RIP 2005-2010

There has not been a single piece of equipment that has ever defined my outdoor experience as my last snowboard did. Throughout my life I have always viewed all outdoor gear as a good tool, a piece of equipment that assists in outdoor explorations, and I have only focused on using high-quality tools that will last. Over the past five years of adventures I have been through an enormous amount of snow gear; four jackets, three pairs of snowboard pants, two snow backpacks, two pairs of boots, and countless base layers, goggles, and gloves. However I have only had one snowboard.

Almost five years ago I purchased the Palmer Honeycomb snowboard. At that point in my life I had just started to really experience snowboarding and this snowboard helped propel me into the rider that I am today. From the deep powder days in Jackson Hole, to the glorious backcountry days throughout the Rocky Mountains, to the backyard kickers in friends yards, to the aggressive big mountain lines in remote areas, this board has been the single piece of equipment to carry me through it all.

For almost five years and well over 120 days of riding, this board had stood the test of time. Everything I threw at this board it withheld. Numerous deep core-shots were easily fixed, the sidewalls were strong as ever, and outside of some minor wear and tear it never slowed-down.

Based on the incredibly solid build of the board I always thought that I would have it forever. Therefore it was only fitting that the last day of my board was on the first bottomless inbounds powder day of a very dismal season. Much better for the legacy to abruptly end then slowly fad into memory as the backup board. Abruptly it did end as I misgauged a pillow and dug the tip which catapulted me forward into the deep snow. Unharmed, I stood and took my first turn and immediately fell and noticed that the entire front end of the board had snapped in two. This was the end of the legacy, and as I spent the next hour making my way down to the base area, I could not feel anything but joy as I reminisced about all the good times this board had brought me and helped define my life.

Hopefully I will cross paths with another board of this caliber, however at this moment I am grateful that this piece of equipment lasted as long as it did.

Thank you Palmer for making a quality board and I leave all of you with a few of the moments that defined me over the past five seasons.

(pics of broken board will be posted shortly)

Happy Holidays and here is to the hope that this snow becomes strong for another awesome season. Thanks to everyone for the adventures over the past year and look forward to the crazy stuff that we will come-up with in 2010!

Just enjoying the snow as much as possible:

Where: Moab, Utah

When: November 6th-8th

Who: Caitlin, Andrew Giamberardino, Whitney Hoover, Ben Strauss, Scott Miller, Paige Powers and Myself

Weather: Low 70′s during the day with a steady light breeze and mid 40′s overnight; in other words, Perfect

On extreme short-notice a group gathered to go down to Moab to do a little camping, biking, and climbing. We all left Denver around 7:00pm on the Friday night and ended-up hitting the campground just after midnight. Luckily we found a couple of sites just down from the Big Bend campground and set-up for the night.

We woke up early the next morning, made a quick breakfast and after getting a few rental bikes headed to the infamous Slickrock trail. On a side-note I have been to Moab on at least 6 trips but I have never gone mountain biking, so I was really stoked to finally get out and do something really cool.

Pulling into the Slickrock parking lot I realized why coming to Moab in November was so utterly awesome; this massive parking lot is usually overflowing down the road and this time only about a quarter of all the spots were taken.

We spent the rest of the day out on the Slick-rock trail enjoying the slight breeze and moderate weather; the views were also amazing with a light layer of snow on the La Sal mountains to the East and views of fall foliage all along the river-banks below us. The trail was more enjoyable and a lot more difficult then I anticipated and glad to finally tick it off of the list. Also the 7 person crew was a lot of fun and were able to enjoy large stretches of the trail just by ourselves.

Map of the Slick-rock Trail.

Biking Shots on the Slickrock trail:

Scott hitting up one of the wild switch-backs on the first part of the trail:

Andrew, Ben, and Whitney doing one of the really fun downhill sections with some of the better views of the trail:

Scott and Paige:

Caitlin and Me in front of the snow covered La Sal Mtns (almost done with the loop section):

The only small issue with Moab in November is that the sun is set by 5:30pm so it takes a few hours off of the day. Not too big of a deal as we ate some delicious Chili Whitney cooked up, sat around the fire, ate some s’mores and made fun of each other.

Here is a 12 minute exposure of the Milky Way from our campsite taken at 7:20pm. The stars were unbelievable and then sometime after midnight the moon rose with some really intense light.

The next morning some group shots at the camp-site:

And one of Caitlin:

Then myself, Paige and Caitlin walked over to the Big Bend boulders and had a fun day. Caitlin sending a nice tall problem:

Working on another right next to the road. This one had really cool crimpy pockets and an awesome finishing lip:

Awesome random weekend. It will be hard to ever go to Moab any other time of the year.

