Ice climbing and telemark skiing - Ouray and Durango

What an eventful past couple weeks!

I'm not in Alta, Utah, and I never went there at all. Tim and I are fighting and he went out there alone. I was sad and pissed but what's a girl to do but go out and have the time of her life?! My friend Kim invited me to head 6-7 hours southwest down to Ouray, CO to go on their annual ice climbing party. They got there last Wednesday, but I was dog sitting for my friend (a 7 month old brindle great dane puppy, he's bigger than Logan and SOOO sweet!) so I didn't know if I'd manage to get my depressed butt in gear and go down there. My friend ended up not needing me to watch Lhotse (the dog) on Friday so I decided last minute to pack up my telemark ski gear, cold weather clothing, and my dog to go meet up with Kim and her friends. The infamous Jim Detterline, known as the hardcore park ranger of Chuck Norris proportions, sets up the trip every year. I thought there were only going to be a handful of people; was I ever wrong! There were probably at least 25 people total, from all over the country that met up down there.

Since this was a last minute trip, I wasn't exactly sure what to do with Logan. The kennel up here in Estes raised their prices and an informal search online showed that it would be much cheaper to board him in Montrose, about 30 minutes north of Ouray. I dropped him off on Friday afternoon at the Montrose Veterinary Hospital and intended to drive back up to get him Monday, then drive down to Durango to visit my friend Maria. I arrived in Ouray 30-40 minutes later and was soon sitting around in the San Juan Chalet's Cabin with Kim, her friend Hobbs, and Hobbs' girlfriend Amy. It was a small 1 bedroom "cabin" with, thankfully, a very comfortable futon that Kim and I shared. It did have direct TV and a hot tub, but mental note: Don't stay here again. We had to ask for more towels and the girl that dropped them off gave me a dirty look and didn't say a word to me. The price was the same as a much nicer place, The Box Canyon Inn, which is where Detterline has always stayed for all the years they have been doing this trip. They even have a bunch of small, hot springs tubs out back, which our group (the only people at a different hotel) cheerfully walked the short distance between our Chalet and the Inn and clambered up the snowy steps to indulge. It was a full moon evening, without a cloud in the sky - always the best way to enjoy hot springs inthe cold winter! Another thing to keep in mind is that if you join the Ice Climbing club or something, you get 20% off a lot of the local hotels and sometimes a discount on food - always a nice perk!

From Ouray ice cli...

My second ice climb ever, at South Park

Kim, Hobbs, Amy and I woke up early on Saturday morning and met up with some of Kim's friends from another room - Chris, the pharmacist from Dallas; Jeff, the ER doc at the Estes Park Medical Center; Scott, who apparently works at the booth at Rocky Mt NP, though I've never seen him; and Norm, whom also works seasonally at the park. We walked from the Inn up the road to this narrow gash in the earth. I didn't realize that this was a man-made ice park, where water is sprayed like a continuous chain of waterfalls every night, turning the side of canyon into a long, extensive ice climbing heaven! It was pretty awesome, to say the least. We got to the "crampons and helmet required" point and everybody geared up. Of course, I'm poor and didn't want to rent anything... So everybody else had the standard plastic boots and climbing helmet, while I donned my plastic telemark boots (not nearly as rigid or as good, but it worked!), borrowed one-front-point (and dull) crampons from Detterline, and Kim's brand new insulated ski helmet. Everybody else had non-bulky soft-shell jackets, which I totally need to get when I can afford one; I had my huge snowboarding jacket and ski pants. In other words, I was the goofy looking newbie. :)

