Climbing at Shelf Road: Part 2

I wake up sniffling and congested. Still, I'm happy to be outside and hoping for another good day of climbing. Today, Mother Nature is making it more of a challenge. We don bug spray. The gnats scoff and continue to fly into our eyeballs. Mark burns himself (again). We set out for the Dark Sides, an area known for comfortable shade, but find that it is in full sun in July. We backtrack and hike further. We finally get on a climb (new route? no info on it). I'm less confident today and find myself struggling internally to commit to each next move. We send Mark to lead a climb around the corner, but by the time he gets to the top, the thunder overhead is becoming more ominous. Well, we can't give up after just one climb, can we? So Mark cleans the route and we find our way to a conveniently located and surprisingly not-smelly outhouse and hang out under the awning to watch the storm pass by.



Our patience works in our favor. When we emerge, the sky is blue with rolling white clouds, the air is cooler, and the bugs are now only a slight annoyance. Kate does a great lead on Crynoid Corner and Mark and I follow on toprope. Feeling one last climb in us before heading back to camp, we stop at an unlisted route which has previously been nicknamed Kate's Favorite Lead. A fun little 5.7ish with a few moves to get my heart rate up. Leading this climb is just what I needed for a lovely endorphin-laden sense of accomplishment.



Camp is eerily quiet when we return, with only one other group camping across from us. Fog begins to creep over the hills. We eat a fantastic meal together. Mark makes a fire with some scavenged cedar wood which fills the whole camp with an amazing frangrance. Anyone who reads my version of these outdoor adventures can probably tell that while I love these climbing trips, it's not really about putting a rope into a harness and seeking out the most hardcore wicked climbing I can do (p.s. consider that a disclaimer as to the accuracy of the facts about these climbs). I love the challenge of climbing, but I also like taking a nap on a rock after lunch. I like sitting around the crag and cheering on other people as they climb. I love that after hiking and climbing, your Ruby Red Squirt tastes like no other soda has tasted before, and your dinner tastes out of this world even if it is the same thing you've made at home 100 times. I love campfires and the warmth that pours into your tent when the sun peaks over the horizon in the morning. It's not just about the muscle and grit and endurance, people. It's about the s'mores too.

Climbing at Shelf Road: Part 1

You may remember previous episodes in which Doug sends Liz on a plane to Michigan to visit family then heads off into the wilderness for adventure. Well, not this time, friends. This time, it is Doug who flies back to the mitten to commune with family and officiate the wedding of an old friend while Liz boldly braves the outdoors. Thursday evening, Kate and Mark agree to pack my stuff into the back of their car and Liv agrees to share the backseat in return for a belly scratch. We head for Canon City and arrive at Shelf Road by bedtime.



Friday morning is bright and sunny, and after our standard leisurely morning we start pondering a shady spot to spend the day climbing. We hike to the Cash Wall area where Kate and I both lead Awethu (5.6) for a nice warm-up. We then move over to Forty Two and No Rinkhals (5.9+). I am full of good climbing cheer, and we head over to Gem Wall where Mark leads us up Chip Off the Ol' Block (5.9) and Fire It Up (5.10a/b), a climb with a stemmy traverse and mini roof/ledge.



I am enamored with all of the routes and proud of my climbing prowess. I am thinking this is the perfect day of climbing save for one factor: bugs. Apparently, my body emits some sort of pheromone with essence of sexy gnat, because they were all over me. Okay, they were swarming everyone, but really, especially me. We head back to camp in time for a short rain shower, then pile in the car back to town for bug ammunition. We come out armed with several bug sprays, a citronella candle, and a few other impulse buys. Then back to camp to enjoy dinner around the fire.

Night falls and the bugs are back. This time it is the dive-bombing beetles that see our heads as a nice place to hide out from the swallows. We eek and swat and try to ignore it. Mark burns himself making a fire. I tell a ridiculous scary story. We all sigh a deep sigh from a great day of climbing and head for bed.

What Color is Your Lunch?

The answer for us most days is green. Here's your summer food pic of the week: a pesto made with spinach, basil, garlic scapes, and pine nuts served on homemade bread. Garlic scapes (the curly green scallions that grow out of garlic heads in the spring) have a nice garlicky bite to them, but are milder than raw garlic (i.e. less offensive breath afterwards). I made this last night to go with our spinach and mushroom lasagna. Very tasty.