Where: Collegiate Peaks outside of Buena Vista Colorado. Specially on the trail that headed North off of the top of Cottonwood Pass on the South Texas Creek trail.

When: 9/29/09- 10/1/09

Who: The old man and me

It had been a few years since me and my old man had gone backpacking together which has always been a favorite pastime for both of us since I was old enough to carry a pack. With short-notice and very quick planning we targeted a few days at the end of September that appeared would hold for weather and provide us with some good fall viewing potential.

Having backpacked pretty extensively in the Collegiate Peaks I picked a trail that we had not done and appeared to be unique as it started at the top of Cottonwood pass, wound all the way down to Texas Creek, and then looped around back to the top of cottonwood pass. With everything set we planned on doing three days with two over-nights on the trail.

After parking at the top of Cottonwood we started on the trail. Here is the official starting point of the trail with some glorious peaks in front of us. Our trail wound along the left side and eventually dropped into the valley where we would head down it and eventually come around back to the car.

Old battered wilderness sign:

The old man hiking on the first day:

View of the main peak that was above our campsite on a very beautiful first day. The valley was lined with beautiful peaks all around 13,000 ft in height:

The next day offered up some unique weather. Waking up to a light drizzle with the peaks completely covered by clouds:

The clouds lifted and revealed the snow they had left behind:

Me with one of the many beautiful peaks in the background:

The Old Man crossing the decent sized Texas Creek. We tried fly-fishing but the wind was so strong in the valley that we had to abandoned that activity:

Right after we crossed the river we realized that the trail we used to cross this massive valley dead-ended at an old cabin. At this point we decided to go off-trail with the intention to try to meet up with the existing trail by traversing up the side of the mountain. Well we never did traverse far enough to get to that trail and ended up heading up the side of the mountain following game trails.

Here is the old man on one of the many established game trails we followed up the side of the hill. The hike turned out to be steeper, longer, and harder then we initially expected. However the solidarity that we experienced was excellent:

For the vast majority of the hike up the hillside we could not see the valley below us or the mountain in front of us due to the dense forest. It was pretty wild hiking up on random game trails without being able to easily tell which direction or how far we needed to go. Additionally we saw numerous signs of wildlife for both predator and prey but unfortnautely did not see any actual wildlife. At one point we the trees parted enough to offer a beautiful view of Ice Mountain across the valley which is just shy of 14,000ft:

Finally after hours of steep climbing (approx 2,000 ft elevation gain and 3 hrs later), we reached the top of the ridgeline. Right before we crossed over I snapped this better view of Ice Mountain:

Once over the ridgeline we fought strong winds, exposed hillside,  and the looming sunset to get back to the vehicle as quickly as possible. At this time our plans had changed to hike back to the car, drive down to lower elevation, set-up camp and then leave the next morning. This photo was taken at ~6:30pm as the evening glow started to take over as we hiked to the car:

The last of the sunlight with Taylor Reservoir on the left and the Maroon Bells in the distance on the right (7:00pm approx 1.5 miles to car at this point):

After the sun went down we finally hit the road and were able to ditch our packs and make the final mile slog to the car. Without the sun the temps dropped dramatically with only made it tougher since we were exhausted. After reaching the car we drove down the road and found an area to set-up camp where we finally got some food into our bellies.

The next morning we woke up to about 2-3 inches of snow and were glad that we hiked out the night before as there was probably upwards of 4-6 inches at the top of the pass.

The beautiful Mt. Princton (14,197 ft) the next morning as we were driving home:

The storm did not hit our area as hard as it hit the I-70 corridor. We drove home on beautiful dry roads while Summit County got a few inches.  At this point we were heading into the South Park valley and the clouds are all north of us:

Overall a awesome few days spent with my Dad in the beautiful backcountry of Colorado.

Where: Montezuma, Colorado

When: 8/29/09-8/30/09

Who: Trent, Tweak, Scott, Duncan, Evan, Caitlin (as the sole female), Ellie the dog, and myself.

An overnight car-camping trip in the Deer Creek Valley was an opportunity to see the valley when it is not covered in snow. Overall a really crazy thing to see how different it looks in the Summer and the Winter. Some of the amazing things I thought was how much snow fills into the valley (7-10 ft), how much water is in the valley (huge beaver dams), how lush the slopes that we ski are, and how much I don’t like Scott Miller (I kid…).

Another major goal was to work on our base-camp area since it has fallen into disrepair this past winter. We built a great firepit that should be way better then the weak set-up we had last year and then helped reinforce a major wind-block as to better protect one part of the base-camp area.