We hiked back to one of the farther sections of the canyon, called South Park. The guys set up all the top-ropes from the top of the canyon, while the rest of us hiked to the bottom of the canyon to climb. It was pretty busy, and looked almost like being at an indoor climbing gym. But we managed to set up 3 or 4 routes and everybody took turns climbing, belaying, and sitting around. It was pretty cold but not too bad (it had been windy, snowing and even colder the day previous). My very first experience ice climbing was at a short but very vertical route on the closer end of South Park, and two people set me up with a crash-course in ice climbing technique. I did have my own harness but I also had to borrow Kim's ice tools. It's quite a different experience with sharp pointy objects in both hand and both feet, and the possibility of falling ice is very real (which happened this year to Chris, but he didn't get messed up too bad). The told me how to swing and kick and away I went! And I did pretty darned good for never doing it before; at least, I surprised them with how quickly I did it. Yay! So I ended up being better at ice climbing then telemark skiing, that's for sure! I think I did 3 or 4 climbs all day, compared to the veterans, who did at least 7-8 climbs each. It was so much fun! Kim and I got tired and cold by 1 or 2 pm and left everybody early, opting instead to buy Bailey's and Jameson and drink Irish coffee while relaxing in our room and watching 3 hours of Medical Mysteries on Discovery Health. :)

We're tough!

That night we all met up at the Outlaw for dinner downtown, but this place is expensive!! And with a party of 20+, they tack on 18% gratuity... So I ordered my food at the bar while the majority of the party was later than expected. The baked garlic spread and the spinach dip were both really good, but I couldn't see myself spending $17 for pasta so I opted for chicken tenders from the Kiddie menu... and for $7, I probably had more food on my plate than those that spent more than triple the amount I did! I met some more of Detterline's friends, including an older guy named Steve that is at this moment in Argentina to climb some insanely high mountain. They're all hard-core climbers and some of them seem just about as nuts as Detterline himself - and I say that with much admiration. :)  Did I mention that Kim and her friend Philip - both of whom are currently completing med school - did a 3 hour tumor-removal surgery on one of his 20-something year old Copperhead, while it spit venom into a tube over it's head and was "anesthetized" by making a snow burrito around it and taping it down to acoffee table?? And the snake is still alive?? Yeah, they're all crazy. :)

After dinner, we went back to room 120 at the Inn (apparently where they stay every trip) and watched a Detterline Slide Show, showing ice climbs in all parts of the country. This too is apparently tradition. Afterwards we all just went to bed for another early morning of climbing; not too much partying or drinking going on with this crowd! The next morning (Sunday), Kim got up early but I was congested and didn't feel all that great, so I opted to sleep in. Hobbs and Amy decided to leave that afternoon instead of on Monday, so they just packed up and left. I finally made it out to the Schoolroom part of the ice park, where Kim, Norm, Jeff, Scott and Chris were already climbing. The ice here was different from South Park, and one route had a hanging ice "fang" that Scott and Chris were doing some crazy stuff on. My first climb here was longer than anything I had done at South Park, and it kicked my butt! I guess it's rated WI (water ice) 4, which is kindof hard for a beginner... but I made it to the top eventually, forearms burning! Norm led a route up another section and that was my 2nd and only other climb I did that day, and I did much much better on that one. i think it would make a huge difference having crampons with two, sharp front points like almost everybody else had. All the guys were very encouraging and supportive and took about a gazillion photos of me. :) We were done by around 4 pm and everybody was exhausted!

For dinner, our little group made burritos and watched Green Bay lose (boo! So, go New England I guess!!), then Kim and I were the only ones motivated enough to walk up the steps to the hot springs. Somehow the boys eventually got off their butts and 6 of us sat in a small, brand-new cedar hot spring tub and just let our muscles melt. The best thing for me is that even though my knee is still messed up, I could climb on it with no problems! But everything from my lats to my butt to my forearms and abs were so sore!

The tub started feeling a little too hot (I'd swear it was getting hotter!) so we all got out and were lazy until Detterline showed up to show an ice climbing video. After 20 minutes of all the boys trying to figure out how to make the VCR work, I decided to take care of it... and just grabbed the little "How to make the VCR work" instructions that were on the table and handed it to them. ;)  We watched some European dude do some crazy stuff on ice all over the world, and then it was bedtime.

