Colorado- The Trip Out and Day 1

So here I am, it's 5:44 on a Sunday Morning in Dillon, CO using a 1 bar strength boot-legged Internet signal. We don't have cable TV so we live and die newswise through this little signal.

We left Friday at 1:20pm. The day at that point was going pretty well already (I had just gotten Pain Amusment Park for PS3, had some good basketball, got caught up at work, won an ebay auction for another PS3 game and got alot of work done around the house and the car packed.) We headed out for our journey to Omaha. As expected the nicest part of the trip was to the Wisconsin border, good weather, no traffic, etc. From Iowa on it rained. And harder and harder. Throw in about 15 stretches of construction and that was the drive. But all was not lost, got to hit the world's best burrito place in Des Moines, IA. (Bandit Burrito)

Got to Omaha at about 8:45 and we had a reservation at the Clarino hotel. Turns out it was a Clarion hotel that got dropped by Clarion so they just changed two letters around. Hilarious! And good night by 9:15.

Woke up at 5 as there were two summits waiting for us in Colorado. Driving through Nebraska and the first three hours of Colorado is bad. Satellite radio is nice though. We get about 80 miles out from Denver and see the mountains. Jess' first comment was, "looks like they are all covered in snow." I told her the rocks were just really gray as it is early September and that is usually the time with the least amount of snow. Of course getting closer and closer I got worried too. Yep snow, everywhere! We fueled up at a Subway and Super Target convinced it would be just a light dusting that would melt. We get to Idaho Springs to go up to Mount Evans. I never made it to the true summit last year when I rode my bike up (I was about a 200 feet hike away) so we wanted to make it up to Summit Lake and climb from there (2k vertical, class 2-3 scramble.) But we get to the road and it says it is closed. Stupid snow. But me being me I want to get up there some time this trip so I find the ranger station and find out the road was just opened an hour ago (not to the top, just to Summit Lake) and we should go. We get to Summit Lake and begin our hike. 3/10 of a mileup the road and then straight up a coulour (valley face) to the top. Except the snow drifts were so large we never found the trail (we went about a mile.) We could see Denver from where we were, it was insanely small (so small a blog photo wouldn't work.) So we head back to the car dissappointed. We do meet a couple however who inform us of an open trail to the summit. They tried and got about 1/3 of a mile (it's 2.5 miles each way) and turned around. Jess and I grabbed our cramp ons and were off. It was the hardest .6 miles I've ever walked. Clouds came rolling in and we decided that there was no way we could summit and make it back. And it was very unsafe. We wanted to hike a saddle to another summit from Evans as well but both were out of question on this day. We did get high enough (an extra 500 feet or up to over 13,3oo feet) and saw some excellent views.

The drive down was much better than my bike ride down. We didn't see any mountain goats but did see a couple marmots and some pika (alpine chipmunks.) We got back down pretty swiftly and then to our condo in Dillon. Of course we drove by the other three summits we wanted to hit as well and each had well over a foot of snow. I am still hoping to do one but the other two we can't even make it to the trailhead. Oh well they are mountains they will always be here! My car did hit 150,000 miles, I was hoping it would be in the Eisenhower tunnel but it was about 7 miles earlier instead (if I would've only rode my bike to work 2 more times.)

The disappointment of having to change our trip from summits to other things would not last long though as we headed for one of our favorite restaurants (Empire Burger) in Breckenridge. Breck had their whole Main Street shut down for Octoberfest and the drunks were out in full force. But we got in just before the rush and had a great meal. Jess had one of her top 3 nachos and I one of my top three burgers. Life was good. On the way out I caught this license place and thought of my boxer. He loves it when we leave as he gets to play all day at the kennel. Popeye I think isn't a fan though but oh well.

Today we are going to ride the Winter Park Bike Park. They just had crankworks there last month so it should be dialed (but chilly.) My new bike is ready to rock!!!