Two nights ago, I headed down to Coors Field to watch the third game of the Rockies and Reds series. At that time, the Rockies had won both of the previous games, though at slim margins. Well, the Rockies did it again on Wednesday night, taking the lead back from the Reds in the bottom of the ninth to end the game. It was an another unfortunate the loss, but the good thing for us in Denver is that the Rockies continue to climb the ranks in their own division and should likely make the playoffs again. And, you could have probably guessed that the Rockies won yet again last night, sweeping the four game series.

With baseball season winding down, I’m glad to see football season coming into full swing. In another Denver/Cincinnati showdown, the Broncos will travel to Cincinnati to take on the Bengals on Sunday. I think the Bengals are slightly favored, but with our team that doesn’t ever mean much. Fortunately the other football team in Cincinnati, the UC Bearcats crushed Rutgers in their season opener Monday afternoon. The Bearcats have often been more fun to watch than the Bengals, so I’m hoping that their winning streak continues. It’s also nice to see them back in the AP Rankings. Go CATS!

Over the weekend Kim drug me out of the house to play a round of golf. We decided to play nine holes on the West Course at the Kennedy Golf Course. Upon arrival we were paired up with two others and headed off to the first hole. My first drive was perfectly down the middle, though not extremely far. I remembered to try not to kill the ball and that it might actually go straight. Kim also hit the ball well. I guess all of those golf outings she attends each summer really do help.

Though our drives continued to be mostly good, our second shots really suffered. I discovered that I still can’t hit the three wood straight. Kim also struggled with her fairway and rough shots. Fortunately the other two we were playing with also had their own problems from this range. Once we all finally made it onto the green, we then remembered how frustrating putting can be. I don’t think I had more than a triple putt, but I recall some others having four or more putts.

Despite all of the aggravation, I tried to keep the profanity and club throwing to a minimum. I tried to remember that it was just a game, and actually came away from it all having a fairly decent time. I would like to try playing at City Park sometime soon, though it may have to wait until next summer.

Just the other day I started reading Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall. I first heard about the book while reading an excerpt in an issue of 5280 Magazine. The author travels to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets after suffering injury after injury.

The Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s Copper Canyons are capable of running hundreds of miles at a time without rest. They do not run to stay in shape, but rather as a method of travel between villages or to hunt food, such as deer. However, because of their persistent running they are some of the healthiest people on Earth. Though I don’t plan to run down a deer anytime in the future, I do hope the book becomes an inspiration to go out and run more often. And maybe I’ll find the secret to making it not be as painful of an experience as it sometimes is.

As I mentioned last week, my hockey team advanced into the championship game for this session, which took place last night. The game started off pretty rough for my team. Our opponents were definitely out to win the game, while we couldn’t get any offense going. Eventually they put in a few goals in our net, and I believe they may have scored three or four before we put one in.

In the third period we were down 5-1. Finally, in the second half of the period we started playing at our full potential and put in a quick three goals. That took it to 5-4 with a couple of minutes left to play. At that point I really thought we had a chance to tie it up. If the game went to an overtime shootout, I felt like we could take it, as our goalie is the strongest in the league. Unfortunately we couldn’t get that last goal, and the other team actually scored an empty netter on us to take the game with a final score of 6-4.

I now have the next few weeks off, and when it’s time to get back on the ice I will be on a different team. A few of the guys that I’ve played with for years are getting our old team back together for the fall and winter. We are also recruiting some new players and even moving up a level and into the “C” division. I watched a semifinal game in this league last night and it is quite a bit faster than the current league, but I think with the right players we can totally compete. Time will tell, but this last season was a blast.

Last night was the semi-finals in our adult league hockey. It was my team’s first game in the playoffs after we miraculously received a first round bye. The rest week must have treated us well, as we came out flying! We scored a quick goal on our first shift, which I help to setup but was not credited with an assist. Our team went on to put another goal in before the end of the 1st, which I did get a credited assist on. And I believe our opponents put in a goal before the end as well, making it 2-1 at the first intermission.

Our scoring didn’t stop there, and I again assisted the team with two more goals, getting credited assists both times. Our opponents also managed a goal in there somewhere, and late in the final period we put in an empty netter to seal the game at 5-2. I should have had four assists, but was only credited with the playmaker (three assists). We now move onto to next week’s Championship, playing a team that we beat two of three games in the regular season. I’m hoping we come home with the cup.

Traditionally today would be dedicated to my weekly adult hockey games, but we didn’t play last night. Shockingly, we somehow ended up back on top of the standings in first place. That’s right, both teams that were ahead of last week lost, and with our win we moved up above them. Hopefully our team will rest up and be ready for next weeks semifinal match of the playoffs.