Monday morning was when I was going to leave, Kim was leaving by noon, and everybody else was staying another day or two. I decided NOT to pick up Logan, because to drive back up to Montrose and then down the 2 hours to Durango would be silly. I said goodbye and headed down 550, over Red Mountain Pass - an awesome drive! Old mining structures and avalanche warnings everywhere. I met Maria at her cute Victorian home in Durango and we got dressed to immediately leave for Purgatory (now called "Durango Mountain Resort" but the locals still call it Purg), where Maria teaches snowboarding and was able to use a free pass for me. It would have been boring for her to hang out on the green runs while I try to learn how to tele, so to my pleasant surprise she decided to rent some tele equipment and learn with me! The runs at Purg are strange compared to Breck and those other resorts; the greens would be nice and mellow, but because of the stepped formation of the mountain, every once in a while we'd come across a steep part we had to zoom down. Which would be easy on a snowboard but when you're learning something new, it seems like you're going so fast!! But by the end of our 4 hour stint, we were both doing almost-real telemark turns and it was so much fun! Our quads, butts and knees were, once again sore (not to mention that my knees were black and blue from ice climbing!) and after a nice lettuce-wrap snack/dinner that Maria cooked up (pork, water chestnuts, ginger, bamboo and very messy!) we went over to the Trimble Hot Springs and paid our $13 to soak in their hot pool. We had it to ourselves for a little bit when we got there (around 7 or so) and we were sharing it with maybe 10 people by the time we left. Gosh it was sooooo needed by my aching body! I'm still sore today!

We went home around 9 and spent the next couple hours swapping music; hence, I am currently addicted to Brandi Carlile. :) In the morning, we completed my whirlwind visit by getting coffee, breakfast and using the bathroom - the pipes at Maria's froze AGAIN, poor thing! - downtown. It was a short visit but full of so much fun! Durango is definitely an awesome place full of activities for every season. Some day, I'll hopefully get down there to do some mountain biking!

Then I began the 8-9 hour drive back to Estes, going up 550 back past Ouray into Montrose to get the Log Dog. I didn't think about it at the time, but if we had gotten any snow, there were probably 2 mountain passes that would probably have closed and I wouldn't have been able to get to Montrose! In fact, as I went over Red Mountain Pass they had a rotary clearing about 200-300 ft of road that had been avalanched over. But I made it to Montrose, got my knucklehead dog, and drove back to Estes. What a great trip!

Then yesterday (Thursday), Kim took me for my first ski tour trip into the park. We just went to Nymph Lake, which I believe would be 3 miles round trip, and I needed to borrow her skins to get up to it from the Glacier Gorge parking lot. However, the skins wouldn't fit the tips of my skiis and had lost their adhesive! So we found some medical tape and tape both ends of them; then we ran out of that and taped it up with duct tape and crossed our fingers. Climbing steadily uphill, it was tiring and those skins added a lot of weight (not to mention the drag of the tape in the snow) to my skis, but we did make it there. Just in time too, as almost all of the tape had come apart on my skins - though the medical tape did amazing hold up better than the duct tape. We took the skins off and skied down the narrow trail - and snowplowing the whole way down was so tired, yet again, on my butt! There were a couple of times where I was going faster than I was comfortable and thought I was going to crash into a tree or rock, so I fell over. :)  Then, we had to herringbone up this short steep little bit, and I was just falling all over my own skis. It was pretty hilarious. For the most part though, it went really well! Though my knees are still sore from all that tele-ing down in Durango.

That's my latest adventure. I don't have any more exciting trips planned for the next couple months besides maybe skiing in Summit County and Eldora. My sink decided to welcome me home by once again freezing up; when I tried to run hot water to melt it, my pipes started leaking and then exploded all over the floor. I just threw down towels and went to the bar; I'm so NOT in the mood to deal with that kind of crap right now! The landlord is still trying to work something out, short of digging up the entire pipe. What a pain!

Tonight is the "Brrrr-grass Ball" at the Rock Inn and there should be a good band playing. I'm working on finishing a couple paintings for the Valentine's Day art fair at the Rock; the first one is the profile of a mountain lion. I'm not very far into it so we'll see if it turns out as well as the wolf painting. Anyway if anything else exciting happens I'll update; but I think it's about time I hibernate in a little ball in my thick down comforter and not wake up until April! ;)  I have put in for a few jobs here at the park, but I've also put in for some seasonal and term positions in Alaska... So once again, who knows where I will end up in this big beautiful world!

