GABF

About a week ago, Ashley, Melanie, Keith, and I attended the Great American Beer Fest (GABF) held annually in Denver, CO. This is the largest beer tasting event in the world. Upon entering the convention center where the event was held, we were all handed a glass with a one ounce line on it. We proceeded to drink one ounce of as many different beers as we could for the next 4 hours. Of course, we started at the Pacific Northwest corner of the room because that's where the best beer in the world is made.

GABF Statistics:

473 breweries represented
2793 beers were on tap
25,000 gallons of beer
Entry Fee - Priceless (just kidding, it was about $60 and well worth it)

Marathon Pics

I finally got a hold of some of the pictures Melanie took during our race.


Ashley and I near mile 17.


Post-race photo, trying not to appear as close to death as we felt.

26.2

For the last several months, Ashley and I have been training for the Boulder Backroads Marathon. Last Sunday the training program culminated in a final run of 26.2 miles.

At the 16 mile mark, we passed Keith and Melanie cheering for us, and I remember feeling pretty good at that point. At about mile 18, I felt Ashley pulling away from me. I kept up until about mile 20 when my quads "exploded" in a very similar manner that they did during the relay race one week earlier (see previous blog post). Shortly after the quad explosion, they began to cramp. At mile 23, my hamstrings and calves joined the cramp party.

Somehow I continued running/hobbling and crossed the finish line in an official time of 3:57:51. Ashley beat me by exactly 6 minutes. Up to mile 20, our nice steady pace was somewhere around 8:40 per mile. From mile 20 the finish my pace was approximately one minute slower per mile.

In the end, I accomplished my goal of finishing under 4 hours and beating Jake's time of 3:58:xx (mind you this was at altitude and on a notoriously slow course). My third goal of beating Ashley did not and never will happen.

My muscles that nearly ruined me during the race recovered rather quickly. My joints, on the other hand, are not so happy with me. Now, almost 5 days after the race, my right ankle and the bottom of my right foot are still pissed about my decision to run a marathon. I fear I have a stress fracture on the ball of my right foot.

That night we celebrated by drinking copious amounts of beer and eating all the junk food we so diligently deprived ourselves of prior to the race. My pre-race weight of nearly 170 lbs is probably now back up to 185 or so.

I'm now working in North Dakota, drilling holes in the ground as part of a mine permitting project. From all I've seen, North Dakota might be better off as one large open-pit mine.

2007 Colorado Relay

Yesterday morning Ashley and I finished up a race that took our team of 10 just over 24 hours to complete. Similar in nature to the Hood to Coast run in Oregon, the Colorado Relay covers 170 miles and it makes its way from Idaho Springs to Glenwood Springs. The coarse goes over 4 passes, each between 10 and 12 thousand feet in elevation. We began the race at 8:00:00 on Friday morning and finished at 8:01:27 on Saturday morning.

Our team was made primarily of Golder employees (my office paid for and sponsored the event, which is a fundraiser for Outward Bound). This time of year, the weather can range from snowing to sunny and warm. We lucked out as the sky was clear for the entire race, which meant that the day was warm (70's) and the night was cool (30's).

My legs (7, 17, and 27) involved an 8 mile downhill run from the top of Guanella Pass (-2000 ft), an 8.8 mile downhill run from the top of Vail Pass (-1800 feet), and a 5.4 mile flat run. All the downhill in the first two of my legs took its toll on me. After the second leg, my quads felt like I'd had a surgical procedure where my quadriceps were extracted, put through a meat grinder, and the resulting mush reinserted into the cavity where my intact quads used to be.

Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of the race is dealing with sleep deprivation. Our van got about 1.5 hours of sleep between 5 am Friday morning and when we returned home after the race at 1:00 on Saturday. My last leg started at 5 am Saturday morning and my quads had not recovered much since the meat grinder incident. It was a painful and delirious 5.4 miles. To add to the strangeness of it all, my final two legs were in the dark, running with a headlamp and reflective vest.

Ashley's legs (10, 20, and 30) were 6.8, 4.9, and 4.4 miles, respectively. The first and longest was on a hilly trail through beautiful Aspen forests near the now infamous town of South Park, while her last two legs were mostly flat. Her final leg weaved through the town of Glenwood Springs and was the last leg of the race. As the race rules required, the rest of the team joined her for the final 30 meters of the race to the finish line.



Our team just after crossing the finish line

Our finishing time of 24:01:27 was good enough for 4th place out of 25 teams in the corporate division and 24th place overall out of 150 teams.



