A Few from Trent and Bethany’s Wedding
- Posted: December 30, 2010
- By: andylibrande
- In: Activity Categories, Colorado, Events & Parties, Summit County/I-70 Area
0
Date: September 18th, 2010
What: The wedding of our good friends: Trent and Bethany!!!
So three month’s later here are a couple of the better pics from the wedding night. Essentially just a sample of the nearly 400 photos that I took that night.
Congrats Trent and Bethany!!!
Jake and Annie:
Dan and Cara:
Ian and Brooke:
Caitlin, Annie, Liz:
A bunch of people:
Trent and Bethany’s first dance (under the stars non the less)!!!
Duncan, Ryan, Ilham, John:
Kate and Christian:
Rod and Maryann:
Some really creepy looking dude that crashed the party:
The next day Caitlin, Jake, Annie, and I all headed over to Minturn to do some bouldering in the aspen forests. Along the way we saw some of the best fall colors I have ever seen:
New England Trip and Bouldering
- Posted: November 11, 2010
- By: andylibrande
- In: New England, Rock, Travel
- 1
What: A Visit to Boston, MA and the surrounding climbing
When: Sept 25th – Oct 2nd, 2010 (Sat thru Sat)
Took a week off from work to meet up with Chris who has been living in Boston for just over a year. The goal was to visit a number of different bouldering areas while spending some time checking out Boston. It was the first time I have been to the East Coast and was looking forward to something completely new.
Immediately we had to check out the local spot. The day after I landed we headed to the Hammond Pond area in Newton which was less then 15 mins from Chris’s house. We went to a spot that Chris had not previously checked out, as the parking for the area is questionable, called the Temple Overhangs. Awesome hunk of rock hidden in the forest made out of a weird rock called puddingstone (resembling a slick castlewood rock).
Myself stretching the muscles after the flight:
Chris sending the Classic Reefer Madness:
Chris on the Traverse Problem:
Sweet shot Chris took of me getting spanked on the Reefer Madness start:
Shortly after this decent session a rainstorm moved in and spent Sunday Evening through Tuesday Evening slowly drizzling. The weather changed the plans which resulted in us spending a lot of quality time in exploring the sites and sounds of Boston. Ate a ridiculous amount of great Italian food, ran into a number of good characters, climbed indoors at Metro Rock (really fun gym), and saw a bunch of cool sites which was an unexpected plus.
Tuesday night was looking gloomy and we could only hope that the weather the next day might be good. Much to our surprise (and contradicting of the weather reports) we woke to sunny skies, the clouds quickly burned off, and the sun was nice and warm drying the rain quickly.
The drive to the legendary Pawtuckaway State Park Bouldering area was a nice drive. The closer we got the nicer the weather was getting and we were getting very excited for our visit. We finally pulled into the area a little after 11am (we had to save a turtle from the road on the way in) we hiked into the Round Pond area due to the guidebook recommending it for lots of sun.
The boulders were perfect. Nicely clustered on the top of a small hill overlooking a good-sized pond (would probably qualify for lake status in Colorado), we checked out any climb that was dry.
Myself not liking the starting crimps on this dyno problem:
There was this unique block that is tetering on-top of another much smaller boulder. Chris crushed the problem Atlas v5/6 repeatedly for photo ops and for fun. Really awesome to watch:
Spending enough time at Round Pond we decided to head over to the main event, the area called Boulder Natural. A insane cluster of granite blocks in every shape and size nestled deep in the forest along a small stream.
I spent a lot of time trying to spend the classic Hobbit Hole but the feet eluded me:
However this dyno right next door was way too much fun:
We ended the day with Chris trying to send one of the harder classic problems in the area, Terrorist. Chris was climbing extremely well this trip considering that he took a hiatus when he moved to Boston over a year ago…very impressive to watch:
Pawtuckaway was a really cool area and I wish we had more time/energy/supplies to continue to check out this awesome location and glad that we had such a full great day out there.
More rain moved in and we were beat after our intense 6.5 hrs of climbing at Pawtuckaway. However before the trip was up we spotted one last day to go climbing and raced a storm on a Friday morning down to Lincoln Woods in Rhode Island. After an hour drive we pulled into the park right at 10am and threw-down on as many problems as we could handle at the “Warm-up Wall” which has a number of quality problems.