Lest you think my lunch today was too healthy, I followed it with a chocolate/caramel/pecan covered rice krispie treat. Woot!

Veggies are Here!

The CSA season is for me like a 26 week long culinary Christmas. Each week, I peek inside the CSA box to find out what wonderful produce awaits, my mind immediately scheming ways to chop, steam, grill, and otherwise combine them into deliciousness. I've been known to wake up in the middle of the night with a new recipe in mind, which is, admittedly, a little more neurotic than I'd like to acknowledge. Anyway, this is our second year with Grant Family Farms and promises to be an exciting one. Here is the loot from week one:


lettuce, spinach, kale, baby beets, cilantro, dill, and eggs


washing leafy greens - Doug's most dreaded chore


veggies ready for the fridge (will often last well over a week this way)

With a CSA we trade in some time (washing everything seems to take forever) and some predictability (really, would I be buying several bunches of kale every week from a conventional grocery store?), but in return we get incredibly fresh vegetables that have traveled less than 25 miles from the field to our tummies.

Here is my other culinary hobby for the summer - another year of container gardening, hopefully this year more successful than the last. I caved in and bought one beautiful, already flowering tomato plant from the greenhouse but pretty much everything else has been nurtured from seeds on our window sill over the last few months. After last year's efforts were wiped out in one major hail storm, I anxiously waited and waited to put these guys outside. I don't fancy myself a real gardener by any stretch of the imagination, but keep trying in hopes that each year I learn a little more about successfully growing food in preparation for a day when we might actually have a yard and a real garden.


lemon cucumbers, thai peppers, basil, rosemary, parsley, two heirloom tomato varietals, and one hybrid tomato insurance plant:)

Lily Lake Hike June 09

Ashley drives down on her day off to meet us, along with MarKateLiv, for a short hike to Lily Mountain in Roosevelt National Forest. We are all sore from yesterday’s hiking/climbing adventure and whine periodically up the trail (“Is this really only 2 miles?” “Are we there yet?”). But the view from the summit is well worth the short trip, with all of Rocky Mountain National Park sprawling before your eyes. We eat a leisurely lunch and head down just as more rain begins to fall.



The weekend ends with a traditional stop at Coopersmith’s for food, then home for showers and a soft bed. Doug and I have lived here for 3 years now and it still sometimes strikes us how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place with endless possibilities for outdoor adventures. Some people save up all year and vacation in a place where we can head out our front door and spend a weekend all for the price of gas, hotdogs, and beer. Nice.



more pictures here

Climbing at the Monastery June 09

Tired of letting an especially rainy season dictate our weekend activities, we can only think of sleeping outside and climbing rocks. Setting out Friday afternoon, we find our way back to a small, free camping area above the town of Drake in the Big Thompson Canyon. Camping anywhere within a 50 mile radius of Estes Park usually requires you to pay money to sleep on the ground, charging you for things like a swimming pool, shower, and free wifi, which, in my opinion, are all things you avoid while camping. There are a few blessed spots in the nearby national forest where you can camp for free, usually in a much more picturesque setting and without the hum of a giant RV next door. You may have to contend with rowdy locals and a lot of beer cans and debris in your campsite, but I’ll take my chances. We were very lucky this weekend, as it was pretty quiet and the view was even better than I remembered. We clean up our campsite, set up our tent, and start a fire just as Mark and Kate arrive to join us.

Our breakfast nook

To the Monastery! We saddle up our gear Saturday morning for the short but steep hike through a gulley and into the Outer Gates of the Monastary. This climbing is all fingers and toes. There are dozens of holds to choose from as you ascent; you just have to find them and trust that you really can stand on a teeny tiny knob protruding from the face of the rock. Climbing for me is almost always as much psychological as it is physical for me, and these tall spires have a way of tricking you into thinking there is nowhere for your next move until you try it. Here’s the rundown:

Going to the Chapel 5.8
Most of the route is hidden from the belayer, so when Doug nervously calls down, “Hey can you look in the book and tell me where the anchors should be?” my blood pressure rises a little. Without a bolt in sight, Doug abandons the route and instead traverses to the anchor for the route next door. I follow him, with just enough fear crossing the traverse to keep me on my toes (literally). Afterwards, Mark leads the route next and eventually finds the original anchors, though they are about 50 feet above the last bolt.