Besides that we caused a lot of havoc:

Fireworks over Zuma:

The Beaver Dams:

The hardest part about crossing the Beaver Dams is making sure you don’t spill your beer. Trent was successful at that but still managed to get wet:

Evan attempting to look cool:

Zuma in the Morning (Left to Right: Steeps, Washout, Cone 1, Cone2, Cone 3):

Baby Chute and Big Chute w/o Snow (mtn goats were wandering around the top earlier):

Ellie the Water Dog:

Click on the Snow Category to the right to see other adventures at Zuma.

Who: RAMBO, Brea, Caitlin, myself, and Andrew (who is one of Brea/Rambo’s friends that is brand-new to climbing but straight-up crushed it).

When: August 22nd-23rd, 2009

What: Camp Dick is an awesome alpine-type bouldering area with big blocks sitting all along a beautiful valley that backs up to the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Located about 30 minutes outside of Lyons and about 1.5 hrs from my house in Denver it is an awesome place to visit and has some great camping. A decent sized river runs through the middle of the whole canyon and a 4×4 road and a hiking trail lead-up are on either side of the river.

I had been here once before a couple years ago for a short overnight trip and was glad to finally get back (photos on that trip here).

All of the free camping is up the 4×4 road and therefore we had to park our cars and hike in with crashpads and all of our camping gear; luckily it is only about 1/2-3/4 mile hike before you get to the first boulders and all of the free camping. The camping is also really awesome as you can get right down next to the river with some great flat spots.

The Bouldering: After setting-up camp we hike all the way to the fartherest boulder some 2.5 miles on a very rough 4×4 road in the heat of the day. Once we found the Alpen-Glow boulder we spend around 2 hours trying to find the Jumbotron boulder which according to the guidebook would be just uphill. We had no luck in finding that rock and with the sun starting to get low in the sky headed back to the Alpen-Glow boulder for an suprisingly amazing session.

The Alpen-Glow boulder is a beautiful 15 ft boulder in the middle of a open field right next to the trail. It has a mixture of easier problems to some good moderates.

Andrew working on one of the arete problems:

Brea cruising up:

Brea enjoying the top-out:

Caitlin making short-work of the problem:

Then we switched gears and started working on a harder arete that Rambo and Andrew sent. Some funky but cool looking movements on the rock. After both had sent the sun began to really set and the colors just went off. Rambo was ready for the twilight send.

Just one of several great shots as Rambo sent the boulder at 7:45pm that evening:

Shortly after it was pitch-black and the walk back to camp was a little challenging without flashlights, however Rambo gave us a sneak-peek of his new climbing clothing line due out later this year:

The next day we broke-camp and went to the Fingerbanger boulder and the Pyramid boulder (the best part about Camp Dick is that most of the boulders and individual problems appeared to be named by a bunch of perverted 15 yr olds, which fit our groups personality/lack of maturity just fine).

The campsite as viewed from the river:

Brea working on a very tricky problem on the Pyramid Boulder:

Caitlin working on the Pyramid Boulder:

Rambo working on a beautiful problem called “Treetop Flyer” that starts low following the crack to a high crack that ends up being quite the high-ball:

The afternoon rainstorms eventually came in and we hiked out a little wet:

Another solid trip.

When: August 1st-2nd, 2009

Who: Andy and Caitlin (plus failed attempts to meet up with roommate Andrew + others)

Hit up the insanely beautiful town of Crested Butte for a little adventure with Caitlin at the beginning of August. We couldn’t ask for a better weekend of hiking and camping. We made it just an overnight trip due to us not being able to leave earlier on Friday, but it was well worth the drive.

The drive out took a little longer then normal due to a couple bike races going on, however the 4.5 hour drive to this place beats sitting in record-breaking summer traffic on I-70, when the highest 24 hr period of traffic ever was set on August 2nd with 50,918 vehicles!!! (link to article here). Luckily for us the rest of Colorado has not found out about the beauty that lies outside of summit and eagle counties. Needless to say on the way home I cruised in the Civic across some of my favorite areas to see from a car in Colorado.

Enough with the talky, talk. Time for some pictures.

Mt. Crested Butte as viewed from Gothic Peak area on the Copper Lake Trail (where is the snow?):

Some Amazing random peaks around here at the edge of the Maroon Bell Wilderness (along the Copper Lake Trail):

Weird fern plants we found while cruising off the trail in the middle of some marsh:

Finishing up our hike into the Maroon Bells Wilderness:

So that night we were suppose to met-up with Andrew and crew and camp at their campsite. It was getting late and we couldn’t get a hold of them so I took the civic up the road hoping to run into them or their campsite. We kept driving up this dirt road expecting to find them since there was only a select few campsites however we were not having any such luck.

