm Peak?  We'll see how it goes with two workouts today and none sleep, eh?

**SLEEP WHEN YOUR DEAD!!!!**

 

 

 

Victory is Ours.

It wasn't pretty (as usual) but we did conquer Snowmass!  I'm pretty stoked about it.  Got lots of awesome pics.  One of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. 

I am writing a paper on Osteoarthritis tonight (I know you're jealous) and then I will try to put up a trip report.

Climbin' Stuff 2011

Haven't been out in the wild much this summer due to this doctor business.  But we had an exam last Friday and a couple of days off this week AND the kids are at g-ma's house...so LET"S DO THIS!

Put on the climbing recruiting/guide hat and invited my PT class for a hike up Gray's Peak last week.  We went Saturday and had a great time.  Six flatlanders who had never climbed a 14er before to the top!  AND I think I scored a few converts out of it.  heh.  Not that Gray's is AT ALL awesome, but it's a good starter peak and I figured people could still get up to the top even if they felt crappy - and it was true.  Then we stopped at BeauJo's in Idaho Springs for some Mountain Pie and Tommyknocker Brewery's finest.  Maple Nut Brown...mmmm.  Want some more please. Prolly get some on the way home Saturday.

Fresh Meat:

Once I saw these days off SANS KIDS I instantly started pulling gruesome climbs out of the book for Chad and I to do on our free days.  This was not met with the same level of enthusiasm from Chad, who was my victim, er, climbing partner.  He was with the kids for Thursday through Sunday back in MI/OH so he had clearly lost some red blood cells.  He was not about to sign up for a "becky special" two days after he came home.  SO..Tuesday was the "training run" and this upcoming weekend is the "becky special".  

I am quite satisfied to say that I have climbed Mount Elbert 11 times now.  Chad had 0.  I let him pick a Sawatch climb and that's what he chose.  The routine is quite rehearsed and simple:  get up at 2am, drive to Leadville, start hiking at sunrise.  Got it.  I had been averaging about 4 hours of sleep for the prior 10 days.  He had just come home from the Armpit.  The weather forecast was not good.  Whatever, let's go.  If I got a dumptruck full of newbies up there in my guiding days, I can get us up there in sad shape.

We began at 5:30am, the crack of dawn.  I know that mountain like the back of my hand, so we took the East Ridge Route.  It's so much nicer than the NE ridge where all the tourists go to suffer.  It's just under 8 miles and about 4,500 vertical climb.  It was SO good to be up there.  It's like the normal wash cycle for my soul which as always is drawn to the mountains but cannot ever get enough time there.  If I could swing it I'd never come back down. The sunrise was gorgeous. 

It had rained earlier in the morning and he forest smelled delicious.  The wildflowers were in full bloom.  We felt good.  I felt great.  I feel like my body is built for this sport.  I do enough of the fast and furious stuff with taequando and soccer.  Climbing is an enjoyable low level boil with occasional bursts of kick-ass.  It felt so great to get my body moving vertically!  (Gray's was vertical but I honestly never even broke a sweat)  This is what it's all about, yo!  We got to around 14,000 and the clouds descended on the summit and it started to drizzle.  While we were a little bummed about the fact we were not going to get the 360 summit view, we were happy that we were just in time to beat the weather by summiting soon and getting busy descending before the heat of the day kicked up the thunderheads.   We topped out in 3 hours, by 8:30.  We were pretty impressed with ourselves given our current state.  Guess doing all those masochistic becky specials is good for something.  It's nice to say that the tallest mountain in the state is just a walk in the park! 

We stayed on top about a half hour eating and chatting with people from the NE ridge who were starting to trickle in.  Got a little cold, so we did a little of our pole-running downhill and then decided to take it easy since we were out of weather danger quickly and didn't need to crank and ankle.  Back to the car at 10:40.  Not too bad at all.  Relaxing and Supa-fun!  Then we ate at the Golden Burro in Leadville.  They have some really good breakfast burro-itos for $8 which I hadn't tried before since I don't think I've ever arrived to eat in Leadville after a hike while breakfast is still being served.

