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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/

A Little Video Action

On the way up to Silverthorne last Friday night I set my camera up to take a bunch of photos to make a time-lapse of heading up I-70. I threw it into a video/slideshow editor and came-out with this rough video; includes some nice ski/riding shots as well.

Let me know what you think via the comments section of this site:

http://www.vimeo.com/868566

Catching up!

Please be patient as I catch up with 2008, a couple skiing and climbing trip reports will be on the way!

Welcome

Welcome to my news section and my latest update to the website. Since I do a lot of outdoor activities and  I am always taking photos, my friends (you) are constantly hounding me to post up photos so they can have visual representation of how awesome they (pretend) to be. So hopefully i actually use this damn thing and provide the world with something a little more useful.

Enjoy!

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