Zuma 2.22.09

Note: Undergoing some changes to the site, if you notice anything wacky please leave a comment or send me a note.

Date: Feb 22nd, 2009

So the day after skiing with Tim Spano and crew we went back to Zuma for a little more action. While the snow was not the greatest we still sent some pretty sick lines.

Evan put down a line in the Washout area that is one of the steepest lines possible at Zuma. When looking at the slides #19-22, the duration of time is less then a second and the speed generated from that initial turn was pretty insane to watch. I was standing out on a cliff point and apparently need to re-shoot the line to give a better perspective of the sheer size of the line. The last slide (#27) shows most of the line and the three turns over 700-800 ft of vert.
Enjoy the slides:

Click here for larger photos: http://andylibrande.com/slideshows/Zuma_2.22.09/index.html

Special Edition of Zuma

Date of Action: February 21st, 2009

Location: Deer Creek Valley, Montezuma, Colorado

Culprits: Myself, Trent, Tweak, Scott, Tim, Sabrina

The long lost Tim Spano meandered his way back on an apparent epic journey back to the land of the free, hot-dogs, PBR, and of course snow. Finally got to spend some time skiing Zuma with him and his gf Sabrina which turned out to be a pretty good day on a couple of fresh inches.

Anyways here is a collection of the photos from that day in easy to use slideshow format!!! Let me know what you think of the format via the comments (or if you are lucky enough to socially interact with me you could tell me at that time as well), I have also included a few of the better photos for download at the bottom as well.

Thanks to Sabrina for taking good photos while I was skiing!!!!

Bigger size located out here: http://andylibrande.com/slideshows/Zuma_2.21.09/index.html

Random Items of Interest

This is a first. Normally I only post stuff that is directly related to some activity that I did or was a part of; however it has come to my attention that sometimes great internet finds need to be shared with the larger audience.

Therefore I present to you the new, but infrequent “Random Items of Interest”. I promise I will try to keep it on topic about outdoors and what-not; however if you know me you know I always bring in about four hundred unrelated topics to try to describe a situation. So we will see where this goes:

#1 Item today:Matt Holden in Backcountry Magazine:

#2: Collection of Recent Badass Ski Trip Reports by People I Don’t Know:

#3: Collection of Some Amazing Photography Found on the Web:

Well that is all for now. Please let me know if anything here was worth the look or if you find anything else and I can post it up.

With that I leave you some more visual and auditory pleasure(?) (follow link for full HD version)


Cut Chemist – 1st Big Break from eyestorm on Vimeo.

Time for Some Snow

Winter has been treating Colorado well lately, you know 60 degree temps in Denver while it continues to snow in the high-country…can’t really complain.

Finally had a chance to get out there and ski Montezuma again (been 8 months!!!) and luckily for us the mountain gods were kind enough to give us perfect snow, amazing weather, and some damn-fine lines.

Date: January 17th, 2009

Location: Deer Creek Valley, Montezuma, Colorado

Crew: Trent, Evan, Matt, and myself

Trent dropping into the Steeps (2nd line of the day):

Trent Dropping into the Steeps

Evan on the first line of the day (approx time 9:30 am):

Myself (lookers left) and Matt (right) eyeing our respective virgin lines:

Trent dropping in via “Baby Notch”, him and Evan both had to crawl into the chute to hit this line:

Evan did essentially the same line and Trent took some video of it.

Check out the VIDEO here: http://www.bcbhc.com/albums/Jan182009/BabyNotch_Evan_1172009.wmv

Tweak slaying a bad-ass line:

Myself getting some easy pow turns on the first run of the day:

Reflections on Zuma:

Reflections

Check out more photos in the gallery thing:

Photo Gallery May 2008-October 2008

Check a summary of my decent photos from the last few months here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2073841&l=17ead&id=20202675

Most of them you should be familiar with…just conveniently located in one spot.

enjoy

Elevenmile Canyon

When: October 4-5th, 2008

Spent a chilly but beautiful weekend camping with Rambo, Chris and Page down in Elevenmile Canyon, which is a little bit outside of Colorado Springs. Really sweet place, while we didn’t have a whole lot of time there, but we covered a fair amount of ground.

The canyon is awesome as it is where the South Platte flows from a dam so the river is running full even at this time of the year. The area has a large amount of trad, sport, and boulder routes as well some sweet fishing. Anyways tried to take some shots but didn’t do a whole lot of photographing, but here is what did take place.

Here is some bouldering on the first night after we cooked dinner:

Spillway Campground A: Dragon’s Head Boulder

Spillway Campground Boulders- Dragon's Head

Anyways spent the first day doing a couple trad climbs with Rambo; hilarious since it has been a few years since I have climbed trad and Rambo has been doing it 3x a week all summer on long Red Rocks climbs in Nevada. Anyways good to mix up the climbing and do something a little different.

Enjoyed a good campfire with a special treat of smores:

Campfire- will have an awesome video soon

Spent the next day trying to get to the Murray boulders without success due to the cold river crossing. Instead headed-up to a really sweet boulder.