Myself getting some of the more interesting moves on Cave Overhang:
Chris flashing Iron Cross (with the Sasquatch the spotter not being very attentive):
Chris trying this Dyno, right before a massive monsoon downpour hit us and we scrambled to pick up the various pieces of climbing equipment and expensive photo gear. 2.5 hrs after we got there we were rained out; turned out to be just enough time for a great last session.
Andy perfecting his Pizza pick-up skills:
Street Art by Bansky:
Windy in the City:
Damn good trip.
If you are following from a feed here is the original link: http://andylibrande.com/news/2010/11/new-england-trip-and-bouldering/
Backpacking in Lost Creek Wilderness
- Posted: October 18, 2010
- By: andylibrande
- In: Backpacking, Colorado, Front Range
- 0
When: September 10th-12th, 2010
Start: Goose Creek Trailhead, Lost Creek Wilderness
Destination: Shaft House Area
Caitlin and I decided to finally get in a backpacking trip just as the Fall colors were starting. We decided to check-out a place that my roommate was just a few days before us as the scenery looked just amazing.
We took off late on Friday and drove to the trail head as quick as possible (lets just say the Honda Civic tore-up the last 14 miles of dirt-road to the trail head) and arrived to the parking lot with the sun just about to set and darkness setting in really quickly.
We took off down the trail moving as quickly as possible to try to take advantage of the last glowing hints of evening sun, but we quickly found ourselves hiking in the dark. The trail is relatively easy with the first chunk of it on a smooth hillside just above the creek. At one point it does climb far above the valley and with the looming trees (and moonless night) we encountered some seriously dark hiking. Out comes the headlamps and what seems like an eternity of rolling trail we eventually got to the turn-off to the “Shaft House”.
Relieved that we finally hit the turn-off we hiked-up this new trail with no idea of where we would camp. In the pitch dark we occasionally smelled some campfire smoke, hear some bumps in the night, and eventually set-up behind a massive boulder. The sheer darkness and absolute stillness of the night made it challenging to get our bearings.
Morning was an unbelievable site. Huge granite rock-formations everywhere with thick forest and the beautiful fall colors just starting to show.
We hiked out to a overlook over a massive valley with an incredible array of large domes, massive boulders, and a creek wandering through the middle. With the help of some guys that were camped nearby we learned that it was possible to get all the way to the creek bottom. We scrambled all the way to the far stream in the picture below:
Attempting the get to the creek bottom was a major event in itself. With a significant amount of rock hopping and scrambling (sometimes over great exposure), we had to drop through chimney’s, climb over knife-edges, do some sketchy jumping over crevasses, all while trying to pick out which route would be possible. Awesome stuff!
Once we were at the stream we were rewarded with a Wild Raspberry Bush!!!:
Hanging out down at the stream-bed (ie Andy falling into the stream):
On the hike out we found a little more direct route but had to take this insanely sketchy, rusted-out ladder that was precariously perched between a couple boulders (not bolted into the rock), above a pretty gnarly ravine. Here Caitlin shows her discontentment with me taking photos instead of holding the ladder steady:
Once back to the top we had to relocate our campsite to this one with a phenomenal view of the valley around us. Then off for more exploring.
Caitlin at the old Shaft House (they actually tried to pump concrete into the ground to seal-up all of the rocks to form a reservoir where we hiked earlier in the day; luckily they failed):
We snagged a sweet spot from the guys we ran into previously. Our campsite had to be one of the most scenic locations I have ever slept:
We built a fire on top of the massive rock formation and hung out looking at the stars in a perfect moonless night:
Hiking out of our camping spot was fun. We were completely protected on all sides by rock cliffs, boulders, and tight squeezes. Here is what we had to do to get out of there:
We hiked out with minimal water (the filter was not working well) and towards the end the heat of the day caught-up to us and made the last climb out of the valley very hard. Once back to the car (which was in direct hot sunshine) we raced out of there and headed down the dirt-road to where the road went over the river; we desperately needed to cool off and clean off the grime!