Kate and Mark climb Going to the Chapel (the correct/hazardous way)

Simplexity 5.9+
Another pinchy finger shredding good time. Mark’s shoulder makes an excellent foot hold for those who are under 6 feet and can’t do a pull up.

CCD 5.1
Kate leads this earlier in the day and agrees to go back with me so that I can lead and practice setting a top rope. We agree that while being married to virtual rope guns makes for great climbing, it’s a good idea for us ladies to be leading climbs as well.

The Steeple (5.8)
Doug leads up the skinny tower with Mark seconding.

At this point our calves and fingers are aching and the clouds come in, so we head back to the campsite with just a little rain and thunder hovering over us. We get back to the campsite to find that the Access Fund folks who came to do some campsite maintenance left us a 6-pack of New Belgium Mighty Arrow. We cheer and make a mental note to join the Access Fund. Another thunderstorm finds the campsite just as our fajitas are coming off the fire and we have to eat dinner in the car, but the rest of the night is clear and peaceful.

Stormy sunset over Long's Peak

Pictures from the weekend are here, and be sure check out Kate's post and photos as well.

Rolling Green... Wyoming?

I took a small voyage to the Northern Reaches of Wyoming for work this week, and managed to huff enough oil fumes that I never want to work on a oil tank battery again. But, in the mean time, there was a lot of large, rolling green fields to enjoy and the worksite actually was about 30 miles NW of Devil's Tower. I love that seeing 30 miles out beyond the horizon is fairly normal in Wyoming. Some of the other shots are on the flickr page.

Kill Your Television

Well, don't kill it. That would be rude - but you certainly should stop paying for cable.

2 months ago, for grins, we attached our old bunny ears to the antenna port on the tv and discovered that we were getting all four local network stations over the air in HD. I sat and processed this fact for a few minutes, and then went to look at the most recent invoice that we had received from DirecTv, and blinked at the $83 i had sent them last month.

Hmm.

So, since 1 + 1 = 2, water is wet, and $83 is a ridiculous monthly fee for HD ESPN, i took a spin through the internet to see the state of the Home Theatre Personal Computer (HTPC). Guess what? I discovered it was even easier than ever to complete a homebrew solution to feed TV programming to our little LCD along with a free and functional DVR via the Vista Media Center. We had a desktop PC upstairs running vista (up until this moment, to my discontent) that wasn't getting much use, and already had a hole in the ceiling to run the Ethernet cabling to the living room. One video card and long range wireless keyboard later, (and more RAM, a new Terabyte hard drive, etc etc etc) the 'ol DirecTv receiver has been replaced by our (less sleek) computer.

But this isn't a rant against TV per say, but against the culture required to get that content. Though most of the content is trash (my coworkers all know to not bother bringing up American Idol in my presence. And if you do in the comments, i will fight you.) there are some things that are worth watching - as well as some really good playoff sports. But in order to get it, you have to sign ridiculous contracts for waaay too much money for 90% of the channels you do not ever watch. We watched ESPN, the Food Network and Comedy Central. We had over 250 channels, and that was all we bothered with.

But with the advent of the digital age, all the network channels are moving to a new signal that is more consistent and much sharper. After the 12th, the country's transition will be complete, and we'll all be better for it. Add that to websites like Hulu and most major networks homepages, you do not have to pay the ransom that used to be required to get LOST in HD. In fact, Hulu just launched a new desktop flash based client that can interface via a PC remote instead of using a keyboard or mouse at all! Brilliant!

The one article that is not free, though, is that we have become Netflix people. For $9 a month (roughly 10% of the old cable bill) we get unlimited dvd's in the mail (albeit 1 disc at a time) and unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows through their website. Even better, Netflix has just released a widget that works within the Vista Media Center that allows us to see these streaming movies alongside the same place we watch our live TV. Hopefully this will lead to some more movie-review posts as we actually catch up on all of the movies that we haven't watched for fear of paying $10 per movie ticket.