Ashley and me with our "bottomless" free beers after the race

Aspens are Pretty, Lightening Bolts Striking the Peak you are Planning to Climb are Not

My work sent me to the Aspen area for Friday and Saturday to oversee a construction project at the county landfill. Since I was already over there and had Sunday off, I decided to make an attempt at hiking up Snowmass Mountain. I knew the weather would be questionable at best, so I realized the possibility of just going for a nice hike in the rain. As it turns out, that is exactly what happened.

I'd been hiking for about 2 hours when there was finally enough daylight to turn off my headlamp. Right about this time, I got hit with my first thunderstorm squall, where it rained and hailed furiously on me for about 10 minutes. I continued hiking up the trail towards Snowmass Lake, hiking through and hiding from several more of these squalls on the way.

Eight miles into my hike I arrived at Snowmass Lake.


Snowmass Lake with Hagerman Peak in the Background. Snowmass Mountain is hidden in the clouds to the right of Hagerman Peak, approximately where I saw two big flashes of lightening as soon as I arrived at the lake.

It was a dramatic arrival as I hiked up Snowmass Creek, came over a rise, and found myself standing on the banks of one of Colorado's largest alpine lakes. Impressive peaks surrounded the lake on all sides except for the one I approached from, the highest ones enshrouded in clouds. Within the first few seconds after beginning to take in this amazing scenery, I watched a lightening flash that appeared to come from the vicinity of Snowmass Mountain (which I could not see through the clouds). The lightening was accompanied by an almost simultaneous boom of thunder that reverberated off the steep-walled peaks for several seconds. As if this sign from above wasn't obvious enough, I was then hit by yet another squall of rain and hail, more vicious than any of the previous ones.

I spent about 15 minutes up at the lake and watched the clouds covering the peak I had intended to climb "flash-boom" once more before turning around.

As most of the hike up was in the dark, I was amazed at how beautiful the scenery was on the way down. Golden Aspen trees, abundant alpine lakes, and the steep and jagged peaks of the Elk Range surrounded me the entire way down.


Golden Aspens on the trail


Waterfall on Snowmass Creek, immediately after it exits Snowmass Lake.


More Aspens

Pikes Peak

One way to get to the top of Pikes Peak is to drive. Another way is to take the Cog Railway Train. Both of these options will drop you off within about 6 vertical feet from the true summit. Yet a third way to reach the top of Pikes Peak is to hike the Barr Trail. The Barr Trail ascends from the town of Manitou Springs to the summit in 12.5 miles while gaining 7500 vertical feet. The famous Pikes Peak Marathon is run on this trail.


Pikes Peak

Kieth and I left Boulder shortly before 2:00 am. We began hiking 2 hours later (4:00 am), and arrived at the summit 5 hours after that (9:00 am). I decided that the summit of Pikes Peak wins the award, hands down, for the most desecrated 14er summit in Colorado. Below is a photo of Keith, sitting within a few meters of the summit.


Summit Photo of Keith

Overall, the hike was much prettier than either of us expected. The trail was well maintained and never very steep. When we returned to the car, I decided that the 25 mile round-trip hike (we ran the first 6.5 miles down from the summit) was worthy of replacing the 20 mile run that I was supposed to do as part of my marathon training program.

Blood of Christ

Over Labor Day Weekend, Ashley, Melanie, Keith, Ryan, and I backpacked into the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ for those non-Spanish speakers) mountains. The purpose of the trip was dual, and somewhat contradictory - relax, and climb three 14ers. The Sangres are known for having substantially better, more solid, rock than other mountain ranges in Colorado. Hence, the mountains are steeper and more jagged than the rock piles found elsewhere in the state.

Before I continue, let me rant about Labor Day. As labor is synonymous with work, I do not understand why a day when nobody works is called Labor Day. Actually, some people do work, and they are typically the ones making minimum wage. I propose changing the title of "Labor Day" to "White-Collar Non-Labor Day". Who's with me? I know it's a bit of a mouthful, but it's much more descriptive and less misleading.

Resume story: On Saturday we drove south to the trailhead that provides access to Lake Como. The 5-mile trail up to the lake is actually a 4-wheel drive road, nationally known as Colorado's toughest Jeep trail. It rises 3700 feet over that 5 mile stretch. To limit the physical exertion required to backpack up to the lake, I drove the 4-Runner as far as I felt comfortable, which ended up getting us about 1.5 miles and 1000 vertical feet closer. After waiting out a thunder/lightening/rain/hail storm, we made the trek up to Lake Como.