Now to the Becky special:  SNOWMASS!  YES, it's FINALLY happening and the right way too!  We will be backpacking 8 miles in to Snowmass Lake tomorrow, resting up and doing a little fishing in the lake, then climbing the snowfield (my favorite) hopefully to summit on Saturday morning early.  Although it is very sad that a fellow 14er climber died shortly after summiting a few days ago due to some unlucky rockfall, we have decided to go anyway and we will say a little prayer for him and his family when we summit. RIP Sean Wylam

I am so excited.  I don't care if it rains or snows or if sasquatch visits camp in the middle of the night.  We don't get to do things without stressful logistics for the kids very often and this outdoor suffering together is our idea of some perfect quality time.  Well, if you ask Chad he may say it should involve less physical suffering and more Harry Potter movie.  But he's wrong.   I am going to smuggle a bottle of wine up in my pack with a few candles (headlamp doesn't quite give off the same ambiance) and make a well-earned date out of it.  I think some skinny dipping could conceivably happen if the wine flows since that is when I tend have my best ideas and be the most persuasive...Boy, I'm a high maintenance date.  Get it?  BWAH ha ha hA!  shit.

Will report when we get back.  Hopefully delightfully exhausted with some great pics. 

Live like rockstars while I"m gone people...make me proud!   

 

Update, prepare for rambling...

No, we did not go heli-skiing in BC...BUT we geared up for backcountry skiing.  "Oh, they saved up their bonus money like responsible people", you may say...nope.  Buying AT/Randonee ski gear is not much cheaper than a heli-ski trip, actually.  And, well, we bought a car also.  That put us over a little...

Bought a 2011 Civic EX, and it has been named Frank.  I needed a car that gets better than 15 mpg for my next three years of daily shit commute through all the finest rush hour traffic that Denver has to offer to get to school.  We were looking at a FIT Sport, but the Civic was nicer, same mpg, and ended up being cheaper as they needed to move it off the lot and they sold it to us for $2K under invoice.  We couldn't pass up the deal.  We kept both the trucks.  The 4Runner has like 168,000 miles on it and the insurance on it is like $400/year at this point.   We've beat the hell out of that truck and it aint worth much...so we put a new suspension on it, new tires, and decided we're running Big Iron into the ground...plus I love that truck and we need it for our mountain adventures.  The Muthaship (Sequoia) is needed for family trips to fit people + dog + crap.  So yes, now we are one of those idiot three-cars-for-two-adults families...

Back to the gear.  I am going to pick it up from Bent Gate Mountaineering in Golden, today.  We bought a few pieces of demo gear to cut costs, which for me was the binding...but here's the setup:

Dynafit TLT 5 Mountain TF-X boots  we both got these boots, they were the splurge...they are unbelievable...lighter than our LaSportiva mountaineering boots!  Maybe even more comforable, since they are custom fitted by the shop and actually hinge at the ankle in walk mode and the LaSportivas are very stiff...

I got Dynafit Manaslu skis.  Bent Gate had a pair in my size on clearance...they weigh 6 lbs!  Then I got a demo binding for them to put on there.  Chad got the same boots and some K2 demo skis.

Going to tkd every day is wearing me down, but only six more weeks of this intense training before the big test.  Had some major hip/gluteus medius issues early in the year from sitting on my can for all of Oct - Dec. My hip was actually catching sometimes when I walked.  After over a year of being therapy-free, I had to go see Bob.  What a shame.  Shortly thereafter, I wrecked my back shoveling snow.  Then I kicked a person in the knee sparring and badly bruised, maybe even fractured, my foot.  Then I kicked someone in the elbow two weeks later in the same exact spot.  Now the only good thing that came out of any of this is that I got the full treatment form Bob...which is always fun and involved him touching my butt.  BONUS. :)  I'm almost better now...still some stiffness in my hips, a touch of "patty-ass" but as Bob says...the way I play, and I'm probably malnourished, dehydrated, not warmed up enough, and/or drunk all the time: something is always going to hurt.  So, I interpret that as:  a) he wants me to make a weekly standing appointment forever for him to fix me regularly.  b) he never wants me to come in again.  Or, c) I need to start playing sports like a goddamn old lady to preserve my fragile body...whatever...none of that is happenin.  As a concession I promise to drink more water, less beer.  there.  I did manage to wean myself off of the chocolate and avoided the obligatory 10 lb winter weight gain...that's been nice.

Cameron just told me he was going to count to 100:  "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11, 14, 16, 80, 90, elevendy, 29, 28, 27, 25, 100." 