The drive home was a little different as we stopped at Zoka’s for lunch (amazing as usual) and then headed towards Breckenridge over Kenosha and Hoosier Passes as Caitlin needed to go buy some skis on pro-form (she picked up some new Armada JJ’s!!!). The colors were starting to look real nice on both passes and the drive was well worth it.
If you are following from a feed please check out this post on http://andylibrande.com/news/
Bachelor Party in Camp Dick
- Posted: September 24, 2010
- By: andylibrande
- In: Camping, Colorado, Front Range, Rock
- 0
When: July 30th – July 31st, 2010
Where: Near the Camp Dick campground close to Lyons
Who: Ben, Andrew, Scott, Yours Truly, and Stranahan’s
Why: Well Ben decided to randomly get married on extreme short-notice so we had to throw a bachelor party on extreme short-notice.
Let’s get the elephant in the room a little explanation. Yes, we did have a bachelor party in a place called Camp Dick. Yes, it was just a bunch of dudes camping out together, drinking together, and reminiscing about the good ol’ days. And yes, it was a lot of, uhhh… fun….
We left Denver Friday night all jammed into Andrew’s SUV with several crash pads, gear, food, adult beverages, and four of us with the mission to give Ben a damn good evening/weekend. Luckily for us the drive to Camp Dick is just enough time to enjoy some beverages in the backseat and ramble on about how cool we all once were.
We get to Camp Dick and Andrew has to navigate the 4×4 road in his Ford SUV which was a little tight but we managed. We quickly found a awesome camping spot near the river and had a awesome boulder that we could sit on in the middle of the St Vrian river were we could cook and chill. Luckily I have been there a couple of times (documented here), so everything was pretty easy to figure out.
Morning was a little rough but here Scott and Ben discuss the merits of sleeping in a tent directly under a fallen tree:
We hit up the Bolt Boulder to try out our climbing skills the next day. Awesome high-ball boulder with easy access and a few really fun problems. Andrew getting high into the crux of the main easier problem there (crux is at the top):
Ben showing off his good looks:
There is a easier slab climb to the top which is much more sketchy when your hands are wet from the condensation on your beer and you have to use your teeth to hold the can:
We tried to convince Ben to eat this colorful friend:
Anyways congrats to Ben and Beth!!!
Great Sand Dunes Party!?!
- Posted: September 23, 2010
- By: andylibrande
- In: Camping, Colorado, National Parks, Southern Mountains, Travel
- 0
Where: Great Sand Dunes National Park
When: June 11-13, 2010
Who: Myself, Caitlin, meeting up with Trent, Bethany, Duncan, Cara, Dan, plus the dogs.
So this recap is a little late considering it is now September and this happened back in June. But I couldn’t leave out this trip from the records because it was ridiculous. Let’s start at the beginning and all the photos will be in chronological order just for sake of ease.
We all convened in the Pinyon Flats Campground Friday night on a relatively quick drive from Denver. It is Bethany’s B-day weekend but we were able to reserve only one campground that can’t have more then two tents and two cars; we were not about to let “the man” hold us down so we set-up camp under a beautiful clear night sky with 4 tents and 4 cars (as we were traveling from all over the state). Spirits were high that night we were excited for a awesome weekend on the dunes filled with glorious adventures and abundant amounts of fun. Let’s just say everything changed quickly…
About 2-3am was when we encountered our first challenge: insane winds!!!! We are in the sand dunes so that means where there is wind there is also flying sand; this is not just a little sand, but epic amounts of fine grain sand getting into every little crevice that it could find. Sleep quickly became a luxury as the wind and sand combo was blowing up tiny particles of sand underneath the rain fly and dropping down on us in the tent; it was literally raining sand.
Morning dawns…kinda. It’s cloudy, it’s windy, it’s kinda raining, we are sleep-deprived and it is really early so we do what any logical human being would do in that situation: drink. Out comes the Jack Daniels which we enjoyed alongside numerous fresh cherries and other breakfast goodies; let’s just say each one of us was focused on this activity with Olympic-like intensity.
