Last Call

Last call usually refers to...informing customers in a bar, that closing time is approaching and that any further drinks should be purchased immediately...well, as we prepare to head home, it feels like last call to me, but instead of purchasing any more drinks, I'm needing to cram in as much riding, fishing, hiking, concert going, touristy stuff as I can.  So this is how it went down this last week...

The Summit Daily, local paper, encourages it's readers to send in photos, so I
do whenever I'm out here.  This great sunset complimented one of the free
weekend concerts.  I figured there would be many of these submitted.  If there
were, they liked mine best!

Beth and I hiked Mayflower Gulch to check out the wildflowers and a little mining history.

After a few miles on the trail, that was relentlessly UP, we arrived at what was
the Boston mine camp from back in the day.  Gold and silver was the draw.

The view from one of the cabins still partially standing.  Not bad!

Then there's this...summer wildflowers
everywhere you turn.  I'm guessing most
miners didn't pay much attention to this.

After a little lunch break, we head to the upper part, above Beth's head, where
they mined rock out of the mountainside.

We had to make our way past this little marmot of a guardian to gain access to
where the mining took place.

Just below the ridge and just left of center, there is a small dark spot... trust me
it's there...there is still a cable running from this structure to that mine opening.
I would love to have seen what this looked like at the time.

The free concerts continue all summer.  We saw tribute bands for Queen, the Eagles, The Frisco Funk Collective, and Randy Hansen's incredible electric guitar playing as he emulates Jimi Hendrix.  The crowds vary in size, but the dance floor in front of the stage is always full.

What a venue!

Who's up for a hike?  How about a 14'er?  It was on the back burner in my mind, but I woke up early one morning and told Beth this was the day and I forged ahead to Quandary Peak. This is one of the busiest 14'ers in Colorado, I had read, but I found out for myself it is sooo true.

Checking the trailhead signpost, yep this is it.
I failed to really look at the contour lines!

Starts out pretty straight forward.  Nice wide, gentle incline.  The peak is up
there somewhere.

I passed a few groups heading up to tree line.
The trail narrows and the incline increases.

Leaving the tree line behind and looking back, you can see a smoky haze has
blown in from a distant wildfire.

The trail becomes all rock, as the shadow
points in the direction to the top. 

To this point, the "crowd" I was expecting
had gotten up earlier than myself.  I started
to see them in the distance ahead of me.
Still a ways to go!

Catching up to a line of 14'er seekers, I felt
as though I was getting on an escalator, but
I had to move me!

By this time the early goers were on their way down, including this guy.  Yep
that is a unicycle on his shoulder.  If I could have had normal breathing, I
might have attempted too inquire WTH?  But normal breathing didn't happen
again for me til well after getting back home.

Finally reaching the top, a gradual incline leads to the peak!

So I soon joined a multitude of others that had the same idea for this day.

My second 14,000+ ft peak!

Thanks to a number of homemade signs that were left atop this mountain, I
claim my prize.

A distorted panorama via cell phone.  Speaking of cell phones...yes I had
reception up there.  I called Beth to tell her I made it.  The text I sent on the
way up did not?

After a short lunch, the constant up now became a constant down.  My
thighs are my achilles heal, but it never occurs to me until it's too late.  They
talked to me for days post hike!

The conveyor belt has now reversed it's course.

I'm sure the lines up to Everest are not quite this bad, but I could not believe it...much of the way up and all the way down, what I had read was true.  I guess everything you read is true!
When I did Mt. Elbert, some years ago, it has a more gradual incline and is somewhat longer, but that lack of oxygen is an experience you get with all them 14'ers!

I finally got my bike repaired, a replaced derailer, among other things, and I was good to go. By this time, my thighs had calmed down and I was realizing how much I was enjoying mountain biking.  After riding to Frisco on the rec path with Beth and Susi, Greg and I headed up to find some single track and my taskmaster, Coach Pain, never disappoints.  

A view of Dillon Lake and perspective I had not encountered yet, but thanks to
my bike and Coach Pain, I'll tuck this view away.

