Photos

The Decalibron!

~ Mike ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes schedules, weather, and motivation all align to make a trip happen, and yesterday was one of those days – exactly four years to the day after my first attempt at this route. The weather was still breezy, but far nicer, warmer, drier, and sunnier than last time.

Through a few conversations, Lauren and I decided it would be fun to try to hike, climb, or ski all the 14ers together. I’m going to have a few repeats (I was at 16/58 yesterday morning), but that’s alright – most of the repeats will be good ski descents, which I’m always up for.

Though the original plan was to camp up there, last minute schedule changes nixed that. Instead, we loaded up the car the night before. The next morning, I checked my phone and saw a comment from Lauren during a quick stop on the way to Kite Lake, and had to reply.

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Fast Times on Longs Peak

~ Mike ~ Leave a comment

I would have posted this sooner, but things have been busy. I’ve also been dealing with the loss of a friend, who died while skiing alone in RMNP this past weekend.

Last Friday night, I went to bed extremely early, planning to get up around 11pm. Instead, I was up at 9pm, unable to sleep any longer. I was getting ready for my annual Longs hike, with a much larger group than normal this time – Nate, Matt, Hans, Ryan, Alan, and myself. We all met up and drove to the trailhead, getting started on the hike shortly after 1:30am.

It was incredibly foggy down low, and the six of us had red headlamps, making for a fairly creepy train of hikers in the night. After our break at the bottom of the Boulder Field, we essentially broke in to two groups, the lead group being Nate, Matt, and myself. I started to slow in the Trough, while Nate and Matt, well-recovered but still trained from their race in May, powered on ahead. The four of us (I ran in to a guy named Caleb and we hiked up the rest of the way together) topped out about 5:30am, a good 15 minutes before sunrise.

It really was beautiful up there – moreso than usual, due to the undercast. Continue reading →

Two Weeks in Alaska

~ Mike ~ 2 Comments

This trip was a long time coming. Though discussions started last autumn, things were cemented on this fateful night when Hans convinced me to join him (Lauren assisted) on a 12-day mountaineering course with AMS. Six months (and a plane ride, and 6 hours in the Ted Stevens International Airport and a 3-hour shuttle) later, we were dropped off at the Talkeetna Hostel, where we would be spending a night before flying out to the Pika glacier.

After dropping off our stuff, Hans and I struck out to check out the town (he’d been here before, I hadn’t).

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Nice, Quiet Morning Rides

~ Mike ~ Leave a comment

A few days ago, I decided I wanted to get up and go for a bike ride this morning, before things warmed up too much. I just got back a short bit ago after riding around the reservoir (in fact, breakfast is still cooking!). I took the camera because it was just going to be a leisurely ride, and…well, I like taking photographs. This route is one of my favorites; it’s about 25 miles round-trip from home around the Cherry Creek reservoir, and mostly in very bicycle-friendly areas.

With a target start-time of 7am, we were out the door just before 7:40, and enjoyed a quiet approach to the trail.

It was a perfect morning for a ride, as it was a little overcast and stayed cool the entire time. Continue reading →

Summer’s Here!

~ Mike ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, mostly because “real life” has been particularly busy. The skis are hung up for the year (and actually have been since closing day at Loveland), and I’m riding bikes a ton, even though I’m down to only two bikes (from five), though I expect that to go up again. Got out for a little dawn patrol on Friday with Hans before it got too hot. Yay summer!

Ski Culebra

~ Mike ~ Leave a comment

This trip got started a couple weeks ago when I got an urgent email from Carl about a date set for a climb of Culebra in a couple weeks; with spots likely to fill fast, I jumped on it. I’m glad that I did, because all 20 spots filled in about four hours. For those of you not familiar with Culebra, it’s the only 14er that’s entirely on private property. During the summer it’s possible to get on the mountain more often than not for a $100 fee, and certainly on weekends. Winter and spring availability is much more limited, and in the past has had a climbing fee of $200-250; this time it was only $100. The original plan was to ski the North Face, assuming good weather. Unfortunately the weather was not good (as seems to be the case with most Culebra ski descents), but we certainly got our $100 worth of adventure. Keep in mind when you’re reading this that most of these photos have been enhanced to de-fog them and make people a bit more visible.

A major spring storm rolled in to Colorado late last week, bringing with it lots of snow. People in their right minds were enjoying an amazing powder day. Nine of us decided to take our shot and chance the weather. Besides, the forecast was for the storm to ease up and clear out by about 2pm, we would just have to fight our way through it most of the day. A few days ago things were dry pretty much to the summer trailhead, which would mean a 7 mile round-trip day with about 3,200′ of vertical. Things changed a bit, so we had a 14 mile day with roughly 5,000′ of vertical. I’d like to think Carl was saying something like “we have to go how far?” in this photo.

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More Mt. Lincoln Pics

~ Mike ~ 1 Comment

Here are a few photos Carl took from yesterday. First, a steep sidehill on the approach.

Fortunately there were plenty of anchors on this slope.

Shortly after this came the tree-climb:

And now a few of me enjoying the snow:

Until next time…

Blown Off Mt. Lincoln

~ Mike ~ 1 Comment

Today’s summit attempt, unfortunately, was one of failure. That’s not always a bad thing, though. I usually don’t write anything about failed climbs, but today is a little different. It was just one of those days.

First off, the (small) cast of characters. Carl:

And myself:

After oversleeping by 40 minutes and incorrectly setting the coffee machine (good thing I cooked the bacon last night!), I scrambled and raced to meet Carl in Golden for the uneventful drive up to Montgomery Reservoir. Continue reading →

Scout

~ Mike ~ 1 Comment

I took this the other day during this string of beautiful warm weather we’ve been having. Fortunately Winter is making a comeback for the weekend, with plenty of snow forecasted over the next couple days. Plans for a 14er fell apart last weekend due to avalanche concerns, and this week due to an impending powder day or two (and the associated avalanche danger). If things clear up, I’ll be back at it next weekend and the human-powered vert counter will get moving.