So, if you're curious about ditching dish, and telling Comcast that you hope they go bankrupt, take a look at the government's DTV website that will tell you what kind of signal from local channels you get. Once you do that, you can very easily turn an old desktop into a DVR, or even build one from scratch relatively on the cheap. There are numerous set-top boxes that are being sold that deliver online content as well, without the need for a full computer. And if you already own an XBOX 360 or PS3, more and more strides are being made to make these useful media extenders to your living room. Like most home projects, it's not as simple as letting the cable companies come in and install in in an hour, but when you think about the $1000 annual budget that you were giving them, suddenly two weekends of time seems worth it. Viva La Revolucion!

New Mexico Adventures

Oh, why, um, hullo.

weird things happen in the in betweens. Some things are changing, but mostly, things are not. The spring semester in Ft Collins has concluded, which means that change is a-comin'. There will soon be parking space downtown, less foottraffic in the intersections, and the town is as a whole much, much quieter. It's really the best time of the year.

All that said, not a whole lot has been going on since we last talked. This weekend, though, Liz and I split paths and headed in opposite directions. She, to the mitten motherland to watch the last Hillman Boy graduate high school, and I southwardly to celebrate Memorial Day weekend with friends and family. As I am the only one currently writing this, you will get the latter perspective now...

I convinced Zachary to join me in our venture, as his wife had also left him for the weekend to photograph a wedding in San Jose. Dropping liz off at the airport, we continued down I-25, and eventually found ourselves in Tres Piedras NM, just beyond the Colorado border. It was late, the ground was spongy, and we quickly set up camp and went to bed. The morning brought more mist and moderate temperatures. Dylan joked that we weren't in New Mexico at all, but had hit a portal near Alamosa and we were actually camping in Sqaumish.

The morning brought on again off again showers of mist, and the grand climbing day had melted into a hike around the rocks, taking note of all of the good looking (albeit soaked) granite routes that we had no chance at climbing. A lunch back at camp resulted in the concensus being departing for Santa Fe was the best course of action, and before too long we found ourselves at the Santa Fe Brewing company, toasting our failed adventure.


The next am we departed the Kuhn's residence before 9 hunting for another chance at a day of climbing in the Diablo Canyon North of town. The forecast was for more showers, but when we arrived to the empty, vast wall the rain didn't seem imminent enough to deter us from flaking ropes and equipping harnesses. We climbed until nearly 1 pm, completeing numerous routes between the 8 party members and all agreeing that while we were eventually chased off by rain, the day had been more kind to us than we were expecting.

On the way back to the car, two gals on their own way back to the parking area advised us to check out what was around the corner in the center of the canyon, because it would "make our weekend". Not that i don't usually trust strangers (i don't) or like prolonging my time out in the rain (also a no) we couldn't help but looked. What we found turned out to be the very last thing we were expecting - a rig of wheels, solar panels and red linen flapping in the wind dispensing ice cream.

Really!


The gent had been there for a couple days, and explained that he was filiming a documentary of his travels with his contraption. The rig powered a freezer containing popsicles and a computer that allowed people to post entries to the project's log that would eventually find it's way online. We thanked him for the frozen treats and turned back to the car, debating what it was about the human spirit that causes grown men to sleep in the desert and dispense desserts.

The second commercial stop of the trip was at the 2nd St. Brewery, and it also did not dissapoint. Games and driving remained, and eventually Zach and I found ourselves back home with reality to face, but a single day already knocked off the work week. Sometimes - sometimes - the gods can be kind.


There is a flickr pool of everyone's photos living over here, with just my shots living here. Dylan's write up of the weekend is over here, while Kate and Mark's take is over here with their shots from the weekend here. (actually, I will update this with links when such posts exist. I assume they will.) All i needed was liz in the picture to truly make the weekend the perfect way to kick off the summer, but, we shall leave that event to next weekend, i suppose.

Milwaukee Cares About Your Combobulation

This is where I (Liz) am right now, post standard airport strip search. The
sign, and my newly acquired Irish Breakfast tea, has made a miserable
morning a little better.

People on my enemy list for the weekend:
Mother Nature
Midwest Airlines
Lady in seat next to me with crying infant
Best Western and their continental breakfast and broken everything

People on my ok list:
Milwaukee airport

People on my awesome list:
All of the lovely family members I'm heading to see in Michigan, including my little bro Matt, the recent high school graduate. I may be 12 hours late but I'm coming!