Christmas 2008

So I'm going to steal an idea from our good friends The Blocksma's and do a year end video.  I tried like heck to put Christmas music to it, but YouTube would kick it back and say that it detected copyrighted material.  So, apparently Bela Fleck isn't copyrighted... enjoy.

Thanksgiving and Anniversary

Wednesday Sarah and I flew out to Louisville to spend the Thanksgiving break with her family.  Our first plane out of Denver was and hour late due to crew rest, so we missed our connection and had to spend the next 6 hours sitting around in the Houston airport.  We eventually made it into town and got to relax around 9pm.

The whole weekend was very relaxing with ridiculous quantities of food and lots of football.  Sadly, both LSU and Auburn lost this weekend, so there it wasn't a cheerful mood in the house...  The flight back was equally sucky as our first flight out of Louisville was delayed by a few hours.  We eventually got to O'hare and were able to get on a 9pm flight back to Denver, but of course it didn't leave on time and we probably sat on the runway for about and hour waiting to take off.  After getting home around 2am, we were needless to say, very tired of traveling.  Next year we are driving.  If you add up all the delays, I think it's about the same amount of time.  At least then we're in control of our own destiny.

Yesterday was Sarah and mys anniversary.  After getting up early to pick Bella up from doggie jail, I started the day by making Sarah a full eggs, bacon, and pancakes breakfast.  We then spend the rest of the morning purchasing and setting up our Christmas tree.  In the afternoon we headed down town to one of the nicest spas and got a couples massage which was amazing.  After using their complementary steam shower, I'm bound and determined to build one of those in my own basement.  For dinner we headed out to the Brooks Steak House, which is considered by many to be the best steak house in Denver.  The food was amazing and I'm getting hungry for the leftovers just thinking about it.

Oh, and P.S., Sarah is the coolest wife ever because she bought me a Playstation 3 for our anniversary, so now I can play Blu-rays on my nice new TV.  SWEEEEET!

Updates Coming Soon

So my hard drive got corrupted somehow and I'm trying to recover data and migrate to a new one.  In the mean time, it'll be another week or two before I  can get a real update posted.

Since Doug has already done it, go read his post about snow shoeing at Lake Agnes.

Oh, and screw you Bill Gates, I hate your guts.

Carry on.

Brian

Big 10 Flag Football Tournament

On Sunday, I met up with fellow Spartans Doug and Josh, as well as the Hoosier Liz at Washington Park south of downtown Denver for the 4th Annual Big 10 Flag Football Tournament. This year there were 9 schools that submitted teams, with only Illinois and Minnesota not sending anyone.

The format was simple single round elimination, with the champion getting "The Ski." The Ski is pretty self explanatory in that it is a ski, except it's painted blue and says "Big Ten" at the top and has each of the yearly winners painted on it. MSU started the tournament well playing Indiana and winning 17-0.

The second game was against Iowa and was much more dramatic. They scored one touchdown in the beginning of the game, and then it was back and forth in a defensive battle. MSU drove down to within 3 yards, it was 4th and goal with 5 seconds left, but unfortunately we couldn't make it into the end zone.

Our consolation game was against Wisconsin, and just like the game the real teams played on Saturday, we won by one point. Needless to say, there was a little shit talking after that.

Overall it was a great time and I can't wait to play again next year. Hopefully we'll get in a practice or two instead of just calling the same play every time, a play we liked to call, "Everyone run and get open."

Long's Peak Weekend

At the beginning of the summer, Sarah and I set a goal of what peaks we wanted to climb in 2008. At the very top of the list was Long's Peak. Long's is the 15th tallest peak in Colorado, and many people think it is one of the hardest to climb. One because it's a class 3 climb, and also because it's 15 miles and over 5000 ft of elevation gain. Since this weekend was fore casted to be 70 degrees, we thought we'd give it a go before winter really sets in.

We left our house at 4am so that we could be on the trail by 6am. We knew it was going to be a big day and wanted to get going as soon as possible. We ended up getting on the trail by 5:50am and plodded our way up the mountain by headlamp. The first two and a half miles are pretty smooth trail and take you up above the treeline.