Expecting to find them “just around the next bend” I made the Honda Civic get up some pretty gnarly rocks and around some pretty good wash-outs. Still no luck and the worse part was that we only passed a few campsites and they were all full. Finally after about 45 minutes of slowly driving and about 8 miles up the road we realized that we just needed to find a good campsite. At a top of a big/steep hill we scouted the road ahead to make sure it was passable, headed down the slope, and right at the bottom was the perfect campsite just waiting for us.

We ended-up so far back that the next closest campers were another 1/2 mile up the road and tucked back into the forest. The next nearest group was well over a mile a way. Not bad for it being ~6:00pm on a Saturday night and a car-camping spot. Not to mention that the spot was perfect with us overlooking an awesome valley with a beautiful stream running through the middle of it.

View of the big dipper from our campsite:

The next morning after taking our time we headed-up a nearby hike and this is the valley we overlooked, quite the views considering this is the lesser visited area:

The hike was not the best trail in the world (due to us missing the original trail we wanted as it was improperly marked on the map) as this trail was pretty much just straight-uphill. We didn’t quite make it to the top as a big thunderstorm rolled-over us right as we were getting into the most exposed terrain. We high-tailed it down to some cover, left the established trail, and followed game trails through some awesome hillside meadows, marshes, aspen forests, and pine forests for about 2-3 miles back to our campsite.

After we got back to the campsite we hung-out at the creek and enjoyed some snacks and delicious beverages before heading back to Denver.

Heading down the dirt road in the civic, needless to say we were the only non-truck (not even subarus) along the entire 4wd part of the trail. People were giving me some strange looks:

On the way back we cruised all the way to Denver. Not a car in sight and we witness some incredible sunset action along the road.

Mt. Antero  (14,269 ft) from the road. I was driving at least 75 MPH while I snapped the pic (one of my favorites from the trip) taken right as you are heading up to the Hwy 24/285 interchange:

As mentioned before, we crusied back via Hwy 285 (3 hrs 40mins), when I-70 broke the record for the busiest day ever and instead of seeing bumper to bumper traffic for 3 hrs we were looking at this:

Peace.

Hey Everyone,

A few things have been added to my website that I wanted to share with you. The easy one is that I finally got around to posting a photo album on facebook for the 2009 Winter Season; go see it here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2097098&id=20202675

Secondly I have been working on some new pages (look above) for Useful Links as well as a Climbing Map.

The Useful Links holds a ton of awesome links and one of the best things is that I have included 20+ links to some of the best action sports photographers out there (located at the bottom of the page). This could easily distract you for days…

The Climbing Map is a map of all the areas I have visited in a nice visual location. Go to that page to get more details, meanwhile I have included the scaled-down version here:
View Climbing Areas Around Denver in a larger map

Well going through the photos it took to compile the original post: Late Spring/Early Summer, I realized that for the first time ever I might have more then enough photos of just rain to compile a post.

Therefore I bring you the “RAIN EDITION” which highlights the serious amount of stormage that has come through our area. Please realize that the vast majority of these photos are mainly for illustrative purposes and are primarily for humor. Hope you enjoy.

Golden Gate State Park in the Rain:

Three Sisters Park in the Rain:

Castlewood in the Rain:

Hiding in Caves to Avoid the Rain:

Driving in the Rain:

Trying not to get hurt by rain:

Watching Rain’s close cousin Hail:

Horestooth Reservoir and trying to wakeboard in the Rain:

Watching Rain wreck havoc from far distances:

And a picture of Rain’s worse enemy: THE SUN!!!!

Picture coming as soon as I am able to see the sun…

The last thing I need to mention to anyone that is living along the front range right now is how much rain we have seen throughout the latter part of spring and now through mid-July. It has been straight-up crazy.

While the rain has caused some problems with doing certain outdoor activities, there still has been some time to get out and enjoy the summer (and let me clarify, it is not the rain that is the issue, it is the insanely massive lighting/thunder storms that rush in faster then a fat kid in willy wonka’s factory and subsequently dump enough monsoon rain to make it feel like you woke-up in the middle of a CIA waterboarding torture). Anyways enjoy some of the photos of random things around Denver:

Caitlin enjoying the lush landscape (a nice benefit of the recent weather) of Three Sisters park:

Getting some climbing done at the Corridor area in Castlewood (with Jake, Trent, and Bethany):

Getting one small day of wake-boarding in at Horsetooth Reservoir (with the parental units):

Hiking around Mt. Evans and Echo Lake (with Caitlin):

Watching some Fireworks over Lake Dillon from some random pontoon-boat that we hopped in at that was parked at one of the piers (with Caitlin, Trent and Bethany):

Getting some sport-climbing done at Castlewood (with Ben, Andrew, Beth, Whitney, Caitlin, Tyler, and Kevin):