Mom's Orders

My mom is apparently sick of seeing that ear-mouse every time she checks my journal and requested that I update. I was waiting to see if my friends posted any photos yet from our Breckenridge trip, but alas they are slackers. ;)

So really, I have to get to the gym and am not feeling particularly conversational on here right now. Tim's home sick from work, he's so darned cute when he's sick. ;)  I just submitted an application to be on the fire crew here at Rocky this year; I'll only do it if I get a GS-05 position, but I am afraid I might only be qualified as a 4. We'll see. Otherwise, still gonna hope that maybe hazard tree will fly some more terms; or I'll go back to special projects and work on my construction skills at 13,000 ft. Who knows. Tim and I are still waiting for a few houses to open up in the park so we can move in together. His birthday was just on Monday so I surprised him with an ice cream cake at the Rock. We are supposed to be going to Alta, Utah in 2 weeks to go skiing but we'll see if I go. He's way way better than me obviously, since I'm just learning how to telemark and it's NOT easy, and I would hate to just sit around on the bunny hill by myself the whole time.

That's kindof how Breckenridge went. 18 people came out from Michigan and we rented that huge house. We'll just say with 18 people comes 18x the drama in some instances. :P  I tried to go out snowboarding and alas, my knee was still screwed up. I had to ride the chairlift back down to the bottom and just cried because I couldn't hang out with my friends! Tim spent more time with them than I did. I did realize I could miraculously telemark, except I don't know HOW to telemark and nobody else there does it. So I went out by myself at the nordic center and got used to having skiis on my feet (which was probably hilarious to most bystanders) and then one day Tim took me on the bunny hill to teach me basic skiing skills. He was so sweet and understanding, and stayed home with me one day so I wouldn't be sitting around all by myself, but I felt terrible that I was holding him back! Him and Amadeo hit it off pretty good, sounds like they were both sick skiers and hit the trees and bowls together. Then sad little me, with my new skiis and no idea how to telemark... Don't worry, I finally took a lesson last weekend. Not that I'm doing proper tele turns, that could take a year or so... but the basics are coming together! Apparently I'm doing pretty good considering I have NO skiing background whatsoever. Hey, they just seem like big ice skates when it comes down to it...?!?

I guess I should back up a bit. Christmas was delightfully lazy and uneventful. I think Tim and I sat around and did nothing but watch DVDs (Seinfeld, Netflix) for 4 days. I made a nice meal for X-mas eve and opened presents from each others' families. X-mas day, we opened our presents (I had tons because of my huge family, I felt like a little spoiled brat! ha ha) and Tim helped Logan open his gifts which was way too cute. Tim surprised me 100% and got me a nice snowboard/ski bag, a waterproof Pelican case for my camera, down North Face booties which are the only thing that has ever truly warmed my feet up!!, and other random stuff. I got him a nice Philadelphia Eagles Brian Westbrook throwback jersey that he had been drooling over (though I (and most people) think they yellow and pastel blue are kindof... weird), a sushi making kit including rice, wasabi powder, etc, a ski wax iron and tuning kit, and Seinfeld. It was excellent. :)  There are some rich people in town that sponsor a free turkey meal on X-mas day so Tim and I went to the restaurant, and it was pretty good!! And one of our friends (who is coincidentally from Michigan also) walked in as we sat down so us three ate together. Low key and good!

My friends came out on the 27th and we stayed until the 1st. New Years Eve, we didn't feel like dealing with the drama of 20 people going to the Breckenridge Brewery so I set up a  small sushi dinner plan and 6 of us broke away for a way too expensive meal at Mountain Flying Fish. The fish was excellent, but $17 for one roll... !!! And the service was not good, and not a lot of different rolls. I guess we got lucky though, because a lot of other restaurants were low/out of food since I-70 closed and their deliveries couldn't get through. Afterwards, everybody just met back up at the house and played drinking games and stayed up until 3 am. Much cheaper that way!

Here's our X-mas photos (yes Mom you've already seen them). Hopefully I'll have some Breck photos to post soon!

From X-mas 2008

More interesting and random news stories

I think it was Donna whom had told me that scientists could grow human ears on the backs of mice. Well, on this snowy Friday morning, I decided to look it up. Of course, she was right. Get a load of this:

Click on photo to read the article. And that was 5 years ago! So I got curious as to what else they were doing with mice nowadays.

