Down in Mexico – A Quick Trip Report
- Posted: June 19, 2011
- By: andylibrande
- In: Activity Categories, Mexico, Travel
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What: A week-long trip to Cabo San Lucas area in Mexico
Why: Because the US State Department says it is really dangerous (OMG!!!)
Who: Andrew Giamberardino, Whitney Hoover, Caitlin Shay, Andy Librande, Billy Papa G, and Erin
Real Reason for going: We heard there is tequila down there
How: We sold our organs to help pay for our trip there and back
Overview: This is the nuts and bolts of the trip listed mainly because I tend to over-exaggerate everything and routinely mix-up events. The photos are on the light side but more will be coming. I took 3,000 photos on the trip and these ones get the point across.
El Arco de Cabo San Lucas with Sand Under the Arch which only happens every few years:
Saturday Day 1: Arrive early afternoon to Cabo; the flight between DEN and LAX was amazing as we were in a little plane and had great views of the snow-capped mountains. Get stuff at CostCo which outside of the meat and the amazing juice nectar the prices were not that great. Arrive at the best resort in Cabo San Lucas with incredible views and no-one else around. Drink.
Billy and Erin at our Villa with Finisterra in the background:
Sunday Day 2: Pick-up Caitlin. Pick-up a ton of fruit, delicious pastries, and more tequila at the grocery store. Get lunch at Taco stand where we tried Corazon Asado among other delicacies…Very hot in the city. Drink. Eat at the Hacienda restruatrant for dinner (which is a part of the resort we stayed at). Drink some more.
Powerful waves on the Pacific side of Playa del Amor:
Monday Day 3: Beautiful morning Kayak to Finisterra (“Land’s End”) also home to Playa del Amor or Lover’s Beach. Almost get destroyed by a massive wave. Walked under El Arco de Cabo San Lucas (which one can only do every couple of years when the tides are low). Snorkel. Eat late lunch at some random place with good fish tacos. Sweat balls off walking around mexican part of Cabo. Enjoy refreshing Coke. Walked into the most hilarious and out of place indoor Shopping MallI have ever seen. Drink. Late night dinner at The Office on the beach. Drink a lot. Have fun in pool when we get back.
Caitlin with El Archo as a backdrop:
Sea Lion literally laying underneath El Archo:
Tuesday Day 4: One hour drive to the city of Todos Santos. See some awesome art, buy some unique pieces, enjoy the 15 degree cooler weather there. Eat fish/shrimp tacos in a small thatched roof restaurant. Drive home on a road that is under-construction (where we saw a construction truck fall-off the road earlier). Late Dinner at Mi Casa.
The plaza at Todos Santos bordered by the town’s mission:
Wednesday Day 5: Early morning walk on beach with Caitlin, see a 50+ fishing boats leave at the same time for start of a fishing competition exactly at 7am, hang out at resort pool, breakfast at Hacienda Restruatrant, struggle at Paddle-boarding due to large waves, lunch at Los Michancos where you buy the Carnitas by the Kilo (probably the best meal of the trip), hilarious negotiations when shopping, pack-up and head to La Casita at the Palmillas near San Jose del Cabo. Cook dinner there which was a massive amount of delicious ribs.
Caitlin enjoying the infinity pool at the Hacienda Resort in Cabo:
Thursday Day 6: Andy hangs around as not feeling well. Others go ATV’ing. Andrew/Whit go to the One and Only for dinner, Andy and Caitlin go downtown San Jose del Cabo for Thursday night art walk, drink free tequilas and mojitos at the numerous art galleries, ponder crazy art, and eat delicious dinner at Meson del Angel. Get lost on taxi ride home.
The group about to chow down on some home cooking:
Friday Day 7: See best sunrise of the trip (and one of the best in my life). Say goodbye to Erin and Billy. Hang-out at the pool at Club 96 as Andrew provides a tour for some travel agents. Drink more mojitos. Hang-out at Casita. Andrew/Whit get tanked. Andrew makes funny dolphin noises. Go to San Jose del Cabo and eat dinner at Tropicana.