Several hours later we decide it is time to go do something (not before we had a run-in with vigilante park ranger about the tent situation even though our tents combined took up less space then the tent cities some of the other campers had). We head over the the incredibly busy visitors center (cold, wind and tourons do not mix), which was fun because well, we were intoxicated. Then it was off to suffer on the dunes:
Hiking in wasn’t too bad, a little chilly and a lot windy:
Trent Catching some Air:
The others turned around because they have the dogs and the sand was really messing with their eyes, however Duncan, Caitlin and I keep venturing further. Bad idea as the wind was to out backs but hiking out the wind was in our faces . Right before we decide to turn around:
Luckily the group found an awesome out of wind bank along the river. Some of us caught up on the sleep we were missing:
The low-hanging cloud on the right is part of a small fire that was happening just miles from the campground:
After catching up on sleep (and starting our afternoon hang-over from all the morning drinking) we thought we would get out of the wind and sand and headed to Zapata Falls. Nice little short walk to some freezing cold water (in the deep canyon part ice was still lining the walls). Duncan trying not to fall:
The evening gave us some nice light and you can see how crazy the wind was:
Next morning we awoke to beautiful skies, no wind, and perfect temps. It was such a radical change it was hard to realize that it was the same place. Trent, Bethany, Caitlin and I all found a quite area away from other people and played in the creek, tried some sand-boarding, and just enjoyed the sun:
On the way out Caitlin and I took the scenic route up the San Luis valley eventually hitting up 285 for the ride home. While we were dealing with wind and a little rain in the sand dunes, the I-70 corridor was hit with a very late season snow-storm (most of the snow had already melted off of the peaks and we were sure glad we weren’t camping in that):
Now I can finally say I have been to the sand-dunes (even if I am still scraping sand out of my eyes 3 mos later)!
Backyard Bouldering Comp Results and Recap
- Posted: September 16, 2010
- By: andylibrande
- In: Climbing Wall, Events & Parties
- 1
The first ever Backyard Bouldering Competition was awesome. Thanks to all that came and made it such a success; for all those that could not make it I hope you have the opportunity to join us in future events (and yes after the success of this event there will have to be more!).
Here is a video of the event made as a stop-motion film from the ~600 photos that I took over the course of the evening. Sit back and enjoy:
Backyard Bouldering Comp 2010 from AndyLibrande on Vimeo.
Results:
Awards:
- Men’s 1st: Jake F. (and overall winner!)
- Men’s 2nd: Ben S.
- Men’s 3rd: Andy L.
- Women’s 1st: Caitlin S.
- Women’s 2nd: Whitney H.
- Women’s 3rd: Beth S.
Prizes:
- Best Costume: Jon J.
- Most Bonus Holds: Andrew G.
- Best Determination: Brian G.
- Best Moves: Jake F.
- Kegmeister: Andrew G.
- Midgets Unite!: Annie B.
Comp Recap:
Congrats to the above winners! This was the first time I had ever done anything like this and I believe the results were pretty sick. In the end we had 9 different routes all deploying a variety of moves from powerful traverses, to slopers, to balance/slab type problems. I learned quite a bit from the results and gained a ton of skill in terms of route-setting for a significant range of climbing abilities.
Thanks again for everyone that came and to all of those that helped with the party!
Comp Details:
For all of the specifics on the comp, prizes, and rules check out this page: http://andylibrande.com/news/2010/08/backyard-bouldering-competition-sept-4th-2010/
Select Photos from the Event (Please watch the video for a lot more action):
Who can forget about the 17lbs of pork that we smoked for 8 hrs and turned into the best carnitas tacos ever:
Prize winners:
Thanks for Coming!!!
Backyard Bouldering Competition – Sept 4th 2010
- Posted: August 04, 2010
- By: andylibrande
- In: Activity Categories, Climbing Wall, Events & Parties, Rock
- 4
Introducing the Backyard Bouldering Competition:
Party – BBQ – Climbing Competition
Saturday September 4th, 2010
Starting at 5:00pm
By Andy Librande Productions
A simple open competition taking place on the backyard wall at Andy Librande’s house. A keg of beer and a dinner buffet will be provided. Everyone and all ability types are welcomed and encouraged to attend. Please indicate that you are attending by leaving a comment below with your email address.