In other hockey news, Jeremy Roenick has finally retired after 20 seasons in the NHL. He was my favorite hockey player toward the end of grade school and the reason for my love of the Chicago Blackhawks. Well him along with Chris Chelois and Ed Belfour. It’s now rumored that he will someday become a game announcer in the future, which I think will be a perfect fit. Just take a look at the top 10 pop culture moments during his career. I can personally attest to his dominance in the NHL ’94 video game.

Saturday afternoon we headed up into the mountains with a few friends for a camping and hiking adventure. We decided that we wanted to hike to the top of Huron Peak, another of Colorado’s famous mountains over 14,000 feet in elevation. This peak is a bit further from Denver than Mt. Bierstadt (the first 14er Kim and I just hiked), so camping near the trail the night before would allow us to get a good sleep and still start the hike early enough to avoid afternoon storms.

After driving I-70 to Copper, and going through Leadville, we turned off US-24 at the Clear Creek Reservoir, and followed the road up Clear Creek a number of miles to find a great campsite right on the river. We set up our tents, built a fire, cooked some dinner, had a few drinks, and were off to bed for a good night of sleep as we buy 5.56 ammo online before coming to this trek which is a good safety tool.  The rushing river silenced any traffic from the nearby road, and despite it being in the 30s overnight, we all sleep relatively well.

We were all up and getting ready by 9am the next day. We decided that the weather forecast was great so we didn’t need to get a super early start on the hike. Before long we all piled into one car and drove up the road toward the trailhead. This drive was over a 4WD road, and after a couple of scrapes on rocks, we ditched the car and finished the trip to the trailhead on foot. This added just over a mile each way to our already five and a half mile hike, according to online sources.

Once at the trailhead, the hike immediately started gaining elevation through a series of switchbacks. These continued all the way up to the treeline. Eventually there was a nice flat wildflower meadow that provided some relief from the strenuous climbing. Here we saw our second critter of the day, a coyote. I wish I was fast enough with my camera to get a picture, but he was sprinting across the meadow so fast. Earlier, at the trailhead, we spotted a deer, and later in the hike were tons of pikas and marmots.

After the meadow, the trail again picked up some serious elevation once the actual mountain peak was in view. Again it was a very tiring hike, but the views were amazing along the way. Once we finally hit the scree field, we noticed a storm was quickly moving in. Not only were the clouds getting dark, but it was actually snowing on us! We heard a loud bang of thunder just as we approached the summit. We were too close to turn back and made the final push to the summit. Obviously we didn’t stay there long at all, and after a few minutes we were on our way back down.

Again I used my iPhone to track the hike. According to it we did nearly nine miles round-trip, which puts it slightly longer than the route description I linked to earlier. I figured we did about three miles round-trip to the trailhead, making the actual hike closer to six miles. Originally we estimated the hike to be about four hours, but with the additional length it took us closer to five hours. Pictures from our adventure are below.

Clear Creek on Dwellable

I don’t know what I was thinking. I delayed writing about my hockey game last night in hopes that the league would actually update the website in a timely manner. Well the work day is over (just about) and they still haven’t posted any results. We played our last game of the session last night before heading into the playoffs. Over the course of the last few weeks, we dropped all the way into third place after a series of loses. With last night’s win, we could potentially go back into one of the first two spots depending on how those teams played last night. The top two teams in the league get first round byes, and at this point we still don’t know if we’ll play next week or not. At least I can finally say that we won a game again!

My hockey team is really falling apart at the end of the season. We suffered our second loss in a row last night, a 2-0 defeat. If the third place team in the league won last night, we will be switching positions in the standings with only one game left to play in the regular season. We completely out-shot the other team, but their goalie shut us down the entire game. One thing that we didn’t do well was crash down on the net, but all five of their skaters constantly jammed up the slot, making it very hard to get a rebound shot. We also had a number of penalties in the second period that didn’t help either. We are playing the last place team in the league next week, so I’m hoping we can build up some confidence right before the playoffs.

What a frustrating game of hockey last night! We had terrible officiating and couldn’t stay out of the the penalty box for the second half of the game. I didn’t have any penalties personally, but some members of our team got called three and four times. And it wasn’t just our team getting penalties, the other team was too, just not as many. I’ve never seen so many penalties called in one game before, which I told one of the refs (along with a few other things) at the end of the game.

We were dominating the game in the first half. I believe we were up 3-1 at the end of the second period. But it all went downhill from there, and we played nearly the rest of the game shorthanded. Our opponents took advantage and put in goal after goal. With just a few minutes left to play, they had taken the lead and extended it to 5-3. At that point, we were really frustrated and never got another good shot on net.

It probably didn’t help that we only had two regular defense-men at the game, and that is counting myself, who prior to this season hasn’t played defense since before high school. With this loss, we could potentially drop back into second place. I hope that we can rebound and win the next two games to take back the top spot before heading into the playoffs.