Music:  recently into The Epilogues, Black Keys, Rise Against, AwolNation.  I have actually warmed up to Rev Theory too.  Bought the Hell yeah song a while back after hearing it on the radio and thought it would be a good workout/skiing song, so now I got the new album and it's pretty good.  The usual fare I guess...but glad to have some new material to cover.  

~~~~OK...so I saved this as a draft for two weeks, now I"m back...~~~~~

The new Foos record owns me!  Walk is my favorite, then Burning Bridges and Rope...the hard ones.  Dave Grohl is totally yummy.  I read in Rolling Stone that he is big into mountain biking...rock star that is also athletic?  Impure thoughts....

CJ has started taekwondo again and had his blue belt test last weekend.  He did so well that they gave him a student of the month award...only two kids out of about 50 people got it!  I was really proud of him.  He worked hard to do well, and even surprised me during his test.  Here we are the happy martial arts mommy and son:

Cam had his 4th birthday last week too!  He has made it another year without being locked in the dog kennel...barely...heh...I can't believe he's 4, I feel like he just showed up at this gig!  He is definitely the karmic answer to "I hope you get a child just like you" for me.  He and I butt heads a lot...it's going to be interesting when he gets older, indeed...but I wouldn't have it any other way.  We'd be a pretty boring family without him.  He's the "life of the party", for sure, whether that in a productive way or not.

So the day after I picked up our skis at Bent Gate, I took them for a spin up at Winter Park.  Great on soft stuff, totally sketch on ice.  These skis are so light and have a rocker tip so they ski really short.  It took me a bit to get the confidence to carve on them but once I did, and I stayed off the ice, they were sweet.  Poppin down moguls on the front of Mary Jane like there wasn't even any bumps there.  What bumps?  These are just tight turns!

So we were very excited to try out the skis for their intended purpose - spring mountaineering...Chad took the day off and we went up to Quandary this past Friday.  He hasn't done Quandary and the skiing is mellow with no real avy danger to speak of, so we were all in and psyched!  We resigned to the fact that we were heading out on new gear and that there was inevitably going to be some difficulty at some point, so we should just take it easy and have fun.  I think we started around 9am, which was fine because we neeeded the temp up to warm up the snow a little bit.  However, we noticed that the wind was picking up above as we left the parking lot...The skinning through the trees was totally fun.  Snowshoes just became obsolete.  The mountain had 4-5" of snow on it from the night before, and I cut trail the entire time and wasn't even sweatin' it. The boots were very comfortable.  I felt good for a minute when we got about a mile in and there were a few ladies out on snowshoes who were not experienced in winter navigation and were turning back because they couldn't find the trail and were lost.  We had a little chat with them stating that no I didn't bring a map or GPS...you just need to go up and you can't go wrong here as long as you follow that rule...at first I could tell they thought we were a little nuts, but what do you expect the trail to be visible under 4 feet of snow?!  So we left and weren't sure what they were going to do, but saw that they were following our tracks after a while.  Finally, we were the people who knew what we were doing and not the 'tards...only took 10 years.  Chad and I agreed that you have to pay your 'tard dues out in the mountains, and we've paid up by now...So anyway, we were having a great time for about an hour and we got to tree line.  We took a little break behind some of the last big evergreens and ate a bit and put on our ski helmets and goggles...by now the wind was howling down the ridge and we knew that this was our last respite before we made a go of it.  So we then entered the effing Jet stream.  We made it up the first tier of the ridge getting blasted in the face the entire time.  The thing we ended up being unprepared for was the temperature.  It was a nice sunny warm day, but with the wind it was actually very cold and our hands and faces were feeling it.  We had another mile or so to the top in the exposed, I'm guessing 50-60mph, wind and we knew we weren't going to make it.  So, we called it and with our hands being cold plus the wind we struggled a bit to wrangle our skins and lock our boots/skis into ski mode and headed down.  This portion of the ski down alternated between wind drifts and complete rock hard wind slab and I was having trouble staying upright on my skis.  Chad fell once and his ski popped off.  But once we got back into tree line it was very fun.  Then I fell once when I hit a surprise ice slab in the middle of a nice pillowy meadow and tweeked my wrist/thumb but it wasn't that bad.  I quickly gained the understanding that you can't just rip it down here in the trees...you don't know what the hell you're sliding over or if it's sufficiently covered.  We generally followed our tracks from coming up and got back down to the base in about 15 minutes...the joy of having skis was solidified at that point.  Then we went to the Dillon Dam Brewery for some celebration.  We felt like it was a good first day out, I mean, we couldn't expect to make it under those conditions...I have some video but can't find my wire to download now so that will have to wait.  We're going to try to go again soon.  