Side view of the Spray Wall Boulder:

Underside of Spray Boulder

Crazy Problem on the side of the Spray Boulder. Has quite the crazy landing as it is all downhill and there is a dynamic move a few moves up.

Side of Spray Boulder

Another view to give you a sense of its size:

Side of Spray Boulder

Rambo gearing-up for a overhang crack:

Rambo gearing-up

Shot from above the Spillway campground:

Spillway

Sasquatch and Beans:

Sasquatch and Beans wreacking havoc

Rambo (me trying to belay and shoot…ha):

Rambo leading

Definitely check this place out.

More Details: http://mountainproject.com/

Attack of the Flying Frenchman…

BEWARE!!!

The Flying Frenchman in all of his glory

*Well not technically french, more of a dirt-bag with a mustache that airs of superiority while subtlety saying “please be quiet as I sit in my bourgeoisie-cafe sipping my espresso while I comment on all of your imperfections”

So that flying Frenchman is RAMBO who happened to take some time off from his nomadic lifestyle to hang-out in Colorado for a couple weeks.

We took a crew to the Corridor area (September 28th) at Castlewood for some fun problems with nice flat landings.

Here is Ben working on one of the many problems we did that day:

Ben

Andrew working on one of the dyno problems:

Andrew

Rambo showing us a better view of the area:

Rambo

Ben…doing what he does best. Has the jump height for the dyno, has his hand on the hold in the perfect spot, is looking right at the hold, forgetting to actually hold-on (x4):

Ben...almost...well maybe...

We also climbed at the creek boulders for our warm-up (fun little cluster right next to Cherry Creek). Rambo working on a sharp problem:

Rambo...creek problems

More Pics (plus the ones already included in the post):

Coming back from the depths…

Well first off I have not posted anything for way too long which is a combination of a variety of issues that caused this delay. Regardless of the issues I am going to catch-up as quickly as possible by posting nothing but pics and very short-dialogue.

Chris works hard on Ghost Dance at the Millenium Boulder: http://mountainproject.com/v/colorado/morrisonevergeen/matthewswinters_park/105759288

Ghost Dance

At the very end of a really hot day and after throwing himself at the rock way too many times, Chris sends and I took a real nice butt shot since he needed me as a spotter:

Took some time off from climbing and taking photos in general. Why? you might ask…well August and the beginning of September were way too busy. I bought a house, moved, was healing a tendon injury, and was occupied doing to much other random stuff.

Somewhere in there I made the little sister go to castlewood with me and here is evidence of her attempting to climb with big-ass sneakers:

Anyways that is quick and necessary catch-up over the last few months. We are coming-up to the best time of the year to be outside and I already have lots of photos awaiting their presence on the interweb.

Playing in the Aspens: Kluttergarden Bouldering

Feast on this set of photos I got last weekend at the Kluttergarden Bouldering area near Red Cliff and Minturn. First off any one of any level should go bouldering at this place. It is located in a beautiful forest that is a perfect blend of Aspen trees and lodgepole pines. The boulders are all closely clustered with enough space to let various groups spread out over the area and the approach to all of these climbs are literally minutes from the parking area.

Chris working one of many of the area classics, the Minturn Mile:

Minturn Mile

Me working on one of many problems the area has:

On the drive-up the most apparent thing is how jacked up Colorado forests are due to the Pine Beetle, couldn’t believe how much forest is messed-up around summit county; guess you don’t notice it in the winter. Here is a good article on it: http://www.newsweek.com/id/148297

Also a big thanks to Page and Chris for letting me stay up at the condo that they got for the weekend in Beaver Creek!!! Not much beats waking up to a perfect morning to the sounds of a decent sized creek and then going for a swim in the outdoor pool/hottub.  Follow that up with some fly-fishing along the Eagle River. Perfecto…

We threw ourselves at a bunch of problems with some good sendage; good thing the locals had some benches for us to rest upon:

The benches at the Minturn boulder

Vedauwoo Bouldering at Citadel

Headed up to a place I have been wanting to check out for a long time the other weekend. Vedauwoo is best know for its off-width trad climbing, however I have seen enough photos on the interwebz to know that the bouldering there appears to be pretty amazing.

Falling off of this slabby boulder

Luckily we confirmed that finally and went to the Citadel region which has over 100 problems listed in the guidebook and the majority of them are moderate to hard. Lots of fun stuff, the only issue we had was the heat and the greasy rocks which added some serious difficulties to all of the problems (especially the slab problems). This is definitely a place that I will come back to a lot of continue to check it out; there is a serious abundance of rock and being just outside of Cheyenne, it makes it pretty easy to get to.

Chris approving of the endless amounts of rock

Chris approving of the endless amounts of rock

Anyways check out the pics, I have them in another new gallery format and would like your feedback and if you like this way or if the photos under the previous posts work better.

peace.

Welcome:

Based in Colorado I spend as much free time as possible exploring various aspects of the outdoors. Everything on this blog is kept tightly categorized in the top links (ie "Blog Post Categories"). I only post about once a month and try to make each post interesting and useful. If you like something or have a question please leave a comment.

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