There came a point on our trail where "coach" told me, that ahead he would have to get off his bike and hike-a-bike due to the incline, but he would pull over if I could keep going.  His bike had a decent amount of weight from his backpacking gear more than mine, so I thought I would give it a go.  I did manage to pass him and was humping and pumping to keep going up that incline, but came to a point where I either dismounted or my lungs were going to explode.  I chose to dismount.  But even then, it was minutes before I could even begin to breathe like a flatlander at altitude.  No more impressing the coach!

Not quite to Keystone, looking back towards Dillon Lake, while keeping one
hand on a brake, due to the severe drop off in front of me that you have
absolutely no appreciation for.

Photo compliments of Coach Pain, as we begin
our decent, the best part of any ride.  I thought
that until my thighs started reminding me of
the hike a few days earlier, because as you descend,
your legs become shock absorbers as you hover
above your seat, otherwise you would be at the ER
getting your seat extracted from your booty.

And then there's fishing.  My big catch came early in our time here, but that didn't stop me from trying, because even though catching is great, fishing is still pretty awesome.  Photos courtesy of Beth "Field and Stream" Winholtz.

Let's see, there's a stream here somewhere...

Oh ya, I'm getting closer...

Yes!  Got my feet and fly in the water!  (Fly... as in artificial lure!)

These last few photos are just because...

A day trip to Pearl Street Mall in Boulder.

The never disappointing evening sky from the deck of our housesit.

The osprey nest behind our temporary home,
about ready to give up its babies as they
take flight for the first time.

These are pics taken from my cell phone as
seen through my binoculars.  Tried it on a
whim and it worked pretty good...sort of.

And finally, I always seem to find things that amuse me and speak to my level of humor and sometimes my intellect.  I can't believe that people get paid to come up with this stuff and I wasn't one of them.

A combination of beer and whisky.  Instead
of writing this stuff on bathroom walls, these
guys grew up and get paid for doing it now.

Saw this sticker on a car at a trailhead we
hiked from.  It's funny, right?

Now that's just funny, I don't care who you are!  A poop bag dispenser that
speaks for itself.

Goodbye Summit County...land of endless trails, elusive fish, music, sunsets, and humor.  Til next time, and yes, there will be a next time!


My Zen from the Trail:  

Relaxing keeping busy

Keeping busy is not hard to do here. You can be as busy, or not, as you want to.  My level of busy-ness seems to revolve around free concerts, golf, hiking, fishing, mountain biking, and local entertainment.  This last week has involved the following...

Hiking up McCullough Gulch.  A gulch is a deep, narrow ravine.  Well the picture below shows where I'm headed.  Not the summit at the top of the photo, but the ridge below that.  I fail to see where the description of gulch comes in, but it sounds "western."

The is a popular trail just south of Breckenridge,
mostly because it is just 2.7 mi roundtrip.  The
only issue is that it is fairly moderate in steepness.
So breathing for the non-local becomes a challenge
at times.  Topping out at around 12,000 feet, the
elevation change from trailhead up is just under
1,000 ft. (in a relatively short distance, mind you!).

The beginning of the trail is a steep 4x4 road.  Part way up I was greeted by a
snowshoe rabbit...

...with it's big white feet.

The trail narrows and becomes more rocky
and root-bound as you climb and soon
becomes engulfed in wildflowers.

And sometimes it's not obvious where the trail is, so they graciously show you.

Love me some Columbine.

Some Aster.

Halfway up I am distracted by these falls
and take a few minutes to breathe.

Reaching the top (as far as I was going) I was met by a giant mirror in the form
of a small lake.

Before choosing this trail this morning, I Googled the heck out of it to see if there were fish to be sought after.  Beth and I had hiked this trail last year in the spring and it was still covered in snow, so it was on my radar to try again with my fly rod in tow (I'm a poet!).  My first observation upon reaching the lake, was not it's beauty or the silence, but did I see any motion in the water.  My fishing adrenaline tanked, as I observed the water seemed a couple feet deep and was not sufficient to support my worthy opponents for this outing.  At that point I sat down, had a snack and some water, and only then began to appreciate my surroundings.