Close-up of the Climbing Wall Featuring Optimus Prime
Format:
- At least 10 climbing problems will be featured on the climbing wall and will range in difficulty from Easy to Hard
- Each problem will be given a set of Stars to rate its point value (and potential difficulty)
- Each competitor has at least two hours to attempt as many problems as they can with no limit on the number of tries
- Each competitor will share the wall with everyone else and take turns as necessary, time will go until everyone has climbed every problem or as attempted as many tries as seen fit by the overall judge
- Each competitor will keep track of their own scores throughout the competition
Cost:
- Entry Fee: $5 to cover beer, food and prizes
Scoring:
- Each problem will be given a set of Stars to rate its point value ranging from One Star to Four Stars
- Star rankings may hint at difficulty but are warranted more on quality of the climb. Therefore an easier but aesthetic problem may be worth more points than a harder contrived problem.
- Each attempt on a problem is worth a certain amount of points. Flash (sending problem 1st try) is worth the most. There will be no points awarded for problems that are not completed. However on select few climbs there may be “Bonus” awards that a competitor may earn if they reach a certain hold but do not complete the problem.
- A completion of the problem is considered when a competitor has complete control on the final hold. Grabbing a final hold and swinging out and not holding on will not count as a completed problem. Bonus holds count when the competitor at least has minimal grip on the hold with their hand; there are no bonus foot holds.
- Completion of a problem means that the competitor has climbed the problem clean. This means only using the appropriate hand and foot holds as dictated by the competition scorecard. Dragging your feet on the pads, accidently placing hands/feet on off-route problems/features, or hitting other competitors with any part of your body will be considered a “dab” and competitor will need to restart the climb.
Score Details:
| Star Ranking Grid and Scoring Points | ||||
| Flash | 2-3 Attempts | 4+ Attempts | Bonus Hold* | |
| 1 Star | 25 pts | 15 pts | 10 pts | 10 pts |
| 2 Star | 35 pts | 25 pts | 20 pts | 10 pts |
| 3 Star | 45 pts | 35 pts | 30 pts | 10 pts |
| 4 Star | 60 pts | 50 pts | 40 pts | 10 pts |
| *Bonus Hold only Counts when the problem is not sent by competitor | ||||
Awards and Prizes:
- Awards will be given to the top climbers with the highest scores.
- In an event of a tie the winner will be determined by a game of CLIMB (aka Horse in basketball). Where each climber will alternate in climbing a problem and then the other climber has to climb that problem or earn a letter.
- Awards will be for:
- 1st-3rd place for Men
- 1st-3rd place for Women
- Prizes will be abundant and attended to be light-hearted and will be decided by the Comp organizer (Andy Librande) or by popular vote:
- Best Costume: Competitor with the best outfit/costume/etc and earns at least 50 points. Popular Vote decision.
- Best Determination: Competitor that puts forth the best effort throughout the competition (does not mean climbs hardest). Comp Organizer decision.
- Most Bonus Holds: Competitor that attempts the most problems and gets the most bonus holds but does not fully complete the problem. Comp Organizer decision.
- Keg Stand Meister: Competitor that does at least a 15 second keg-stand and then flashes a Three or Four star problem.
- Midgets Unite: Competitor under 5’5” with the highest score.
- Awards and Prizes will range from Plaques to Gear to Cash Money
Preparation:
- The climbing wall is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week in my backyard. Let me know if you are coming by to climb at anytime. Pads are in the house and if you need them and I am not there I can let you know the keycode.
- Climbing wall will close several days before the comp to reset all of the problems for the competition.
The Wall:
- Read more about the climbing wall here: http://andylibrande.com/news/home-bouldering-wall/
Thank you and Please let me know if you have any questions!!!