Andy, Caitlin, Whitney and Andrew set the course at the Casita in San Jose del Cabo:
Saturday Day 8: Wake-up everyone really early for sunrise (6:15am) and get some great photos. Walk on beach one last time. Pack-up all of our stuff and start drinking. Drop Whitney at Club 96 and go into town for Tequila and final souvenirs. Hang-out at pool until 2:15, head back to casita and leave to airport at 3:00pm. See Jessica Alba on plane to LA. Awesome view flying out of cabo of the two different houses as well as Los Arcos. Arrive to LAX where after sitting for 10 mins decide we need to off-load at the back of the plane, get on a bus which proceeds to drive around the entire airport taking 15 mins, walk through a deserted section of the airport for 10 mins, go through customs, pick-up baggage, go through customs random check which takes another 15 mins, run to baggage re-check, go through security, wait for another bus to take us to the small ass American Airlines Eagle terminal, board plane at 8:29pm with departure time at 8:30pm. Very close. Arrive to rainy and cold Denver with some tall weeds in the front yard.
Andrew and Whitney with a intense early morning sunrise:
Sunday Day 1 Post Trip: Realized I took way too many photos.
Link to Part 2 of the Adventure that has photos of more pretty things (click here)
Castlewood Canyon Spring Climbing
- Posted: May 24, 2011
- By: andylibrande
- In: Colorado, Front Range, Rock
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Location: Castlewood Canyon State Park Colorado
Dates: 3/26, 4/8, 4/9, 4/15
In between powder sessions in the mountains, hail storms in Denver, and intense wind along the front range we have been taking advantage of the beautiful climbing opportunities at Castlewood.
We have had several sessions (love the afterwork sessions) at the Fontainebleau area of Castlewood with Caitlin coming pretty close to sending Rocket Ship. Here she is on the first day out with the new Organic Pad March 26th:
Jake leading with style at the C-Section wall at Castlewood on April 9th:
The elusive Rambo made an appearance and we worked on the Plate Rock South Face Arete in an after-work session on April 15th:
Rambo up high on the Plate Problem with all of the committing moves at the top:
Eying out the most intense crack climb at Castlewood. The South Sentry is a perfect crack formation with a undesirable landing on a small boulder that is nearly impossible to protect with only one spotter/photographer…Rambo got up in it but the next moves were a little dangerous for our situation (4/15/11):
The largest herd of deer I have ever seen at Castlewood and surprisingly they weren’t too spooked (3/26/11):
Full post here: http://andylibrande.com/news/2011/05/castlewood-canyon-spring-climbing/
Sick-Gnar Hidden Backcountry Spot
- Posted: May 02, 2011
- By: andylibrande
- In: Colorado, Random, Snow, Summit County/I-70 Area
- 0
Synopsis: We secured funding through a variety of grants to complete a quest that was so epic that the likes of Powder, Outside and other magazines were too scared to even cover this ground-breaking trek into the unknown.
Date of Ascent: February 19th, 2011
Expedition Team: Gathered from around the world each specialized in specific skills:
- Trent from Oklahoma. Specialty is eating spicy foods.
- Tweak from Virginia. Specialty is not picking up girls at the bar.
- Caitlin from Minnesota. Specialty is pretending to be blond.
- Bethany from lots of places. Specialty is dog handler.
- Arthur from England. Specialty is being English.
- Danielle pretending to be from England. Specialty is withstanding English humor.
- Mike from an unknown location. Specialty is surprising people.
- Andy from Colorado. Specialty is talking about how awesome he is.
Expedition Map (click for Larger): Below is the specialized satellite photo that we received from NASA of the basecamp. They were our only sponsors and provided us with instantaneous views of the changing weather, erupting volcanoes, and movements of the native (and extremely hostile!) tribes.
