Travels and Vagabonds
Spring Adventures
Mid April there was a jam packed weekend of adventures, mountain biking and climbing. The whirlwind weekend was a lot of fun, but draining on both my mental and physical energy. Continue reading “Colorado Springs – Cheyenne Climbing/ Rampart Mt Biking”
Down in Eldo
The Sunday after snowcaving we headed to Eldo canyon for some relaxing climbing. It was a awesome day and I got some nice pictures of future climbs I hope to do. We headed up to the cartoon crag, which is a underused rock in Eldo, to practice more trad placement. Continue reading “Eldorado Canyon – Cartoon Crag”
Practice Gear
This weekend, the weather was good enough to make a trip up to Boulder to meet Ben for some world class trad climbing. Just south of the flatirons in Boulder is Eldorado Canyon, home to the mecca off climbing. My visit was brief, but I’m sure I’ll be back again soon after experiencing some great rock. Continue reading “Climbing in Eldorado Canyon”
Up to the First
Mr. Nick Fischer came out to Colorado for some fun activities and fine beer drinking. I only met up with him for a couple days but was still able to give him a good quick winter experience.
Shelf Road and Surrounding Area
For the long Labor Day weekend, everyone decided to do their own activities Friday and eventually meet up Saturday for some camping and climbing activities. In the morning, I aimed to go fishing at Skagway with some random gold mine stops. I stopped alongside the road outside of Victor and found some abandoned mines, I decided to get artsy with it and the following pictures ensued. Continue reading “Shelf Road Adventures”
Cheesman Canyon
In the middle of July, I felt the need to get out of the town of Colorado Springs and just relax in the middle of a stream. I mentioned this to Paul and Lindsey and they were game to go on an canyon adventure for the afternoon. I decided to try out Cheesman Canyon, which is right next to Deckers, Colorado. Cheesman is known for it world class fishing and it hearty population of Cutthroat trout. Continue reading “Cheesman Canyon”
One of the last weekends in July, everyone (Lindsey, Alison, Jimmy, Z, Dave and myself) finally had a flexible enough schedule for us all to climb Mount Lindsey (14,042 ft) together. Although the drive to the mountain was a great adventure on its own, we all were able to meet up at the same location around the same time (even though some left hours ahead of the others). The first dirt road was a lot of fun driving in at night. Not knowing how steep the dropoffs were or how deep the streams were added to the excitement. On a couple occasions, I needed to get out and wade though the water to make sure the Blazer would make it.
Continue reading “Mount Lindsey (14er)”
Exploring Moab
Wayback in the spring of 2009, Paul and I took a trip out to Moab, Utah to join Ben and Amanda on some desert adventures. The trip out to Utah from Colorado Springs was a very grueling drive, which caused us to make an emergency nap-stop in Fruta, Colorado on the top of a dinosaur mountain. Once crossing into Utah the next morning, we were greeted by the “Eagles on Highway” sign, which Ben had first hand experience with the previous night by almost running over one in the dead of night. Continue reading “Wayback Wednesday #2”
After Brewfest(around 8PM), we decided to camp for the night. So Dave led the drive into the Mountains to find somewhere to camp. We setup shop at the top of the cell-tower road overlooking the town of Ft. Collins. We hike several yards down into the woods and found a sweet spot. We immediately went to camp ‘readiness mode’. Dave setup the tents, the girls went about gathering a huge amount of firewood, and I “the master of fire” made of huge fire ring out of all the near by boulders. Within 15 Min’s camp was setup, a roaring fire was flickering about, and food was being cooked. We feasted, watched stars and passed out on a nice cool evening.
The next morning, we went to Vern’s Place for breakfast. Vern’s was an awesome restaurant. First of all, its first come first serve. There is no hostess to seat you. You have to rush and claim a table before someone else does. Secondly is the huge amount of stuffed dead animals on the wall. This look is exactly how I want my house to look like in the future. Third is the Vern’s Huge Famous Cinnamon rolls. These were the most delicious and ridiculous cinnamon rolls that I have ever eaten (sorry Dad, yours were semi-close). Each one was the size of a dinner plate. Vern’s Place looks like a hole in the wall from the 1930’s because it is and that’s what makes it awesome. It was built to support the workers constructing the nearby Horsetooth Reservoir.
After our pleasant breakfast, we took off to RMNP (Rocky Mountain Nation Park) because Dave and Katie, have never been. I suggested we do the quick driving tour of the park since it was Sunday and we eventually need to get back to COS. RMNP on the weekends is definably a tourist trap. Everyone is out to enjoy nature from the the comforts of their cars. Basically, RMNP allows people to see animals and majestic view with great ease.
On some of the pull overs, Dave and I came to the realization that it is great fun make other people’s mothers nervous. We did our best to be adventurous/bad influences to little kids that could only standby and watched us hop safety barriers, climbing on rock cliffs, and other sorts of tumultuous activities. It was great fun to hear the whispers of mothers saying to their kids, “now, don’t you ever, ever, ever do that.” But I think the kids saw how much more fun we were having and break their mothers wishes.
I also decided the traffic was becoming a problem on ridge road. So I built a snowman traffic cop in the center of the road to stop all the driving infractions. People seemed to not heed the snowman attempts at civil order, and instead decided to start taking picture with it. That snowman was terrible enforcing order.
RMNP is a great place to go if you want to check out what the Rocky Mtns are about, but only have a day to do so. Below are some more pictures from the trip.