After we broke the treeline, we started to get our first glimpse of sunlight to warm our cold bodies. That and we enjoyed a beautiful sunrise. The trail continues on to for a few miles until you reach the "Boulder Field". Just as the name implies, its a massive field of millions of boulders. As you make your way across it you end up hopping from boulder to boulder, trying to keep your balance and not break anything.

At the far end of the boulder field is what is known as the Keyhole, because it looks like, well, a keyhole. The keyhole is the starting point of the best part of the hike, in my opinion. After climbing through the keyhole, you traverse across the back side of the mountain on a skinny ledge. Off to your right is a very steep drop for thousands of feet. This type of exposure is what makes climbing mountains fun. The views are incredible.

After traversing quite a ways, you come to a steep couloir. The right side of the couloir was all ice and snow, but the left side was exposed rock and boulders. Since I purchased crampons this summer, I was able to walk straight up the ice. Sarah hasn't picked up a set yet, so she hung to the left side and scrambled up the rocks. After climbing back down this section and almost falling to her death, she's decided that she should purchase a pair pretty soon. After you climb through the top of the couloir, you traverse some more along another ledge until you reach this slick rock wall.

This is the last push to the top and was quite fun to climb, although coming back down was pretty scary.

The view from the summit was amazing, and we probably hung out for about 20 minutes before deciding to head back down. Neither of us really got tired until after we got back down through the boulder field. At that point we still had 2.5 hours of hiking left, but we were both exhausted from a lack of sleep. Physically it wasn't too hard, but having awaken at 3:30am was killing us. We ended up getting back to the car exactly 10 hours after we left and promptly drove out for sushi (hiking always makes us crave raw fish).

I think Long's Peak is one of my favorite 14ers that I've done so far. The first half of the hike is nothing spectacular, but once you cross through the keyhole, it's one of the coolest hikes in Colorado. If I were to do it again I would backpack it and camp two nights in the boulder field. that would allow more time to enjoy the views on the back side of the mountain and allow a night of rest before hiking that last 5 miles.

Flickr!!!!!!

Rock Climbing and Corn Mazes

Saturday morning, Sarah and I were looking for something exciting to do so I convinced her to go to the Boulder Rock Club with me to rock climb for the day.  Since I already owned equipment, we would only have to buy day passes and rent stuff for her.  When we got there I expressed interest in joining the Club so they let Sarah in for free and didn't charge us for equipment.  We climbed for a few hours and had a blast.  I'm really excited to keep climbing there more and more over the next few months.  After just a few routes, my forearms hurt like hell and I was tired.  Luckily it's just down the road from my new job in Boulder to, so it'll be easy to climb after work.

Saturday night we had Greg, Christina, and Lance over for dinner, and then we all headed out to the Haunted Field of Screams and the Dead Man's Corn Maze.  It was $25 to do both attractions and you could spend another $12 to be a VIP and skip the line.  After hearing that the line was a few hours long, we anted up the money and skipped ahead of all the highschoolers and middleschoolers who couldn't afford the extra dough (it's good to be employed...)  We finished off the evening with some wine and then everyone headed home around midnight.

Sunday was more relaxing as Sarah and went downtown to a British Pub at 10am to watch Arsenal play, then walked around downtown all afternoon.

Painting the Marathon

Last weekend, Sarah's parent, Bill and Michelle flew out to stay with us for a few days. Like any good new homeowner we decided to give them the royal Denver treatment and have them paint our house. Luckily Bill has painted his house top to bottom at least once or twice, so we had a skilled hand to guide us.

At the beginning of the weekend, I actually thought that we were only going to paint three accent walls, but it turns out that when Sarah and her mother get together, an amazing thing happens. My perfect relaxing weekend of quickly painting two or three walls turns into a hurricane or painting half the house. So much for relaxing.

The four of us pretty much painted for two days straight, and when I say "four", I actually mean Bill and I while the girls boss us around and run errands.

Sarah and I are both pretty happy with the results so far, but we have a lot of detail work left to do in all three rooms.

On Sunday morning, the whole family headed downtown Denver so that Sarah could run in the Denver Half-Marathon at 7am. About 40 minutes before the start, there we about 10,000 people trying to use a few port-a potties, so Sarah did the classy thing and just pee'd in an alley.

