Big Lebowski Party, Donna's shower, and Bell's Beer

Haven't been online in a while - spending most of my time up at Tim's, because it's just more fun that way. :)  But for those of you worrying about what I'm up to/how I've been/if I'm still alive...

I am sick of AOL's photo journals because you have to view each photo one at a time, and my mom can't see them at work. I put some up on my Shutterfly site, and also on my Trekshare Travelogue. Remember - on Trekshare, you can view all the photos at one time by clicking the "Index" link on the top of the photo viewer window that pops up. I'm also putting up pictures of Donna's Bridal Shower, our night at 5th Avenue while I was in Michigan, and the Big Lebowski night at the Rock Inn. That's right - they showed the movie and gave drink specials on "Caucasians" (aka White Russians) if you wore a costume. I won the prize for best costume... but that's probably because I dressed up as Bunny Lebowski and wore a bikini. ;)  I wouldn't have done it if another girl hadn't gone back with me to change... we both were like "well I didn't want to be the ONLY girl dressed in a bikini!" so we rallied and made it happen! (No, didn't just wear a bikini - was in a big red robe pretty much the whole time, hee hee!)

I got word last week I might go out with a fire crew from Bandelier National Park... but that didn't happen, so I just heard now that I should be ready to go out with the Northern Colorado handcrew on Monday. FINALLY! It has to happen soon so I can go out for the full 2 weeks - Donna's wedding is coming up soon and I can't miss that! Cisco's last day was last week, so now I have to improvise without a partner until October - I can't cut unless somebody is there to spot me, which is a bummer. I'm trying to recruit bored people to help me for a day here and there. So far, it's working. ;)  Have a few unsuspecting folks lined up to drag brush with me, heh heh! Monday, I have the "Road Hogs" - mostly retired volunteers that are skilled in roads work - to help me shut down Bear Lake Road while I drop trees, and then help me load and haul them. I should have 10-18 people, so we'll get a lot of work done... if I'm here! Then Tuesday I have 6 more volunteers to try and take some pine beetle trees out of a campground. Not sure how that is going to go, never worked with these peoplebefore so we'll see how much I have to yell at them to NOT stand under trees when they are falling. I'm being only HALF joking there. (rolling my eyes)

Uhhh yeah besides that, I am unemployed in about a month and I'm not all that worried about it. A few things I'll hear about in the future - maybe be able to work on Fuels crew in the winter after all, and finally hear about that maintenance job in Grand Lake - and well frankly my unemployment check will be pretty fat so NOT working doesn't sound all that bad! Thank the federal government for encouraging us to go on unemployment instead of giving us non-seasonal jobs and year round employment.

I know I never wrote my travelogue for my camping weekend, or how the shower or Michigan went... but I don't care, I've got more important things to do, like goof off with Tim and watch lots of football! Did I mention that I found a way to bring Bells Beer from Michigan to the Rockies? I made my mom stop to get a 6 pack of Oberon on our way to the airport, unsure of how exactly I would get glass bottles through the flight without being broken (since you can't carry-on liquids anymore)... And by the grace of God what did I see?? A lone mini-keg of Bell's, over 1.3 gallons of the best beer East of the Mississippi. It was the answer to all of my problems! I checked it into my luggage and hours later, it arrived at the Denver airport, still cold! I broke it out today as we watched the Eagles (Tim's favorite team) play a great game and then lose it in overtime... Oh, and did I mention Michigan walloped Notre Dame on Saturday? And that's Tim's other favorite team? I only rubbed it in a little bit. :)

And by the way, it snowed in Estes Park this weekend. It didn't stick in town, but it definately snowed and did stick up high. The wind was howling, the temperature was chilly... I love living in the mountains!

Mt. Shavano and Mt. Sneffels

I am super tired and can't properly write down about my awesome weekend with Tim hiking Mt. Shavano and Mt. Sneffels, and the great 4x4ing we did, and all that other good stuff... But a picture is worth a thousand words, and we have LOTS of photos.

The GPS thing he did for Backpacker was a success... with a little help of my techie-knowledge of course ;)... and I really can't remember a better weekend in recent history!

Anyway, getting well rested for the insanity and fun waiting for me back in Michigan tomorrow, so hopefully I'll update this in the next week??

I'm just posting almost ALL the pictures so if it's overkill, too bad. :P

Yeah, it was a little sketchy... I loved it, of course. ;)   We took this picture for you, Mom!

