Colorado is Fun

I've been in Colorado since Saturday (today is Wednesday). I spent several days hiking and biking with my friend Kana, who is currently working for the National Park Service at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. It's a beautiful place, as most places in Colorado are.

Right now I'm in Denver with the Rossi clan. Friday we head up to Steamboat Springs for a couple of nights, then on to Yellowstone for some camping and backpacking! I'm pretty excited about seeing Yellowstone for the first time.

Photos I posted are linked to in the headings below.

Enjoy!

Curecanti Creek Hike

Kana drives a Volkswagen Cabrio that has seen some pretty rough times but has somehow managed to survive several (almost) cross-country trips in the past few years. I took this photo from the back seat because the front passenger seat is in her bedroom. The seat was removed to make room for her mountain bike, which is named Roland. Roland is the older brother of our good friend Jeremy.

Everywhere we went for two days, I sat in the backseat. It's the closest I've ever come to feeling like I had a personal chauffeur. I'm not sure I can go back to driving myself around again. It just seems so. . . lowbrow.

Oh and we went for a nice hike.

Tomichi Route Hike

There are several "routes" (not trails, which are maintained, marked and generally considered safe) to the Gunnison River at the bottom of Black Canyon. We, not surprisingly, decided it would be a good idea to hike the Tomichi Route, about which we were adequately warned by Ranger Tom and which is described thusly by the NPS:

"This route is considered the steepest South Rim route and is very difficult. The entire length is loose rock and receives full sun exposure. Use extra caution while descending."

Extra caution entailed stopping every half hour or so to evaluate whether it was foolish of us to continue. Kana even noted that the steep, loose terrain was "testing her tolerance". If you know Kana, that's saying a lot. However, knowing that neither of us would let the other hear the end of it if we turned back (and Ranger Tom would give us hell), we continued onward. The prescribed descent time is 1.5 hours. It took us two hours. The prescribed ascent time is "triple the descent time", which would have taken us six hours. It took us two hours.

Part of the ascent was spent trying to figure out if we were following the same route. The picture above, which was taken on the descent for this very purpose, pointed us into the proper drainage when we got a bit mixed up. We emerged at the canyon rim looking like we'd been through hell and making comments about how the nature trail along the rim is a lot rougher than it appears.

Leadville

I had read about Leadville, CO in the context of several grueling long-distance runs and mountain bike rides that have brought some tourism to the once booming but now bust mining town. They're currently mining Molybdenum nearby, which is assigned atomic number 42 on the periodic table. Sadly, I don't have anything else to say about Leadville.

Grays-Torrey Hike

Colorado has 53 (58 on some lists) mountains with a summit elevation of 14,000 feet or higher ("Fourteeners" in the local parlance). We camped near the trailhead and hit the trail around 7:15am for a nine-mile roundtrip over Grays Peak and Torreys Peak. My first two fourteeners! I like this picture because of what it says and because of what it omits.

What it says: "Jimmy and Kana are the only people dumb enough to bring snowshoes on this hike." Also, "Why is Jimmy, who is from Texas and who skipped last winter entirely by spending it in Hawaii, in shorts and short sleeves while the locals are layered like a lasagna?"

What it doesn't say: "Jimmy's lungs have almost completely evaporated because he is not acclimated to the elevation."

While living in New England I hiked all 48 of the 4,000-foot mountains in New Hampshire. I may have found a new obsession.