Mice Growing Human Ovaries - yeah, just look at that photo. I'll blame my ovaries when I get fat. ;)

Mice with Human Brain Cells - don't worry, they didn't turn into Pinkey and the Brain.

Mice and hope for Muscular Dystrophy - very recent news

Genetically Engineered "Fearless" Mice snuggle with cats

 

And besides mice, here's some other interesting reading material:

Glow In the Dark Cloned Kitties! The pictures are pretty rad.

Grizzley-Polar Bear Hybrid - I think it's pretty cute!

Why Pregnant Women Don't Fall Over - but I'm clumsy so I'm sure I'd find a way

Trophy Hunting Male Polar Bears can be very bad - This is why I am anti-hunting for predator species in general... definitely anti-polar bear hunting

A Whale Takes an 800 Mile Trip up the Amazon River... and finally died. Bummer. But kudos to its pioneering spirit. ;)

Major Earthquake May Hit San Fran Next Year

Coffee May Protect Female Memory - at this rate you'd think I'd remember more? ;)

The Most Expensive Home Sale in America was, of course, here in Estes Park. Yuck.

A List of Happiest and Saddest States in this article. I don't know how much I believe it, because it says Michigan is happier than Colorado. But at least Michigan and Alaska are right next to eachother, so I know what I'm in for when I finally get there. ;)

And an Eel Powered X-mas Tree in Japan

And then here's something interesting - I doubt anybody remembers last year when Tim and I hiked those two fourteener mountains (Sneffles and Shavano) for Backpacker Magazine but they finally posted our routes that we mapped via GPS. Of course, Tim didn't give me any credit even though he had no idea how to use the damned thing! But really, it was all me. ;)  Here's Sneffles Route, and here's Shavano.

Finally got an X-mas tree... another living, 8 inch tall beauty from the grocery store... since I accidentally killed the one from last year. A little more snow today on the ground, but since I twisted me knee snowboarding last weekend, looks like I'm still grounded for another week or so. I did finally get my skis mounted and when I'm recovered, hopefully I'll be able to do some telemark skiing! Tim has a friend that works at the Alta Ski Resort in Utah, and it's skis only - no snowboards allowed! We might go out there in the end of January.

So I finally looked up what a certain IBM commercial has been touting - DNA ancestry tests. If I had an extra $100, I'd totally do it. You send in DNA via a cheek swab sample and the compare your DNA to see where your ancestors migrated from. It doesn't tell you who you ancestors were, so you won't see Grandpa Bob on there, but I think it's fascinating. Especially after how I head read an article that did the same test on some girl that may have been decended from "Amazon Women"... which were actually from Mongolian women or something. Complicated, so don't ask because I don't remember (guess I better step up the coffee intake). There's quite a few companies out there that do these DNA tests too. This one is themost expensive I've seen - $1000!! - and apparently scans for your probability of getting certain diseases. Just search for DNA ancestry test on yahoo and you'll find them. Most are $100-250.

Ok enough of this nonsense. It's time to hang stockings or something holiday-ish.

News, winter, etc

Lots of interesting stuff in the news lately. Mostly, not good. Colorado, like my sister Sue always told me, is full of psychos. Such as the dude that killed 4 people - 2 people at two different places - out of "religious revenge" or something of the like. Jeez. Then, there's the dude that died in an avalanche... on a day when there were warnings all over the freaking place about avalanches... and keep in mind this was "at least" his THIRD avalanche he had been caught in. Ok, maybe it sounds harsh but YOU SHOULD HAVE LEARNED THE FIRST 2 TIMES! Seriously. You can learn how to avoid avalanches, and how to HOPEFULLY survive them if you get caught. Most of the articles about this accident leave out the fact that this was his third avalanche he has been caught in. These things happen when you do dangerous stuff! Hey maybe someday something crappy will happen to me but maybe I'll figure out not to do it again if it happens 2 times. It does sounds like he was an extreme sports kindof guy though, and there's the theory that those people who are good at the extreme, die in the extreme... This is why I'm taking an avalanche course this winter!