Bagging some 14ers this weekend...

Haven't been able to update, been busy and generally up to no good. Heh heh. ;)

I am going out to lunch with some family friends from back home, then packing up my camping gear and going down to Salida with Tim to hike some 14,000+ ft. peaks. He is doing a project for Backpacker Magazine involving GPSing 14ers, and I'm lucky enough to tag along. Should be a nice long weekend!

Masochistic?

Here's an article about that guy that fell 800 feet on Long's Peak that I did the SAR for on Saturday.

What did I get pierced? My tragus. Sounds naughty, don't it?

Photos of me at work, for the viewing pleasure of my dear family and friends who wonder if I'm full of s*** or if I really am as cool as I pretend to be. (ha ha sarcasm!)

Looking forward to my 3 day weekend. I guess one of the guys on Tim's trail crew got hit on the head with something not good (rock bar?? rock sledge??) and needed to be litter carried out? That's all the details I heard on the radio today. Hope that person is ok!

Now, time to shower and party! ;)

 

Me climbing a Ponderosa Pine at McGraw Ranch to remove some hazard limbs.

7 trees I felled in a nice neat row in the west side housing area.

My first search and rescue... Guess where I went??

I guess my weekend started out relatively normal. I took Tim to the airport Thursday night and was exhausted when I went in to work on Friday to work overtime with the fire crew. They lined me out with a fire pack and nomex, did the morning briefing, and then went off to do project work until maybe we got a smoke report to check out. I spent the day dragging MORE slash - up a steep slope and down the road - and it was pretty tiring. My hip flexors were pretty sore when I woke up, but no big deal, it was a good work out, right?? That night I went to the Rock Inn and met up with my friend Doug from the west side, who's kid's band was playing. It was fun just chilling out and we stayed out pretty late...

So I was tired again when I went into work overtime with the fire crew again on Saturday morning. Did our morning PT - ran a few miles, did a bunch of squats, lunges, push ups and sit ups... I haven't worked out in a while but no big deal, it was a good work out, right?? Just planned on doing more project work all day, maybe get some smoke reports... We've had tons of thunderstorms lately with lots of lightening, but it's rained so much the chances of us getting a fire are pretty low.

Around 10 am we heard chatter on the radio about a 26 yr old guy that was climbing Lamb's Slide (click for photo) on Long's Peak and had fallen 800 feet and needed to be rescued. 800 feet, and still consious?! Unbelieveable and damn lucky to be alive. The mountain was totally socked in - engulfed in thick fog to the point of preventing an aerial rescue - and it looked like the only way to get this guy out would be to hike up there and carry him down. Mike, one of the firefighters, and myself volunteered to help out with the SAR.

I had wanted to hike Long's Peak this weekend and thought it wasn't going to happen because I had to work, and because the weather has been so horrible...

And now here I was gearing up to do Long's FOR work in nasty weather. Funny how things work out sometimes.

We were told to bring enough gear to sleep on the mountain, so we loaded up on fleece and capilene, bivy sacks and MREs (nasty firefighter food) and soon I was on the Litter Team with rangers Tara, Katie and Bill, and Mike the firefighter. I told them I would probably be the slowest hiker, but they said it was no problem. Little did I know just how much slower I would be! The hike to Long's Peak is strenuous as it is, plus a heavy backpack and the fact that they hike SO FAST... We took a lot of short cuts, which made the distance less but the trail was steep and full of loose rock; it didn't take long for me to start falling back. This is the hike profile for Chasm Lake, which is right below where the man landed. Bill and Tara went ahead to set up the raft they were going to float across the lake so they could transport the victim to the storage cache. Katie, Mike and I kept plugging along, and they patiently waited up for me as I labored up the brutal steps above tree line. I felt bad but it wasn't a big deal - the "hasty team" was already up there and stabilizing the patient and there wasn't anything we could do for a while anyway. I think it took us about 1 hr 45 minutes or so to reach the storage cache, where we waited for futher instructions. They were still attempting to find a way to fly him off the mountain, but the weather was just too nasty. I couldn't even see my hiking party 20 feet in front of me at ALL. Soon, another party of 4 guys - 3 Marks and a Doug, which were rangers, a trails guy and a roads guy (all excellent hikers of course) - met up with us and we just sat tight until they were ready for us to assist with the litter carry.