I broke down and got my hair streaked.  It's pretty cool to me and Chad, but it was mellow for a first time so nobody is noticing - I'm still deciding if that's good or bad.  It just looks like I"ve spent time in the sun.  But that's an improvement over the doo-doo flat brown I had.  At least the doo-doo has a little flair now.  Now the seal is broken.  Next is dental work, liposuction and a boob job.  Naw, that's only if we move to southern California then I can be on the Real Housewives. No - in fact, sometimes I hate the boobs I even have.  THey just cause problems for sports.  I think I was meant to be a dude.  Here's the theory:  my parents have actually never had sex...my conception was mythologically immaculate and by Zeus.  I was supposed to be the reincarnation of Perseus. But Athena found out and was ticked that Zeus was messing with a mortal, so when the Y sperm was about to get in, Athena called in a hit and her super X sperm ate that Y sperm right before it got in.  So really, that explains a lot, see?  As for my sister...well, she was adopted from Russia.  That's what I've always told her anyways.  (and yes, I recently watched Clash of the Titans)

Medical school starts in 7 weeks and I received the schedule for the summer yesterday.  Holy shit.  I have 5 hours per day of anatomy - split into a 1 hour lecture and 4 hour cadaver lab.  Then there's another 2 hr class in the morning...alternating between subjects - exercise science and histology.  SEVEN hours solid of class per day with a 1 hr lunch, and sometimes there is meetings scheduled for lunch hour.  WELL, my plan of treating this like a full time job just went out the window.  Looks like it's tax/audit busy season for the entire summer...I'm probably looking at 60-70 hr weeks.  sweet.  However, the pressure to be a rock star is off, I mean, I'm in the club now, so I can get a few Bs here and there.  Perfection is not the plan...survival is the plan...

We're going to Siesta Key, Florida again the second week of May.  We realized it's the only possible week to go on a family vacation while it's nice and warm in Florida this entire summer.  We had such a great time last summer that we didn't want to experiment with a new place.  Excited to get my tan on.  I'm currently disgustingly pale. 

We went to see The Epilogues about a month ago, and saw Bad Religion with Rise Against on Saturday.  Both shows were totally awesome, and I got to get all sluttied up so that's always fun.  I had a really low cut and tight zipper-up-the-front top on and super skinny jeans with heels and when I got to security they were patting people down.  I walked up to the dude and put my arms out and said..."I don't really have space to pack heat tonight" and he got a big smile on his face and said "I can see that" and ran his hand down my spine and sent me thru.  That was funny.  The Fillmore only had Miller Light, MGD, Fat Tire and Dales for beers.  I don't really like Dale's and Fat Tire has run it's course for me, so I was stuck with MGD all night.  Talk about a hangover and I didn't even drink that much.  Then the next day I had to go to church in the morning and black belt test practice for two hours.  That was enjoyable.

So that about covers it for now.  I've been skiing a lot in the waning weeks of ski season, just doing the minimum to get by in physics, and working out feverishly for the black belt test.

NEXT...

I know, I know.  I didn't even write up the climb for N. Maroon yet...I'll get to it.  I've been busy spending all of our money on college textbooks and getting tetanus shots.

Gram Kay is here, and Chad and I are slogging back down to the Crestones for another go at the Needle and the traverse tomorrow.  This time with no time pressure (assuming the weather cooperates).  Maybe we will find my long lost glasses.  Maybe we will meet up with the next stalking mountain goat (oh, I haven't told that tale yet).

We went to the Boulder Reservoir yesterday for some beach time and found the spandex mafia had taken it over.  The 5430 Triathalon was going on...parking was, uh, interesting...but not that many folks on the beach.  The boys had a blast. 