The next morning, Keith and I took off on a semi-technical excursion that nobody else wanted in on. We first hiked up a Class 4 route on Little Bear (a peak just barely over 14,000 feet tall). This was good preparation for the next phase of the tour, which involved a lot of Class 4 with a touch of easy 5th Class climbing, nearly all of it with great exposure. The one-mile ridge that links Little Bear with Blanca Peak is one of Colorado's most classic ridge traverses. The ridge is knife-edged in many parts and the faces on both sides of the ridge were often too steep for travel, severely limiting our route options.


Blanca Peak and White Bear Ridge from the summit of Little Bear


Kieth downclimbing part of White Bear ridge


Little Bear and White Bear Ridge


Little Bear from the summit of Blanca


Me near the saddle of White Bear Ridge



The crux of the traverse came shortly after leaving the summit of Little Bear. This involved an easy 5th class downclimbing move along the ridge crest in an exceptionally exposed position. After that it was mostly Class 4 until we arrived on the summit of Blanca Peak to meet Ashley and Ryan, who had hiked up the standard route on Blanca (Melanie stayed back in camp nursing an injured knee and communing with the hick Jeeping enthusiasts).

On Blanca's summit, we debated whether or not to traverse yet another ridge leading the summit of another 14er, Ellingwood Point. Keith and I decided to go for it and Ryan opted to come with us. After a fun scramble up the Class 3 ridge leading to the summit of Ellingwood Point, we promptly initiated our descent as the thunder clouds had begun to build. Our descent route picked it's way down the Class 3 west ridge of Ellingwood Point, effectively linking a U-shaped series of ridges for the day's tour. This ridge came complete with plenty of exposure, which Ryan had not previously had the pleasure of dealing with. We all made it back down the ridge safely and back to the tents in the middle of a hail storm to find one of the two wine bottles that Keith packed in empty. Apparently Melanie had spent the couple of hours before we arrived self-medicating, with the assistance of Ashley, who made if back to camp about 2 hours before Keith, Ryan, and I did.

Soon enough, Keith's other bottle was gone, as well as the bottle of wine and four beers that Ashley and I brought up.

The next morning we hiked out and drove to Great Sand Dunes National Park. The wind apparently deposits a fine-grained sand in a very localized area, forming a vast expanse of sand dunes up against the western side of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. I was never able to find the ocean.

Le Petit Elk

Keith and I set off on Friday morning from Boulder with the intent of climbing Le Petit Grepon, a classic rock climb in Rocky Mountain National Park. At the trailhead parking lot at 5:00 am, we stepped out of the car to encounter stiff winds and unexpectedly cold temperatures. After completing about half of the 5 mile approach, we stopped at a point on the trail where we could see up the valley into the region where we would be climbing. Many of the visible peaks were engulfed in clouds, and the wind was not letting up. We both felt that the conditions would have permitted an ascent of the spire, but we would have been cold and miserable for the entire climb. While still waiting for conditions to improve, we saw a lone cow elk in the creek bed below us. Keith went down to investigate (i.e. take photos and see how close he could get to the wildlife).

He got pretty close and we both took a lot of pictures. He returned back up the hill to where I was standing and we noticed a half dozen more elk within about 50 feet of us, working their way down the hiking trail. Soon enough, more elk emerged, the last of which was a 5-point bull. The small heard (about a dozen in total) slowly moved their way down the trail until some hikers came up the trail and scared the elk back past us. We must have been taking elk pictures for nearly an hour when we finally decided to head back another day for the climb. Unfortunately, it was early and a bit dark when we were taking all the pictures, so most of them didn't turn out too well. On the hike down, the clouds parted enough to reveal fresh August snowfall in the higher elevations.

Yosemite, etc.

Ashley and I left on our road trip on August 11th. We spent that first weekend in Crested Butte, Colorado camping with a group of friends. While they went out for a mountain bike ride on Saturday, we went on our long run for the week of 18 miles. We ran on beautiful wilderness trails in one of the prettiest parts of the state. Minus the horse traffic, it was a superb trail run.

We drove all day Sunday to arrive at the east side of Yosemite National Park. We spent a total of 4 days in the park: 3 in the Tuolumne Meadows and 1 in The Valley. It didn't take us long to figure out why Yosemite has the climbing reputation that it has. The granite peaks, domes, and other formations are everywhere abundant, many of them harboring fantastic moderate trad climbing routes.