They had stablized the guy and moved him from where he fell, because the whole time huge boulders were still rolling down the mountain. When we were finally told to continue hiking to the patient, it started lightening and thundering unlike anything I had ever heard before. The sky was totally fogged in and looking nasty, and the thunder echoed off the mountain as an earsplitting crack. Being on exposed rock during lightening is a bad idea but we had to get that guy down! Then, of course, it started hailing... and eventually turned into a constant rain that persisted through the rest of the rescue. Past the cache, the trail around the lake was just a jumble of skree and boulders, and I was exhausted so it was a little sketchy climbing across these rocks above the freezing cold lake. As we were nearing the end of the lake where they landed the raft (and the patient was a couple hundred feet above that, in the skree field), the weather finally broke for an instant and the helicopter pilot decided to give it a try. Soon, an orange helicopter flew up the valley, through the mountains, and landed on the skree field to whisk the guy away. Not much after the chopper departed, the fog closed back in. What a lucky man, to have survived the fall and then had that small window of opportunity to fly him off the mountain; otherwise, we would have had to hand carry him down, wasting valuable time.

We made it all the way there and did not end up carrying him down, but everybody thanked us for getting up there and being ready for the worst case scenario. The hike down was fast and wet, taking rocky short cuts and making the hike down in 1 hr 15 minutes with Mike, Mark and Mark. We had started up the trail around noon and I was back at the SAR cache at headquarters, turning my helmet, bivy sack and fleece back in at 6 pm... wet, tired but proud of myself for hanging in there and getting my ass up that mountain to rescue that poor guy.

I hadn't planned on staying at Tim's again while he was away, but I was beat so Dave and I went to the Rock Inn for some dinner. Another crazy chapter to my interesting weekend... I had only planned on one Guinness with dinner, but soon I found myself getting free drinks from the bartenders and other random drunk people! One older guy harassed Dave and I for not dancing and ended up buying us and Paul (maintenance guy) drinks because he felt bad for being obnoxious to us. He then hands us a purse and asks us to watch it while he dances with this blonde older lady. She comes over and is totally blitzed and buys us all drinks to thank us for watching her purse... and then decides she likes Dave more than this other guy and starts saying some NASTY stuff in his ear. Dave just laughs and doesn't even know WHAT to do, Paul and I are laughing at both of them... She starts hanging off some other guy and then comes back to Dave, trying to seduce him with her drunken lewd offers, saying she's "drunk, desperate and almost 40 years old"... She leaves the bar with some OTHER guy, but soon they come in, I guess she punched this guy?? And then started claiming HE punched her, which wasn't true... I just know she left and came back a couple more times, and eventually started harassing the bartender Michael, saying he was a loser for working at a bar in Estes and she was from Vegas and was "spending her rich husband's money" and her car is "worth three times more than you make in a year"... she was just OUT OF CONTROL! She asked Michael if he knew any big words because he was a loser and an idiot, and he said "INCARCERATED" and grabbed her car keys... she said "How about LOSER" and he walked out with her keys, she followed him...

And got handcuffs snapped on her by the cop right outside. They threw her in the back of the cop car and the whole bar was abuzz with all the drama that had just happened. At the Rock Inn! That doesn't happen there!! It was pretty funny and an interesting way to end the evening.

Today I slept and looked at German Shepherds and put down my rugs in my apartment finally... Not a very exciting day, which is excactly what I needed. Tried to get a new piercing today and new speakers for my truck, but alas it didn't happen. Tomorrow, I pick Tim up from the airport... so he can go to the backcountry again on Tuesday. :( 

So... I think it's bedtime now. It's been an exciting weekend and that's good enough for me! Here are some photos from my camera phone from the SAR.

I didn't make it to the peak, but I did get to the Diamond of Long's Peak after all!

 

This is the Chasm Lake storage cache, to get to the Lake we had to hike up the rocks behind it. On a normal day, you can see the Diamond of Long's Peak right behind it... In this photo, the fog had actually let up a little bit.

We were nearing the far end of the Lake when the helicopter had a chance to squeeze in when the weather broke. You can see the blue raft along the shore of Chasm Lake, and you can barely make out the small orange chopper in the middle of the snow fields. The guy had been up a chute that extends behind the ridge on the left, and came out where the left snowfield is. The carried him to an area on the right, just behind that ridge. That's where the helicopter landed.

The helicopter, loaded up with the patient and leaving over Chasm Lake.