While Kim’s brother Chip was in town, we also went for a hike on Saturday morning/afternoon. Kim and I have been wanting to hike a 14er (mountain peak over 14,000 feet) for awhile. We figured that Chip was probably in better shape than us, so he should be able to hike this high and far despite not being as adjusted to altitude as us. I chose Mt. Bierstadt from this list of the easiest 14ers based on it being close to Denver and one of the shortest hikes listed.

We arrived at the trail-head on Guanella Pass around 10:30 and started the hike. According to the route description the hike is seven miles round-trip, so I figured we could reach the summit in an hour and a half. The hike starts off fairly flat for the first mile or so. After that it quickly picks up and gains a lot of elevation very fast. The hike was definitely tiring but not impossible. We made it to the top in around two hours.

The view from the summit was awesome! We took a nice half hour break at the top, and then decided to start heading down after that when we saw some storm clouds rolling in. The last place you’d want to be in a storm is at the top of one of the highest mountains around. The hike down also took us about two hours to complete. I was thinking it would have been faster, but the steep descent is not very easy.

I used my iPhone to track our hike, which can be viewed here. I had to update a number of the points, which appeared far off of the trail. I’m assuming that this was due to a weak GPS signal at the time of the snapshot. I may try another software package the next time we are out hiking. I already have a few other applications downloaded to my phone. Below are pictures I took along our exhausting hike.

Yesterday I went whitewater rafting for the second time this summer. Kim’s brother Chip was in town visiting and she wanted to take him out for a day of adventure. Rather than driving all the way out to the Arkansas River spots we’ve rafted twice before, we opted for a trip on Clear Creek. Not having any prior experience on the creek, we opted to take our trip with the Clear Creek Rafting Company.

Our neighbors and a friend of theirs joined us in the boat for the intermediate half day trip. According to their website, “This exciting stretch of the river is Clear Creek’s most popular trip! Continuous class III and IV rapids will thrill guests throughout the run. Surge over Nomad, power through the Phoenix Holes and take on the class IV climax, the Outer Limits.”

I will admit that it was not near as difficult as our trip through the Royal Gorge earlier this summer, but it was still a great time. There were a few exciting rapids, as noted in their quote, and we spent the rest of the time doing spins along with surfing a couple rapids. We definitely made the most of it, but I feel like we could have easily done their advanced course, something I’ll have to keep in mind for the future. Regardless of the difficulty we had a great day out on the raging water.

We had another exciting hockey game last night in my adult league. Unlike last week, we did not need a shootout to claim yet another victory. The game went back and forth throughout, but we eventually pulled ahead 7-5 late in the third period and put one more in the empty net to seal the deal at 8-5. I didn’t add any goals to my stats, but did have another assist. I am now tied for third in the league for most assists. Our team record is 7-2, which puts us solidly in first place. The second place team is now three points behind us with three games left to play. I’m smelling a trophy in our future, or more likely a championship t-shirt.

Before leaving rainy South Dakota many of the group who visited Rushmore the day before headed off to Custer State Park. Originally we had planned to hike to the top of Harney Peak, the highest point in South Dakota, but later opted for a shorter hike in hopes of getting back to Denver at a reasonable hour. The hike we did was a strenuous mile and a half up to the top of Little Devil’s Tower. From the top we had amazing views of the Cathedral Spires, Harney Peak and entire southern hills.

After the hike, we drove the Needles Highway through the park and spotted many deer, a few elk, and some amazing rock formations. We didn’t have time to drive the wildlife loop, though if you do you’ll find 1500 free roaming bison. After leaving the park, we stopped in the town of Custer for a quick lunch, and then drove by the Crazy Horse Memorial. This rock sculpture is a work in progress and when completed, it will be 641 feet wide and 563 feet high. We decided not to pay the price of admission to get a closer view and snapped a couple of pictures from the highway.

Black Hills and Badlands on Dwellable

After a week of being tied for first place in an adult hockey league, my team is now solely sitting back atop the leader board. Actually we were technically in second place as another team had scored more goals than us, but that didn’t matter when we beat that same team last night. It was probably the hardest our team has skated this season.

For myself the game started off great. I was playing defense yet again, but that didn’t stop me from breaking the puck up the ice a few times. The first time I rushed up I actually scored a goal, my second of the season. I had a sweet give-and-go with another player on our team. From there my team put it another goal toward the end of the first period. The second period was our opponents’ period, as they evened the score at two.

In the third period they were quick to score another goal and take the lead. However my team fought hard and finally tied the game at three, where it stood until the end of regulation. From there we moved on to an overtime shootout. I was asked to take one of our three shots, but declined after taking a hard shot to the shin with just seconds left in the game. The puck hit me just above my bad ankle, and I wasn’t certain of my status. Fortunately our team is awesome in shootouts, with both of our first two players making their shots and our goalie making equally great saves on the other team’s first two. We didn’t even need our third shooter to claim the victory. And I’m happy to say that the shot I took had no effect on my ankle!

Our good friend Amy was in town this past weekend. On Saturday we took her and our friend Ken up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a hike. Amy had requested a hike to waterfalls, and I found a nice three mile route that would take us along the St. Vrain Creek and past three different sets of falls. This hike started at the Wild Basin Trailhead in the southeast corner of the park. After .3 miles we were treated to our first set of falls, Copeland Falls. Though not very impressive in size, the speed at which the water was flowing made for a thrilling view.

We continued down the trail and eventually reached the Calypso Cascades. I really enjoyed this set of falls and found them fairly easy to photograph. We stayed here for at least ten minutes admiring the strength of the water. From there we completed the final stretch of our hike up to Ouzel Falls. Though these falls have a larger drop than the others we had seen, it was hard to view that as it’s fairly hidden by trees. Perhaps an off trail hike is needed to really appreciate these falls. Overall I found the Calypso Cascades to be much more inspiring and powerful.