Interactive Expedition Map (click for Larger): http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=203858300141676234019.00049e9d29873c006d6dd&ll=39.628045,-106.077688&spn=0.006445,0.013733&t=e&z=17&ecpose=39.63537586,-106.07009034,3258.7,-141.401,61.105,0
Expedition Video: Brain Farm Cinema was on hand filming the expedition using a number of their highly specialized (and retardly expensive) cameras including the CineFlex. One of the crew members had to hike nearly 28,000 vertical feet with a 27 lb camera attached to their helmet to get this awesome POV footage.
Silverthorne Colorado Backcountry Gnar! from AndyLibrande on Vimeo.
Select Photos from the Expedition:
Skiing the Icy 70+degree couilor:
View of the vast untamed wilderness that surrounds this 45,000 ft peak:
On the twelfth day this Ferocious Beast (which I believe is a Yeti?) nearly killed every expedition member and managed to eat most of our dwindling supplies:
I hope all of you take this serious…
Link to Original Post: http://andylibrande.com/news/2011/05/sick-gnar-hidden-backcountry-spot/
A Day at Zuma
- Posted: April 28, 2011
- By: andylibrande
- In: Colorado, Snow, Summit County/I-70 Area
- 0
Most of the resort season just ended this past weekend (April 24th)with record breaking snowfall (Vail 524″). This huge amount of snow kept us mostly in or around the resorts and as a result had less backcountry skiing days then expected.
Regardless when we got out it was awesome.
A perfect day in Montezuma 2/27/2011 with Trent, Tweak, Caitlin and myself with no one around.
The Cornices were crazy that day and a number of the normal lines we were unable to do due to the potential danger of releasing one of those bad boys. Trent wanted to ski “Baby Notch” and the way in required some serious hacking to make the cornice doable (there has never been a cornice in this line for the last 3-4 years):
Caitlin picked out a sweet line that is rarely covered in snow. Here she is trying to get lined-up and making sure that small wind-lip is nothing to be worried about:
Caitlin going fast through the line and onto the open snow-field:
Tweak crushing it in “Little Chute”:
Days like this make this place the best.
Permalink: http://andylibrande.com/news/2011/04/a-day-at-zuma/
Random Snow Adventures
- Posted: April 10, 2011
- By: andylibrande
- In: Colorado, Snow, Summit County/I-70 Area
- 0
This snow-season has treated me pretty damn well. The season started off right with a full-blown powder day at Vail’s opening day…easily one of the best days I have ever skied Vail due to a combination of great powder everywhere, zero crowds, and so many runs that I couldn’t move the next day. Since then we have had a lot of snow and a lot of adventures. However I have lacked in my photos since I normally do not take my camera with me to the resorts/side-country.
Here is a sampling of what has taken place:
A-Basin Sidecountry Scott Miller Sequence:
Tweak eating some powder:
Matt (which is Evan and Monica’s kid) is killing it in the park this year:
Backyard shenanigans:
Big Air Competition Downtown Denver:
Pretty cool event but as with most ski competitions they get somewhat boring unless you are standing right there (ie on the side of a halfpipe or right where the landing is). The structure they built was fricking awesome and it would have been a lot of fun to be in the comp.
Luckily our buddy Brian hooked us up with a phenomenal viewing location on top of the Denver Post building that overlooks Civic Center park. Great spot to hang out with friends and see something new in Denver. Damn the post building is sick.
Crested Butte:
Had a crew of people meet up in Crested Butte for a weekend of great snow and our buddy Jake’s B-Day. It dumped all day on Saturday and we had bluebird all day sunday with loads of snow everywhere. I focused on riding all weekend so no camera patrol but had way too much fun at the best ski mountain and town in Colorado. Still in my opinion the best mountain town in Colorado (see what it is like in the summer)
Zuma:
Yes we had some good snow (and scary cornices) in Zuma. Here is just a taste of the usual awesomeness this place provides:
More Adventures to Come!!!
Link to full-post here: http://andylibrande.com/news/2011/04/random-snow-adventures/
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