We spotted the Bob-mobile (Altitude PT) van right up front in the tent city of promoters and went to say hi to Bob.  Except it came out more like, "Bob, we are trying to just bring our family to the beach and LOOK at all these IDIOTS here clogging everything up."  Which I thought was pretty funny but Bob's friend did not see my humor and started tossing off bad Juju at me for that comment.  Bob was lying in the back of the van and could barely sit up to talk to us.  We caught him right after he had finished.  He was happy with how he did.  I asked if Mrs. Bob was racing and he said no...she was with the girls, so he was going to hit the beach in a few to "check out the scene and see who's interested in a 45 year old bald guy".   My first thought was:  I'm sure you could find a nice game of hockey stix down there in your leotard at the beach...but I didn't say that since his friend was there giving me stink-eye.  Don't worry Bob...you're totally hot in spandex.  Party on in your land of three cardio torture mechanisms.

I only make fun of the triathletes because I am not that cool.  I have always been jealous, but not jealous enough to learn how to swim right.  Ugh.  Poo poo lake water...Chlorinated water isn't much better in my book.  Kids crap in it all the same.   Floating/sinking.  Restricted breathing...no thanks.

Watch our Spots.  If the Spot works, that is.  I haven't told that story yet either.

For Our Next Performance...

Crestone Peak & Crestone Needle traverse.  7/14/09.  Rumor has it they are going to close down this 4WD road to vehicles after this climbing season, so we want to get this one done this year to make it easier.  We'll go up 7/13 and drive up the road and camp.  Then there's little/no approach to worry about on summit day.  I believe most of the class 4 route we will do is behind all this stuff from this angle.  There's supposed to be some wicked-cool exposure up there. PUMPED.  As long as we have a good weather day, that is...If the weather in the Sangres looks sketchy, then we may turn our sights to Snowmass.

I'm excited to do this one, because it's not only good practice for our plan to do the Maroon Bells traverse a few weeks later, but because there's a unique geological phenomenon here, called "Crestone conglomerate".  The rock is a big jumble of stones and rocks that makes for really good hand/foot holds, thus, fun climbing.  A nice change of pace from all the loose slop you get on a lot of mountains.  Here's a pic I took on Humboldt last year, the Crestones next door neighbor, to give you an idea.  I don't think this is a great example, but it's the only one I have...

Pikes Peak, 14,110 ft, the Y Couloir, 5/29/09

Miles day one: 7
Elevation day one: 3,500 ft
Miles day two:  approx. 16.5
Elevation day two:  3,910 ft
Total Miles:  approx. 23.5
Total net Elevation gain:  7,410 ft.

SO, tra la la, we dropped the kids off at 3pm on Thursday at the sitter and headed down to CO Springs for some Pikes Peak LUV.  We were very excited and a little nervous.

As usual, things got a little behind schedule.  We arrived as planned, about 5pm, but could not find a parking spot.  You'd THINK that a mountain such as Pikes Peak would have a HUGE parking lot at it's main trailhead...but NOOWP.  Overnight parking lot is about 30 cars big.  Little did we know that all the locals come up to do their evening runs on the Barr trail around then...so we proceeded to drive around for 40 minutes looking for a spot and then just waiting for someone to pull out.  We then had to gear up.  Started hiking at 6pm.

Hiking hurt.  We had all our camping gear plus all our mountaineering gear plus about 3 liters of water each on us, so lets just say the packs weren't light.  Somewhere between 45-55 lbs.  Let the switchbacking begin...There are about, I don't know...5000 switchbacks in the first few miles of the trail.  We knew we had to gain about 3,500 elevation in this 7 miles up to camp, but we didn't realize it was going to bitch slap us in the face all at the beginning.  We were slow.  I was taking care to not strain my leg.  Chad had some sort of knee irritation going on. 

We got to camp just after 9pm.  In the dark, and yes, it did manage to rain on us a little bit.  Not enough to really drench us, but enough that we could count it on our neverending streak of it raining precisely when we need to make a camp, wherever we go.  The cabin was all dark, so we didn't check in.  We just found a spot that was clear and set up the tent and got in and went to bed. 

Gear report:  Yes, we were testing out a lot of new stuff.  Once we realized how heavy the packs were going to be, we decided against hot coffee and breakfast in the morning, and left the stove and cook stuff at home.  We settled on PBJ and a Starbucks espresso double-shot in a can for my caffeine fix. 

• TNF TENT:  The tent was ok.  As expected, it was cramped and got pretty damp inside - being a single wall tent and it being so cold outside vs. warm inside with our body heat.  It worked out ok.  We both sorta cursed the little tent at times, but couldn't override the miracle of a 3 lb tent that packs to the size of a football, so we are keeping it. 
• 0 degree ALPS down-fill BAG:  My sleeping bag was a champ.  I started out pretty cold since we were damp when we got in the tent, but I woke up in the middle of the night ON FIRE.  That's exactly what I want.  I spent the rest of the night with it half zipped and a little more room to move.  Good. 