The hike was a huge success and I think everyone really enjoyed it. I know that I was happy just to be out hiking again. Hopefully I’ll get out again soon. Here are some pictures I shot along the way.

Our entire team showed up last night for our weekly hockey game. That means three full lines up front and five guys playing defense. Unfortunately we didn’t use the large bench to our advantage, and we ended up skating down at the level of the team we were playing. According to last weeks standings our opponents were in second to last place, and I can see why. There were only a small number of skaters on their team that could play well. However, they probably thought the same thing about my team after watching us play last night.

We jumped out to a great 3-0 lead by the end of the first. But, as typically happens, our second period play was terrible. We allowed them to put in goal after goal and by the middle of the third they had a 5-3 lead on us. Eventually we managed to put in another goal, and despite some great attempts near the end, the final score was 5-4. This was our second loss of the season, but we should remain at least tied for first place.

Personally I had an assist on the first goal. I was playing defense and managed to keep the puck in our offensive zone. I took a quick shot, which the goalie deflected right to another one of our players. He immediately buried it in the back of the net. I don’t think I had any other points throughout the game. Currently I’m tied for third with most assists, but I’m hoping this gets me back into second place.

I participated in my second Bike to Work Day this morning. I left the house just after six and started on my preplanned route, which was different than my route last year. I decided on a new route with less turns and more off street riding, though it was slightly longer than last year. My goal was to make the nearly twenty mile ride in under three hours and hopefully closer to two.

I had the first part of the ride completely memorized and stuck completely to the plan until I got to the part of my ride where I was supposed to leave the Cherry Creek Trail and turn south down Yosemite Street. Somehow I missed this turn, and I realized it once I saw the Cherry Creek Reservoir dam in the distance. I turned south and followed signs to Hampden Heights Park, and after asking a walker for directions, I eventually found my way west to Yosemite.

From there I remembered that I needed to ride south to Belleview, take a left there, and ride about a mile over to Havana. At Havana I turned south once again all the way to Peakview Avenue. I took a left at Peakview and a quick right onto Lima Street, which I followed south on a much safer road than Havana becomes. Thus far I had only made one bad turn, but that quickly changed when Lima turned into Inverness Drive. At that point every street I passed was Inverness something: Parkway, Way, Lane, Court, etc. I couldn’t exactly remember which of the Inverness roads I was supposed to take, and I didn’t want to take my map out, so I just followed along what appeared to be the safest roads all the way until I eventually found the South Valley Highway.

Once on the South Valley Highway, which turns into Jamaica Street, I was close enough to the office that I knew which roads to take. It really just consisted of a right turn onto Meridian Boulevard, with one last big climb up to the office. Once in the parking lot I glanced at the watch and realized that I had done it all in just under two hours. After a couple changes to the preplanned route, I soon realized that instead of just under twenty miles I had done just barely over twenty miles. All in all it was a great ride, I just wish the whole thing wasn’t all uphill. Below is the route.

A year ago I took my first whitewater rafting trip with a group called Class Five Chaos, and this weekend joined the same group for another trip down the Arkansas River. Once again there were about 150 people camping for the weekend, with well over 100 of those joining in on the rafting adventure Saturday afternoon. Just like last year, Kim and I drove down to the same campsite after work on Friday. After setting up camp and enjoying a couple of cold ones near a fire, we were off to rest up for the big day.

Unlike last year, the Royal Gorge section of the river was open, and that’s exactly where we took our rafts. This is a section of the river rated at class IV or V with rapids named things like Sunshine Falls, Boat Eater, and Wall Slammer. Despite the tough conditions and large group, I’m told that only one person ended up in the water all day and that was one of the guides who was trying to help keep another rafter in the boat. I guess he did what he wanted to do, but with it he ended up falling into the chilly waters himself. So it was a very successful trip full of lots of smiles and laughter.

After rafting, we all rode buses back to the base of operations for the rafting company where a party was setup. We had great bbq for lunch, lots of Shiner beer, two bands, and even a cornhole tournament. Of course Kim and I entered the tournament, and eventually went on to win the entire event. It took five victories, one of which was a complete shutout, but we came out on top in the end and won a set of smaller traveling cornhole boards from Shiner and a couple of CamelBak backpacks!

After the fun at the party wrapped up, it was back to the campsite for the annual flip cup tournament. We entered the tournament, but when it came time for our first match we couldn’t find our teammates and had to forfeit. We stuck around to watch most of the action though and had lots of laughs along the way. Along with the flip cup we also had more good times around campfires and eventually were off to bed. Sunday was a long drive back to Denver with sore bodies and not enough sleep. That’s the price to pay for an awesome weekend. Some pictures that Kim and I took from Friday are posted below. We forgot the camera the day of the rafting trip but I’ll keep my eyes out for any photos of the cornhole champs.

My hockey team managed to lose our first game of the season last week in a game that I missed due to our traveling. I’m told that it was a close 5-3 loss, and that we had plenty of opportunities to take the lead. Oh well, you can’t win them all. Fortunately, we were able to get back onto the winning side of things last night! We were lucky enough to be facing-off with the last place team in the league, which proved to be a very easy win. We jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead within the first few minutes of the game, and by the time it was over we secured a solid 10-2 victory. I had my first goal of the season, and added another assist as well. That should keep me in the top three assist leaders, once the results get posted, even after missing a game last week. And I’m proud to say that I’ve fallen off of the penalty leader board. All is well for Eck’s Saloon.