– Andy
Teva Mountain Games 2010
- Posted: July 11, 2010
- By: andylibrande
- In: Colorado, Random, Rock, Summit County/I-70 Area
- 0
Teva Mountain Games
Spent a weekend hanging out at the Teva Mountain Games up in Vail June 5-6th with Caitlin and ran into a bunch of friends that were up there as well so it was a lot of fun (Andrew, Whitney, Ben, Beth, Terra). This is the second time I have been to the games (first time documented here), so it was good to be back to check out some of the fun events with highlights being the in-town Kayak events and the Bouldering competition; compared to the last time I went there the events were good but the timing of certain events overlapped while at other times there was a huge space of time where nothing was really going on. Regardless it is still an awesome event which everyone should check out.
The coolest part about the games was the water-levels on the Gore Creek running through town were just insane with the CFS nearing doubling during the day on Saturday (what I heard from 1700 CFS in the morning to nearly 3000 that night!). The water was so high on Sunday that they had to cancel the events mainly due to the huge amount of debris floating down-river. Anyways we were lucky to witness some pros hitting the creek that night at some of its highest flows on Sat night.
We literally watched full trees come down the river as it hit 20 year highs:
Here is a picture of how crazy flooded it was that afternoon (seriously up 3ft from the morning):
Watched the 3rd Annual World Bouldering Cup held in the US. Always fun to watch top climbers hitting a wall that is nice and tall. Also really cool to see how many people come and watch this event, easily the most watched event at the games.
Really cool features that they mounted to the climbing wall:
Bouldering at the Kluttergarden
On Sunday of that weekend hit up the beautiful Kluttergarden up near Red Cliff, CO. I had only been there once before (awesome trip documented here), so I was really excited to get back-up there again to play on these beautiful boulders.
We meet up with Terra and her roommate and the four of us enjoyed several different problems on just one boulder. The place was also insanely busy but everyone we ran into was pretty laid-back and we still had this boulder to ourselves for most of the day.
Here Caitlin sends a fun little variation that she found:
This climb I am working is on the same boulder and is a cool traverse with a hard lip to try to top-out on.
Then we headed back to vail for a late lunch and to clean-up all of the give-aways at all of the booths 🙂
If you are following from some sort of feed all of my posts can be found here: http://andylibrande.com/news/
Spring Climbing Fun
- Posted: July 06, 2010
- By: andylibrande
- In: Colorado, Front Range, Rock
- 0
Spring has been busy with a bunch of activities but just wanted to catch-up with some climbing updates and some other cool photos I may have taken.
Been spending a number of days up inThree Sisters park outside of Evergreen. I have been up to this park a number of times and there is just so many boulders to play on and the scenery never disappoints.
Here is a decent photo from a trip with Ben, Paige and Whitney (I spent more time nursing a hang-over then anything else). Here Whitney works on one of the larger blocks lying in this awesome pine forest:
A couple days were up at another section at Three Sisters where there is this awesome cave feature and a really clean, fun dyno block. Here Caitlin is in the cave:
Side perspective, great overhang and something unexpected in that area:
Here is the awesome dyno (well a photo of me on the launch holds, I was 6-10″ short):
We also had an awesome Friday Night climb session at the same place as the above photos with a big crew! Jake the redhead, Annie, Paige, Caitlin, myself and with a guest appearance from Terra made for a fun evening under beautiful spring weather. Here Jake crushes the Cave problem with speed:
Went to one of the best locations for a climbing competition held on the banks of the Boulder Reservoir. Battle at the Bubble was the comp and they had two of these amazing walls set-up outside with a big-screen projector and a huge amped-up crowd. Daniel Woods pulled together an insane finale move that sent the crowd into a frenzy that I cannot describe. Here is Angie Panye (2nd place) on one of the walls:
To wrap-up here is a cool photo I took of a storm passing through Denver from the top of the DU light-rail station:
Spring in Yellowstone
- Posted: June 16, 2010
- By: andylibrande
- In: Camping, Location Categories, National Parks, Travel, Wyoming
- 0
Where: Yellowstone National Park
When: Friday May 28th – Monday May 31st, 2010; aka Memorial Day Weekend
Who: Caitlin, Andy, thousands of Buffalo, some elk, grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, moose, antelope, and the most dangerous animal of them all: tourists.