Shortly after this picture, the wind began to
pick up and the glass disappeared.

Love my panorama, as distorted as it may be.

Since I couldn't fish, I snapped off pictures
of my next favorite thing to do, photograph
flowers.  This is an Elephant flower.  You
can see it's ears and trunk.

Some serious cairn activity here!

Did I mention being engulfed by wildflowers?

Some yellow paintbrush still in the making
with some elephants looking on. 

Don't know what it is about Columbine,
but love it.

Same with the paintbrush. 

Not sure what the yellow is, but it was
plentiful.

I was up early enough to be the first one up to the top, other than the two sets of campers that had packed in previously.  But on the way down, I met lots of hikers on their way up.  I was in a bit of a hurry to get down so I could try some beaver ponds I saw below.  Surely they have some fish.  NOPE!

Mountain biking has been coming into focus for me over the last year.  Last year I spent some time at Landahl Park Reserve, out by the Lake City ammunition plant, where they have a number of "mountain biking" trails.  Not a lot in the way of "off road" trails in our area back home.  I did develop some skills that helped as Greg has been taking me on trails here in Colorado.  The following are courtesy of KMA West, Goodman's High Altitude Adjustment Bootcamp.

Taking a break from the incessant grind from the tutelage of Coach Goodman,
I consider heading home, by way of a cliff.
I think this is the Lakeshore Perimeter Trail in Frisco.  Loved this trail.

The lake was so low, we road out to what is normally an island!

Another day, another ride... Here we headed
up Soda Creek to bike over to Breckenridge.
It was cut short by numerous miles and hours
due to something reaching out and doing
unspeakable things to my derailer.  It was twisted
and poking into the spokes of my rear wheel.
Greg muscled it to a point where I could coast,
but couldn't pedal.  Bushwhacked down a hillside
and coasted a ways before Beth and Susi picked us up.
Beats riding of a cliff!

Later we went rainbow hunting.  Great sunsets and rainbows here!

Fishing is always the go to activity to do when nothing else is on our radar.  After dinner one evening I headed a few minutes away to the Blue River, before sunset.  Parked the car and donned my fishing accoutrements (Google that!).  I caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a fish taking an insect off the surface of the water, in an eddy next to a riffle.  I had just tied on a caddis fly, casted to the spot and BOOM!  I am not a big fish fisherman.  I am a small mountain stream, cast to starving fish kind of fisherman, so this was like winning a playoff game of sorts.  It fought real hard and gave me a couple of splashing, aerial acrobat moves.  My little rod was bending pretty good.  I was lucky to get a blurry photo.

I did finally get some fishing in one evening.  First cast on the Blue River.
This nice brown gifted me the experience of catching instead of fishing!
It didn't fit in my net real well, it was pushing 16 inches or so.

We took an excursion to Leadville one day.  It's main drag has some shops we like to check in on and restaurants to try.  We overheard one of the shop owners say she was a bit warm today.  I told you it's all relative!

When not listening to the Friday night concerts, golfing, hiking, fishing, riding, or trying to figure out if the kids you saw on the park bench were stoned or not, we sometimes walk along the lake and soak up the sheer beauty of this special place.

Lake Dillon

My Zen from the Road:  After catching that nice fish on my first cast the other night, of course I had to keep after it until I had no light left to fish by, because I was that good!  Ha.  But in my hunt for the next "biggin," I got back in the car and traveled downstream in search of another perfect spot.  Minutes later I found myself in the middle of the stream as the valley opens up even more, fishing (not catching), and I looked up to see the last few minutes of sunlight on the surrounding mountainsides.  What light that was left was glistening off the ripples in the water upstream, and I was in "A River Runs Through It."  That was a moment.  And it ended in a cloud of mosquitoes!  But, I have a new happy place.