Since we spent our first day lining up a camp site for the rest of our stay, it was a perfect opportunity to do a shorter introduction to Yosemite climbing. As such, we climbed a 2-pitch 5.6 route on Lembert Dome, which involved about a 10 minute approach and some fun and oftentimes awkward climbing moves.



Later that day, we went for an 8-mile run up a popular tourist hiking trail to Cathedral Lake. I found it quite enjoyable to run past slow-moving and wheezy tourists who look at you like you're crazy.

We climbed Tenaya Peak on our second day in Yosemite. This was a technically easier, but much longer route than the previous day. After about a 45 minute approach and 14 pitches of easy class 5 and some class 4, we found ourselves on the top of Tenaya Peak. The views were much more exceptional than even our pictures suggest.







After climbing some 5.6 pitches on our first day and a long multi-pitch on our second day, we were ready to combine the two and do a multi-pitch 5.6 - 5.7 route. We chose one of the most classic climbs in the Tuolumne Meadows area - Cathedral Peak. It was on this climb that we made the worst mistake of the trip - we forgot the camera. We did, however, take several pictures of the peak from Cathedral Lake and elsewhere in Tuolumne Meadows. The climb was essentially 6 pitches of sustained 5.6 with a few 5.7 variations. I thoroughly enjoyed this climb as it pushed my trad climbing skills and was extremely aesthetic.



Since Ashley was such a good sport in doing all the things I wanted to do for the first three days, she chose what to do on our last day in Yosemite. I feared she would opt to do our weekend run, but much to my delight she chose to hike up Half Dome! We justified this deviation from our training program by planning to hike the 17 mile (5000 ft) round trip rather briskly.



The hike passed a few waterfalls and smaller granite domes before emerging at a point where we could see Half Dome. Shortly after that, we found ourselves at the infamous "cables" section of the hike. Two parallel cables are strung in railing-like fashion for hikers to yard on while hiking up the final, steep 300 vertical feet. At the top I stood on the diving board (see picture below) and looked down the route that the big wall climbers take to reach the top. This was the most awe inspiring perspective of the trip for me.



We spent that night just south of the National Park at a Forest Service campground. Just before we went to bed a neighboring camper came by and told us that a bear had walked through our camp the last two nights. Sure enough, he did this again. We heard it crashing around in the woods and I vaguely made out a silhouette at one point in the night. It turns out the neighbor who informed us of the bear was the same one who left food out all over his campsite, effectively baiting the bear into camp. Coincidentally, this was the only bear we saw our entire trip - the 4 days we spent in the park disclosed no bears. The photo below shows me standing (in bear pose) where I saw the bear the previous night in relation to our tent.



The day after leaving Yosemite, we drove through Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park. The highlight(s) of this trip were all the giant sequoia trees, including the largest tree (by mass) in the world. By the end of this day, our patience with yahoo tourists grew thin. We continued our drive south before stopping for the night on top of Grapevine Pass, 60 miles outside of L.A.



We arrived in Irvine in time to meet our friends (mostly from Boulder) for breakfast. The rest of the day was spent at Huntington Beach playing in the surf, digging holes in the sand, and getting sunburned. Our second day in the L.A. area was similar, but spent at Laguna Beach. We left the beach in time get ready for our friends' (Tony and Lisa) wedding. Their wedding took place on a boat in the harbor, so showing up late would have involved a lengthy swim in a suit.



Their wedding was relatively small and the ceremony was wonderfully short and to the point. After that it was open bar and buffet for the next few hours. After docking, we ended up with the bride and groom and a slew of friends at a nearby bar. The rest is hazy.

Monday morning our plan was to wake up and drive back to Boulder, but first we had to get a flat tire fixed that we obtained in Laguna Beach. This should have taken 20 minutes, but it took two hours. Shortly after 11:00 am we were on our way back across the country. We drove straight through (with one stop at In-N-Out Burger) and arrived in Boulder at 3:30 am Tuesday morning.

Off to Cali

Ashley and I leave tomorrow on a road trip to California. We plan to spend Friday and Saturday in Crested Butte, CO, drive on Sunday to Yosemite, climb Monday through Thursday in Yosemite, spend Friday in Sequoia National Park, and spend Saturday and Sunday in Newport Beach with our friends, Tony and Lisa, who are getting married there on Sunday. Provided we're not too hung over, Monday will be an all-day drive back to Boulder.