Then there's global warming. Al Gore gets a share in the Nobel Peace Prize (told ya'll to watch "The Inconvenient Truth"!!!) but it doesn't stop the now blatantly obvious problem of the arctic melting - you know, all the stuff republicans told you wasn't happening. Also note that Colorado academia people are quoted in that.

Another, more local, bit of news - the ELK CULLING PROPOSAL of Rocky Mountain National Park. Jeez, it's about time. Nothing is killing those elk, including the hunters who seemed to have a darned time trying to find those beasts on public land. Of course, they're all over residential areas, and the golf course, and the field across from my house. Which drove Logan nuts of course. Something needs to be done! And I sure hope I get to be one of those "park employees" that gets to help out. And thank goodness they've found a way to donate the meat. Donating meat is a lot more expensive than you would think, given the requirements to test for Chronic Wasting Disease and then some requirement of USDA certified processing... Hey maybe if I'm lucky I can be considered the "needy" when I'm unemployed next year and get some elk meat! I didn't sit in on the meeting and the media screws up most everything they report on, so take that article for what you will.

From Winter '07-'08

I finally finished a very belated anniversary gift to Tim... a painting of two wolves running along the mountains under the aurora borealis. Here it is as best as I could photograph it...

Enough of the wind already! And Tim's 5 seconds of fame

Just hanging out at the coffee shop in Lyons while my truck is in the shop again. This time, it's a little more pricey than an oil change... all that new clean oil has been leaking all over Tim's driveway! A valve cover is leaking, so I'm looking at dropping all the money I made last week helping a tree climber remove 3 cottonwoods from downtown last week. Probably $300... Plus my catalytic converter is on it's way out... At least everything else is looking good, otherwise I'd probably throw the truck off a parking structure or roll a boulder over it like in those Toyota commercials. ;)  Hey, I'm now pushing 187k miles and really, my truck still kicks butt. Even though the cab smells like wet dog and has dog-nose smears all over the back windows!

Tim and I finally made it out for the first time this season to Summit county. He hadn't been skiing in 6 years, though it sounded like he was really freakin' good back when he lived in Maine. He was itchin' to try out his new AT skis and bindings, and of course he did awesome and blew me away on my snowboard. Though I did tear it up better than I thought I would. On our way out there at 7 am, it was raining all the way from Estes until the Eisenhower Tunnel. Once we got to the other side of the tunnel (which is at least a mile or two long), the snow flurries began, though blue sky peeked through. We went to Breckenridge and it was insanely busy, seeing as only 3 ski lifts were open. As the day went on, the flurries gave way to the snowstorm we had been hoping for! Even with a balaclava covering my face, it was bitter on my cheeks and nose as snow piled up on us just within the 5-10 minute rides up the ski lifts. The powder settled on the mountain and we went from having a good day, to having a great day! Ironically, as it snowed harder and visiblity was almost as poor as when my friends were out here last year during that huge storm, people opted to leave instead of staying to savor the fresh snow! Which was great for us, the lift lines went from a long wait, to walking right up and sitting right down. I did pretty well, though Tim was impressed by one particularly flashy spill I took. ;)  We were exhausted by 3:30 (mountain closes at 4:00) and slowly made our way on the icy roads to the brewery in Frisco, where we enjoyed a heaping plate of nachos.

 

"He's Mister White Christmas..." otherwise known as Frostybeard. Even strangers were wowed by his inpenetrable mat of facial hair. That's just from the ride up the ski lift, it was snowing so hard!