Sarah ended up doing pretty good, especially considering she didn't train at all. I on the other hand was winded just trying to run from point to point, trying to taking pictures.

Defenders Cup 2009

This year I headed back down to Lackland AFB for the Defenders Cup Tournament.  This year they expanded it to a 20 base tournament, up from 16 bases last time around.  I drove down to Denver last Wednesday, met up with the guys, and jumped in the 15-passenger vans Thursday morning to start our 12-hour drive.

We didn't have very high expectations this year, even though we were fielding the best start 11 we've ever brought.  On reason for our pessimism was that we ONLY had 11 people, which meant no substitutes.

Jesus has family in San Antonio, so we picked up two locals for our first game, which we lost 2-1.  Unfortunately one broke his foot, so we were back down to one sub.

Our second game we won 3-1 and luckily had picked up a new local to play with us.  Our third game should have bean an easy one for us, but we couldn't put it together and ended up losing.  We were ranked 12th out of 20 teams and actually got a bye out of the first round, but that put us up against the 5th seed team on Sunday afternoon.

By the time the game rolled around, we had two people with pulled hamstrings, one with horrible blisters on both feet, one with a broken foot, and then we got two sprained ankles during the game.  Needless to say we got our butts handed to us.  The upside was we stayed for the next game and saw them lose in a shoot-out, so all was well.

For the week we were there we stayed in a Red Roof in about two blocks from the San Antonio River walk, which is a great place to go out for a "few" drinks.

Overall I had a blast as always and it's a real bummer to head back to work.

Rock Climbing

So this weekend didn't end up being quite as exciting as we had hoped, but it was good none the less. Originally we were suppose to camp with the Blocksma's on Friday night, do some rock climbing on Saturday, then summit Long's Peak on Sunday.

Well Friday night, we decided not to go camping because Sarah was pretty tired and we didn't get home from work until late, but I still wanted to go climbing with Doug and Liz, so I got up early on Saturday morning (Sarah wasn't really doing the early thing) and headed up to the Iron Clads.

I met Doug and Liz at the top of a rocky, rough road that Bonny almost didn't make it up. We ended up parking around 10am and started our hike up to the rocks.

After putting on some borrowed equipment, Doug led us up Seething Bitch, which is a 5.8. For those of you that don't understand the climbing rating system, a 5.8 is harder than a 5.7, but easier than a 5.9. Beyond that I have no idea what it means...

My first time was pretty good, I felt comfortable enough and only hung a time or two before I got the hang of it. Next we headed over to Short Sighted (5.7), then Rip Off Ranger (5.9), followed by Five Finger Discount (5.9), then over to Mt. Boner for the big climb of the day.

Liz wanted to lead a route before we headed home for the day, so she was the first one up Shaking the Pope's Hand. It was at least twice as tall as our other climbs, and Liz executed it perfectly. I went next and cleaned up the equipment, then Doug finished off the day and rappelled down.

Needless to say, I'm hooked. I've got my own equipment now (I was going to hold off until next year, but I just took the plunge anyways) and can't wait to get out again.

Saturday night, we checked the weather and it looked kind of dodgy over Long's Peak, so we called off the hike. Instead, I put up our custom blinds that finally came it and did random yard work. Not very exciting, but necessary.  Now that our windows are finally full covered, I can walk around in my birthday suit without having to run from cover to cover...

Hiking near Estes Park

So this weekend was another beautiful one here in Colorado.  On Saturday, Sarah and I met up with the Blocksma's at a small campsite off the side of the road North East of Estes Park, CO.  Doug and Liz were going to rock climb in that area the next day, and Sarah and I had found a nice hiking spot just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park that we wanted to hike.  So we got up Saturday morning, made some chip dip, and headed to Doug and Liz's place to watch the Spartan football game, since we don't have TV at our house.

After the game we jumped in our two cars and headed out to find this campsite that Doug's friend had told us about.  After winding up this mountain for 15 minutes, we came to our pull off, parked the cars, and hiked in a little bit to find the campsite.  What a find.  The site was on the southern slope of the mountain.  Off to the east we could see Denver, and to the west was a perfect view of Longs Peak (the hiking goal of this weekend by the way).