• GLOVES:  Ended up not even using the bomber gloves.  The windstopper ones were great in the snow.  They were thinner to allow me a bit more dexterity too.  On with the story

So, we get to bed around 10pm.  Got up at 3am.  Why so early?  We had both drank a lot of water on the hike up so we knew we needed to pump water in the morning to refill our hydration bladders.  UGH.  We hate pumping water.  But the camp had a nice little area set up next to the stream with big empty coffee buckets so you could actually just scoop the water up and pump while sitting comfortably on the rocks vs. crouching down next to the side of the stream like you usually have to do.  Score.  Also, we knew we had an 8 mile trip to the top and needed to be up there while the snow was still reasonably frozen from the nighttime cold.

We hit the trail around 4:20am with our headlamps on.  We were all excited to drop weight at camp, but in actuality, we didn't get to dump that much.  All I had left was bag, pad, pump, 1 liter nalgene.  Chad dumped bag, pad, tent and 1 liter nalgene.  We still had about 35 lbs on our backs...Water, snowshoes, axe, crampons, extra layers, first aid/emergency stuff, food, avalanche shovels/beacons/probes, trekking poles, other gadgets like GPS/Spot/camera.  Shit.  Still very heavy.  Ah well. There is a reason that not a lot of people do mountaineering. 

We were moving up the Barr trail at a good clip and before long got to the branch off for the Bottomless Pit trail.  About a mile into the BP trail we got to watch a very beautiful sunrise.  We got pretty much no good pics of this because we suck at pictures and our camera ain't doin' us no favors, especially in the dark...so here is the best shot of our sunrise.

As described in many trip reports that I have read, the trail eventually peters out and you are left with a view of this huge canyon...and to find the "Bottomless Pit" via GPS and a lot of unpleasant off-trail side-hill partially snow-covered travel.  We saw what we think were a lot of lynx tracks in the snow up here.  We also found another set of people footprints, but didn't know yet if it was from this morning or yesterday.  We put on our snowshoes finally at the bottomless pit.  It's a very pretty place, can't really capture it in pics, since it's a 360 experience sorta thing.  I think we were at the BP at around 7am and this was about 6 of our 8 miles.  Not bad.  HOWEVER, we were at about 11,300ft.  Only two miles for the remaining 2,800 vert.  The party was about to start...

The first mile or so of our ascent was probably the most fun of the trip.  We traveled about 1,000 vertical feet up to the base of the Y coulour on nice solid snow, and walking in our snowshoes was a breeze.  We were VERY grateful for the heel risers on our snowshoes (MSR Denali).  Not sure how anyone's achilles tendons could do this without them.  We came around the bend into full view of the approach gully and saw a bunch of avalanche debris and also a solo dude up there ahead of us.  It was Joe (at the red arrow).  We'll get to that later.  Here is a pic of our route (blue line) on this section, and Joe, which gives you a good idea of the scale of this place.  You might want to click and look at the full size pic for this one...

We just kept snowshoeing along, up past about half of the huge avalanche debris field (you can see it up just to the left of the blue line above) until we got to about 12,800 ft.  There were some rocks to sit on and this was the point where we thought we should switch to crampons and axe.  Here is a view back down the gully and route almost back down to the bottomless pit.

Here is a totally tard picture of me at this point (which very unfortunately is the best one of the day of me) and a good one of Chad where you can see what lies ahead.  The good stuff.

 

Chad was starting to feel the altitude at this point.  He hadn't been above 13,300 or so for 6+ years...The original plan was for him to kick most of the steps since I had this bum wheel...well...time for the ignoring the injury part to start.  I was worried we were taking too long and the snow was getting too soft, so, I ended up kicking about 500 vert worth of steps to keep things moving along.  It hurt.  From here for a while, it was really soft and frustrating.  So I moved over actually onto the slide debris, which was inconsistently icy and decent, which ended up being easier, but rough going.  Above the slide debris was very hard ice.  Couldn't really kick.  Had to do some switchbacking.  This brought back memories of our Mt. Baker climb...this sort of climbing really munches your ankles!  Here's a pic of this icy part above the slide debris.