Have you every heard of this place called Yellowstone? Because I never have and rightfully so as there is not much to do there. We happened to stumble upon it when we decided that we should drive North through that mostly empty piece of land above Colorado that some historic maps have listed as “Wyoming”.
While driving through this land we eventually landed in this weird place called Yellowstone, which apparently is somewhat famous as it is designated as a National Park (what-ever that means). So we decided to hang-out for a few days (mainly because we were sick of driving through that barren land north of Colorado).
So there is not much to see there which should be expected as it is in the middle of nowhere. Not sure if anyone should ever go to this place…
Not really that many bison roaming all over the park, hanging out on the road or on the trails where you would least expect them.
Or are is there any other wildlife like the herds of elk or Pronghorn Antelope.
Or are there any Grizzly bears taking down elk calves in plain site and proceeding to eat them.
And there are most certainly no Wolves hunting elk herds for their newly born calves.
Lastly the landscape is extremely boring as things such as geysers, springs, bubbling mud-pits, sulphur pits, or stunning mountains and valleys exist anywhere in this park.
Anyways if you want to see some horrible photos of probably the most boring place on earth, please read-on and don’t come crying to me when you are bored to death as I warned you fairly.
The Trip: Yellowstone over Memorial Day Weekend:
Our first Wildlife encounter was on the first evening where we went on our first short hike in Yellowstone (2/3rds mile). We went out around a small geyser basin (Mud Volcano basin) through some insanely wet rain/slush:
Out on this short hike in the wet rain/slush we rounded a corner on the trail right before our eyes was the first (and certainly not last) buffalo; Caitlin exclaimed “Is that a real one!?!”…why yes I believe that is a real one:
One advantage of really wet/slushy rain of the first evening was that the pesky Tourist animal was no-where to be seen. The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone Lower Falls which we enjoyed in complete solidarity for at least 20 mins:
Caitlin demonstrating the proper way to deploy Bear Pepper Spray when a bear, bison, chipmunk, moose, bighorn sheep, or RV decide that they will charge you and attempt to maul/gore/eat/cuddle/love/stomp you:
Saturday morning looked pretty much the Beach Vacation we were expecting (2 inches of Fresh!) the next morning near the Hayden Valley:
Damn tourists can’t walk down the road right:
Porcelain Basin near Norris Junction was insanely awesome:
Some really colorful Extremophiles found in the Porcelain Basin:
The Northern Lamar Valley after a fast moving rain storm (which is about 1,500 ft lower than were we camped and was significantly warmer), also known as the Serengeti of Yellowstone:
Momma and Baby Black Bear were hanging out giving the crowds a show (Near Tower):
Sunday Morning we were treated to some excellent GORE!!! Yogi the Grizzly Bear had chased down an delicious Elk Calf for breakfast and I was jealous as I hadn’t yet had my morning baby animal breakfast. Anyways we finally got a decent photo once he got-up and re-hydrated (but people with high-powered scopes helped us see closeups of the grizzly enjoying the various parts of an elk calf):
Then out of no-where some Wolves attacked a small herd of elk on the same hillside!!! Unfortunately they were hidden by a small hill and they would only pop-out occasionally and were running so quick it that I could not get a photo that was worth anything at all 🙁
Once our killing appetite was taken care of we went and checked out some more Geyser basins near Old-Faithful (Old-faithful was probably the least exciting part of the trip):
The very large Grand Prismatic Geyser from a good vantage point (there is a boardwalk to this geyser but since it is so large and hot all you can see is steam):
So we randomly went to this one small side road and got out of the car to wander around. There was a small group near this one geyser and out of no-where the thing started to erupt and was really sweet to watch it shoot about 25 ft into the air. The White Dome Geyser:
Sunday evening the skies cleared and we were treated to some excellent visual pleasure over the Hayden valley and Pelican Creek (just before sunset the temperature peaked at a whopping 54 degrees):
Monday morning we packed-up and headed out. There was some excellent viewage at Yellowstone Lake (which like most things we saw in the park was still frozen):
Then back in the car again and across that vast land of Wyoming…
Yee Haw!
If you are following from some sort of feed all of my posts can be found here: http://andylibrande.com/news/
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