After setting up camp, we made our campfire, settled in and made some hot dogs for dinner.  While were we setting up though, one of the neighbors apparently talked to Doug and asked if we wanted fish if they caught some.  Never one to turn down free food, Doug said yes.  Around 9pm they guy came waltzing over with a basked of 4 large rainbow trout, and about 10 crayfish.

Doug game me a knife and I gutted the fish and threw them on ice, and the crayfish were rinsed off, put in a pile, wrapped in tin foil and thrown in the fire.  Good eats if I say so myself.

Sunday morning we woke up just before sunrise, had some coffee with the Blocksmas, then headed down the road to our trail head.  After I got us lost once because I don't know the difference between Route 34 and Route 43, we made it and started hiking.  Of course the first thing I realize is that I forgot to pack the camera (but is anyone really surprised?).  The next thing we discovered is the mountain that I picked for us to hike isn't 15 miles round trip, it's 15 miles one way.  Needless to say, we were disappointed, and by disappointed, I mean that Sarah was pissed at me.

The hike was nice none the less and we made it back home by mid afternoon.

Wonderland Trail

On August 30th, Sarah and I set off on our 10 day, backpacking adventure on the Wonderland Trail. The Wonderland Trail circumnavigates Mt Rainier and was first completed in 1915. The trail itself covers over 93 miles and includes over 20,000ft of total elevation gain.

Our first day saw us dropped off at the Longmire Rangers Station by our friends Kurt, Tracy and their son Nick.

We started up the trail around 2pm that day and had about 6 miles to go until our first campsite at Devils Dream. The day was pretty chilly and had a low cloud ceiling so we didn't get any real views of the mountain that day. The trail was very different hiking than either Sarah and I are use to. The west side of the mountain is very wet, almost a rain forest. Everything was covered in moss, there we more waterfalls that I can even begin to remember and the trees were HUGE.

The second day the weather started to improve a bit and we were able to get our first real glimpse of the Rainier summit. We also got our first up close view of one of the glaciers. At first we both thought that we were looking at a former mudslide, but then we realized that near the bottom, all glaciers are covered in dirt and rocks, and you can't even see the ice.

The second day we ended up doing 9.8 miles to the Klapatche Park next to Klapatche Lake.

On the morning of Day 3 we were greeted with a fantastic, crystal clear view of the summit, perfectly reflected in the lake. What a great scene to brush your teeth to

On day three we only had to do 7.8 miles to Golden Lakes. It was a pretty easy hike past North PuyallupRiver which had a rather large waterfall for us to relax next to for lunch.

About 1.5 miles before we got to the campground, we were following the trail through a high alpine meadow above the treeline. I noticed a pile of something on the trail and bent over to see what it was.

It turned out to be fresh bear poop. Now when you're out in the middle of nowhere and you see a huge, blueberry filled pile of fresh bear crap, there should be only one question that pops in your head. "Where did he get those blueberries." We started looking around and noticed that we were in the middle of a huge blueberry patch. We stopped for a while, munched a few, and then continued on our way. After talking to some other hikers at our campground, we found out that one girl that was about and hour behind us saw 5 bears in that exact spot.

Day four saw us hiking 10.2 miles up to Mowich lake which was our first drive-in campground where we mailed one of our two food caches. Upon arriving at the lake and setting up camp, we hiked over to the ranger station to grab our food. Inside the hikers cache there was a bucket labeled "Free Food." We were like kids in a candy store. We took 4 packages of Ramen, three boxes of cous-cous, some stir-fry crap. Man it was great. We pigged out like we were never going to eat again. Ramen has never tasted so good.

After dinner we took a hike around Mowich lake to relax (yes, even after backpacking that many miles, a leisurely walk is still nice) and enjoy the beauty of this high mountain lake.

On day five we took our first departure off of the actual Wonderland Trail. The actual trail heads downhill for most of the day until it gets to our next campsite which was Carbon River. We took a different route that took us up the mountain higher through what is known as Spray Park. Spray Park is another high alpine meadow with beautiful views of the peak and the surrounding meadows. Sarah and I took our time through Spray Park, and we both agree that it was one of the most beautiful parts of the hike.