At this point, we're in what I would consider the leg of the Y.  We were approaching the rockband at 13,400ft where the Y arms branch off Left, right, and I guess there's a middle too.  We were both getting tired at this point.  I think it was about 9:30 and a lot of slough was coming off of the right wall of the couloir.  A couple of times it hit us.  I was getting worried about the snow.  The left side was wind loaded softer snow with a touch of slab on it, but still in the shadow from the sun.  The right was pretty much the same solid ice like we were on, but out of the question since so much junk was coming down off the walls.  We were originally planning on doing the right arm of the Y since it is considered easier.  But, staying left it was. 

Here we joined up with Joe's steps, which was a God-send.  If we didn't have his steps to walk in the rest of the way up, it could have turned our happy little trip into "epic".  The left arm of the Y is very steep at times, but since we had Joe's steps, it was not that bad.  Just a matter of getting up.  Let's remember this is exactly why we made the trip!  Pretty sweet!  Some pics of this section:

Chad was really dragging at this point, and I had to start giving him pleasant reminders that we needed to get up and out of this potential death trap we were dawdling in.  Still, we got this rather lovely picture of me.  The camera pouch is in front of my face, leaving you to wonder if it's really me or not, but if you do actually know me you should easily be able ID me by the giant ASS in the picture. 

 

Anyhoo, we started to reach critical mass after this pic.  The snow was getting very soft.  Chad was lagging farther and farther behind, and I would look back and he'd be hunched over.  I started worrying about him falling and if he did, it was game over.  I wouldn't be able to get down to him for a LONG time without falling myself, and I was just about spent.  I realized that we hadn't eaten anything except a few sport beans since we put our crampons on a few hours prior, but you can't really sit down and have a picnic on a 50 degree snow slope, now, can ya?

The last 200 vert was nerve wracking.  Chad was bonking before my eyes.  It was one last steep pitch above that pointy rock in these two pics above.  All I could do was stand at the top and talk to Chad and try to keep him moving.  I felt guilty for putting him through this tough of a climb with having been out of the game for so long.  I knew I could make it, but I never thought he'd have this much trouble.  It was just past 11am when Chad finally made it.   The homestretch:

At the top we learned who "dude ahead of us" was - Joe.  We expected all these tourists at the top, but it was still pretty well snowed in and the only person we saw was the ranger.  He asked us if either of us was Joe and we said no, but that we saw Joe ahead of us and we know he got out of the climb safely for sure.  I guess his peeps at the bottom were worried about him and sent out a search.  Maybe Joe underestimated how long it would take him to do this climb too.  All I really know is that I thanked God for Joe the rest of the day, cause without his steps, it could have gotten messy for us.  I wasn't too worried about him, since I knew he made it out, but it made me feel better to see that he had posted info about the climb on the 14ers.com forums yesterday.

We were so spent at the top that we didn't even really bother to find the little mound that designates the true summit.  We took a pic of this sign, since it was directly on the way to the food in the restaurant.

 

Chad was on the verge of collapse and I wasn't much better off.  We had some pizza and sodas inside and I immediately felt better.  But Chad wasn't pepping up as much as I would have liked, so when the train pulled in, I collected all of our gear (we left it by the sign and all the tourists were having to walk over it) and went and talked to the conductor and got us seats to ride half way back down to Barr to pick up our stuff.  I really did want to do that huge glissade back down to camp, but Chad felt so bad, and my arms felt like two large noodles, and I wasn't confident that I could have even held a glissade or self arrested if I needed to.  And I knew Chad couldn't do it right now...so...wave the white flag...sometimes the moutain wins.  Besides, we still would have 1.5 miles from the train stop back to camp, and the lovely 7 mile hump back down to the car with full weight.  That sounded like enough...and believe me it was.

We both felt better by the time we got back to camp, which was about 2:00, I think.  We packed up camp for about 45 minutes, got on the trail and got back down to the car by 5pm.  I will spare you the gory details of that hike back down.  Lets just say that 23 miles in mountaineering boots is not at all kind to your feet.  And if you ever want to experience the feeling of your shoulders and hips being murdered while you are left alive and forced to march...follow this itinerary!   

It was a great climb with great weather, and even for all the suffering, we're glad we did it.  It had been a LONG time since the Whites were out in the wild together on the tough stuff! 

Shout-out to Big G for watching over us on this day!