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

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:

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.

Southern Colorado Road Trip

Dates: Saturday June 14th – Monday June 16th

Miles Traveled: ~775 Miles (over just three days!)

Route: Sat: Denver to Durango (stay in Durango at our crazy cousin’s bed and breakfast), Sun: Parents start bike race, we head to Mesa Verde NP, then back through Durango over Molas pass to Silverton, over Red Mtn Pass to Ouray, then to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison for camping, Mon: Black canyon back to D-Town.

What the Hell Happened: This trip began as my parents had the crazy idea of riding their road-bikes from Durango to Breckenridge with Ride the Rockies and convinced me to drop them off for the race. So, my sister and I decided we make the best of it and explore parts of Southern Colorado, an idea which morphed into an excellent adventure.

Lizard checking out Molas Pass on the way to Silverton:

The Accomplice Checking out Molas Pass

Sunset over the Black Canyon:

Sunset over the Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Of course in true Andy style planning we pretty much started the trip with some ideas but no concrete agenda which allowed for us to just check out some cool spots without really worrying about time. After getting to Durango we stayed the night at our Cousin Al’s and his wife Emma Lou’s Bed and Breakfast http://www.lousbandb.com/. The next day the real journey began as the parentals set off on the bike ride and my sister and I headed out to Mesa Verde NP.

Mesa Verde is really cool to check out how this civilization lived and how they abandoned the cliffs; pretty interesting stuff and really crazy to see how fortified some of the dwellings are and how desperate their culture must have been at one time.

While there I had the pleasure of scaring the shit out of my sister when we did one of the tours and she had to first climb a 32 ft ladder to get into the Balcony House Dwelling and two 15 ft ladders (on a steep cliff face) to get out. She did not enjoy it too much, but I had a great time watching her…hehe.

At Mesa Verde:

Andy at the Spruce Tree Dwelling

After that we headed up and over the passes to Silverton where we hung out in the town. A little different then in winter when I visit that place. Taking the road up and over Red Mountain Pass was probably the most beautiful drive I have done in my life. The mountains were so lush it did not feel like we were in Colorado, instead it felt like a mix between amazon jungle and Siberian pine forest. The rivers were flowing at maximum and my picture taking skills just did not represent how gorgeous this place was at that time.

Our last major destination was the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, a huge chasm that cuts 2000ft deep into some of the hardest rock on earth. Here we camped out and spent a good chunk of the next day hiking and exploring this insane geological feature.

Lizard and Andy at the Black

Check out the photos for more goodies:

Teva Mountain Games 2008

Awesome! Had a lot of fun checking out the teva mountain games this year for the first time.  First off thanks to Ben (and technically his uncle) for a place to crash in Vail; sure made the difference.

Back to the story, the games are a lot like the Winter X-Games which I have attended on several occasions, except everyone here seemed a lot more laid-back and chill. I was able to see several events such as kayaking freestyle, biking slopestyle, biking freeride, speed bouldering, a free Ozomatli concert, and lastly the Bouldering World Championships.

Rarely does something like the Bouldering World Championships happen on US soil and especially in Colorado. This is the second Climbing World Champioship to ever happen in the US and the first bouldering style comp; the last championship in the US was 18 years ago!

Therefore this is a pretty significant event and one that anyone slightly interested in should have attended. The format to the comp was actually a lot of fun as the semi-finals move along at a nice speed with lots of action happening all the time. We were with several people who do not really climb and they all enjoyed the event very much.

The finals were straight-up a very unique experience and quite insane to see. First off the official report was that 7,500 people were there at the finals (which I thought there was a good 4-5K), so just full of people that were all really getting into the show. The massive crowd combined with a beautiful mountain sunset in one of the most beautiful spots there is, made the comp just that much better.

Well enough talking, I am going to post the photos in a new manner. Please let me know if you like this way via the comments sections.

I didn’t really do a good job taking photos as I was more into watching the games and being a snapshooter, however check out these awesome photos from that weekend: http://tevamountaingames.com/ev_photo.cfm

Also for the climbing results check out: http://www.climbing.com/news/hotflashes/alex_johnson_wins_vail_world_cup/

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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