8.1 miles later we were at Carbon River Camp. This camp was interesting because you could tell that within a year or two there was a huge storm that knocked over many of the huge, 3ft diameter trees. Every campsite was in the middle of at least 6 fallen trees where they had to use a chainsaw to clear away the campsite again. This makes you wonder how many people we crushed and how safe are we? The campsite was really nice though and we were the only people for at least 2 miles.

While eating dinner we also noticed that we had messed up our itinerary and they had us finishing the trail in 11 days, not 10. We hadn't noticed this before so we had to come up with a plan to make up a whole day of hiking. We decided that the next day we would push through Mystic Lake and go right to Sunshine a day early.

The day ended up being a beautiful one, especially on the approach to Sunrise. We ended up doing 18.1 miles that day which was absolutely brutal on our feet. The problem was that once we got to Sunrise Camp, we had to hike another 1.3 miles to a ranger station to pick up our food cache, and then back again, which was exactly what you want to do after a day like that.

Day seven was a short but brutal hike up to Summerland, one of the most popular campgrounds in the park. It is only 7.8 miles from Sunshine, one of the few drive-in camps, so it's popular for the weekend hikers.
The campsite itself is situated just above the treeline with a decent view of the peak as well as back down the Fryingpan Creek Valley. This campground also appeared to be the favorite site for the parks marmots, as they were everywhere.
Day eight was probably my second favorite, if not favorite day on the trail. The hike from Summerland to Nickel Creek is mostly above the treeline and give beautiful view out over the Eastern part of the mountain.
The first 4.5 miles takes you over a few ridges and then you descend 1500 ft down to Indian Bar Campground. Sarah and I stopped there to rest and cook some lunch and to grab a quick nap in the sunshine.
The last 6.4 miles climbs back above the treeline before quickly diving down 2000 ft to the Nickel Creek campgroud 

Day 9 was basically our last full day of hiking. From Nickel Creek you hike back into the populated part of the campground and hike of shadow the road back west through the south side of the park. I didn't like this section as much because you ran into a lot more people and we kind of near the road.

We eventually make it to Paradise River Camp and spend our last night in the park.

On day 10 we got up at 6am, packed up camp, and headed the last 3.8 miles out to Longmire, where we got dropped off originally. It was really nice to be back to civilization, get a cup of coffee, and brush my teeth in


an actual sink. Kurt was nice enough to come back and pick us up, take us to his place, and we spent the rest of they day hanging out with the Masey crew. If we were going to hike this again, I don't think we would do the whole trail. We both agree that we would put in at Mowich Lake and hike out at Nickel Creek. This half of the trail give the most, clearest views of the mountain and was our favorite days on the trail. Here are all of the pics on Flickr.

I hate computers...

So it may be a while before I can have a post with pictures our Mt Rainier because my computer with my photo software is down. I'm hoping to have it fixed this weekend, so maybe by next weekend I"ll have pictures posted. Stay tuned...

Mt Rainier, he we come

Sarah and I are about to head to bed, and in the morning we depart on our next grand adventure to do the Wonderland Trail. It's 93 miles around Mt. Rainier and we're going to do it in 11 days. Each day isn't very much mileage, but a ton of elevation gain.

Here is a link to that profile map in an easier to read format.

Here is our itinerary:

8-31: Longmire Trailhead

8-31: Devils Dream

9-1: Klapatche Park

9-2: Golden Lakes

9-3: Mowich Lake

9-4: Carbon River

9-5: Mystic

9-6: Sunrise

9-7: Summerland

9-8: Nickel Creek

9-9: Paradise River

9-10: Longmire Trailhead

I've sure we'll have a great time and I'll post the pictures when we get back.

More Patio, more rain

So they did a little bit more on the patio this week, but then all work came to a halt as rain storms swept in and haven't let up for like 3 days. On the bright side, I haven't had to water my lawn. On the down side, my freakin' patio isn't done yet.

Oh, and Bela got hurt and I thought this was just pathetic enough to share. Now I remember why I have so many shop towels. For doggie triage.