Fortunately, we didn't linger too long because the snow was still coming down. I think we left somewhere around 5:00 and it was already dark; the freeway wasn't too jammed at first... until we got closer to the tunnel. It took us 50 minutes or so just to get from Frisco to the tunnel. Trust me, I don't even think it should take 10-15 minutes. Just before we reached the tunnel, it just turned into a circus. The snow was coming down heavy, and it was a long uphill grade to just reach the tunnel. All of us in our Toyotas and Subarus were sitting pretty with our 4x4s. In that kind of weather, where pretty soon they would have probably closed I-70, you shouldn't even go out if you don't have the right vehicle. Especially when it's ALL UPHILL. So there were all these people with little cars that were doing ok, until traffic stopped. Going uphill. Guess what happened to so many people? They couldn't get going again! Their tires just spun on the ice, right in the middle of the lane. Left lane, right lane, middle lane. It was like playing a game of frogger trying to avoid these sitting ducks! Of course there were people stuck all over the place - not just little cars, but those arrogant 4x4 drivers. A lot of folks that were having problems were out of staters - Texas, California, etc. Then there were the jackasses that tailgated us. Ridiculous. And worst of all, which I sympathized with the most, were the truckers. It was mandatory tire chains for commercial vehicles, and these poor guys aren't out there in a snowstorm on I-70 because they were having a fun leisurely day on the slopes... they're just trying to do their job, and what happens? Even with chains on, they're spinning tires, going nowhere uphill. Huge semis, chains making sparks on the road... even saw a couple guys that broke their chains, one guy nearly jackknifing trying to get out of the middle of the freeway. I mean, you can always push a little car, but those guys weren't going anywhere!

Even though it took us over 3 hours to get home (after 9 pm), and it was a pain, it was also kindof exciting to finally get a snowstorm. By the time we were past Idaho springs, there wasn't even any snow on the ground! Amazing what the continental divide can do with those winter storms. We were 20 minutes from home going up the snow-free canyon on 36 when literally, snow just came down like a thick white curtain. Out of nowhere. It was so bizarre! And nearly a total white out. We crawled around the curves at 20-25 miles an hour at most. And then it just stopped after 15 minutes, with the stars bright and clear in the sky. Go figure. ;)

Sunday, just overall a disappointing day in football. Eagles, Lions... hmph. Yesterday, was possibly the worst winds yet this winter. I couldn't even take the dog for a walk, it was just horrible. It wasn't even that cold, it was just incessant, relentless gusts of rocks and dirt pounding into the house, my truck, my motorcycle... it absolutely shredded my motorcycle cover last week. It would be really great if a house opened up in the park with a garage so I could keep it indoors! (Tim's roomie is being a brat about me keeping it in their huge 2 car garage.) In fact, it was so windy that it was scaring the crap out of my dog, who clung to me in the most annoying way all day. He doesn't mind thunderstorms or anything like that, but that darned wind...!! It's actually supposed to get up to 65 degrees today down in Denver, but another windy day. So far it's not as bad as yesterday. Here's what the news has to say about it. If they were 93 mph at Berthoud Pass, it's very likely that it nearly reached that much in Estes. Looks like the entire country is having a hell of a time with weather!

Here's some more local news. Estes Park keeps building and building and expanding, and it's getting a little old. I mean, you can only grow so much when you're nestled in the mountains, but people are finally starting to say, enough is enough. The town wants to develop some land by the Stanley Hotel, where Stephen King wrote "The Shining" and where to movie is based upon (though the actual movie was shot in Oregon).

More importantly, Tim had to go on a Search and Rescue last week... actually, it was a body recovery. The high winds last week, in a very poor twist of fate, made a tree fall on a hiker at Wild Basin and killed him. It also hit his friend, but he lived and hiked out to get help. Here's an article about it. Brian the "biologist" who is quoted in the article, got the job that should have been mine. Not that he's not qualified... It just should have been mine, dammit! ;)  Of course the media tried to blame the dead tree on pine beetles, saying it was the first "indirect death associated with the beetles", but that was just media hype and it wasn't a beetle kill tree. And the "two other foresters" or whatever they said that cut up the tree? That was Tim and another trail worker. ;)  And here's a video that shows Tim carrying the litter out with the other rescuers. He's the guy on the closer side of the litter with the only red hardhat and his headlamp off in that still image of the video on that page with the article... and you can't miss the beard. ;)  They show him a couple times if you watch the whole thing.

And since the snow-bug has bit us, and it's a pain to drive out to Summit County, we are getting a hotel Friday night in Breckenridge so we can hit the slopes for two days this weekend. We got a great deal on a room so really, when you figure that it takes over half a tank of gas to get there and back, it's not really that much more money. At least I'd like to think so. :P