OB

Outward Bound…recently I completed a six-day Outward Bound leadership course for professionals. It wasn’t life changing but it was enlightening. The Outward Bound course is just part of the year-long Denver Community Leadership Forum class that I’m in. The class and Outward Bound course contains 16 amazing people that I feel lucky to know. For most of the week the class was broken up into two groups of eight. 

Each group had to immediately come up with a name, a song, and a movement.  It’s a little bit of a long story, but we decided to call ourselves The Tykusaurus. Of course, our movement was a T-Rex-like arm movement and a roar.  Here’s The Tykusaurus in mid-roar:

So what did we do all week? Lots. The days were packed. Day one was a ropes course and an activity called “the spider web.” The physical point of the activity is to get all eight of us from one side of the spider web (a series of holes created by rope and cord) to the other without touching the web. We couldn’t use one hole more than once. After a bit of deliberation and trial and error, The Tykusaurus overcame and eventually got everyone to the other side (not without some man-handling…).

Day two was devoted to rock climbing. I’ve done rock climbing in the past and used to do it with some frequency so the day wasn’t super challenging but I did have fun getting on some rock. Of course the debrief (which we had after every activity) was full of metaphors for life that were seen in the activity. Anyway, here is me on day two:

On day three we gathered (“circled up”) at 5:50 am to stretch, do exercises, and go on a run around the Outward Bound campus.  This exertion was all in an effort to make ourselves hot because the thing we did next was strip down into bathing suits and dip our entire bodies into a super cold pond. I was seriously dreading this but after getting sufficiently sweaty, the dip wasn’t so bad.

Later we set off on our backpacking trip. Our group hiked a fairly steep 1.5 miles to Windsor Lake then set up camp.  For a group of eight students, two instructors, and the class coordinator, camp consisted of three tarp tents and an instructor tent. That’s right – a tarp tent. This means you and your sleeping bag are somewhat sheltered from the elements and not nearly enough from the mosquitos.

The next morning we arose at 3:30 am to hike a peak.  We were hiking by 5:00 am and gained a ridge in time for the sunrise:

I learned a valuable lesson that day about making sure a team is on the same page about the goal(s) for the day.  But I’m not going to go into that. That night was the “solo night.” This means that each of us found an appropriate spot and set up a smaller solo tent that was not within sight distance of anyone else.  We were to spend the solo time reflecting or doing whatever we wanted to do.  I was so tired that I literally sat on a rock and swatted mosquitos for most of the time before crawling into the sleeping bag. This is a side view of my solo site:

On day five we returned to base camp, ate breakfast, debriefed our solo experience and backpacked out. This is the group at the end of the hike demonstrating the Tykusaurus roar:

That night each group did a skit to share their interpretation of the experience. So skit planning took up the bulk of the time before and after dinner.

Day six was for raft building and wall climbing – the groups were much more successful at wall climbing than raft building. Here’s a photo of the entire class after conquering the wall:

All in all, I’m glad I did it. The biggest take away for me was to remember that your friends or coworkers may be struggling even when they make tasks look easy.  Many of us are good at putting up a strong, confident façade but you never know what is really going on with someone else.

That is all.

21

“Cheesy Kiss”

Gore Range Trail…interrupted

Last weekend Lisa and I took three different Summit Stage buses to get to the trailhead of the Gore Range Trail at Copper Mountain. Temperatures were around 100 degrees in Denver, which means it was relatively nicer in the mountains but still pretty warm if you’re hiking with a backpack on in the sun around 3:30 pm.

We got about 5 miles in when we hit Lost Lake and decided to camp for the night. There was not another person to be seen the entire evening or the next morning.  Only an hour from Denver and a 5-mile hike in and we were completely alone at a beautiful mountain lake!

These are shots of the lake around sunrise:

We ate a leisurely breakfast, which included spending some time just drinking coffee and sitting in the dappled sunlight at the lake’s edge.  This is Lisa and her oatmeal:

The only problem that we’d had was my feet…I usually hike in trailrunning shoes but had instead opted for hiking boots for this trip.  Makes sense, I was hauling a pack and needed some support and stability.  The combo of my feet and those boots was unfortunate – my feet got huge blisters and I experienced pain in wearing them.  My solution? Hike in Chacos! Chacos are a kind of sandal but they are very supportive and comfortable. I’ve backpacked in them before and thought I’d have no significant problems.

So we set out for the day with the goal of hiking 5-8 miles over two passes.  Here are some of the sights on the way to the first pass and just on the other side:

After descending the pass for an hour or so, my feet began to get tender and uncomfortable.  This is what one of the blisters looked like:

After much deliberation and acceptance of guilty feelings on my part, we decided to abort the mission…but vacation was not over! We got a hotel room in Frisco and enjoyed an evening that included beer and burgers on the patio at the Backcountry Brewery.

Sunday morning we made our way back down the hill and into Denver to endure the heat.

Huron

This past weekend I hiked a 14er for the first time with a dog! Dempsey and I climbed Huron Peak (14,003') near Leadville, Colorado. We also brought along Dempsey's person, Seth. I climbed this peak in 2006 with Lisa but took the non-standard route and ascended the back side of the mountain.

On this 11-mile round trip hike (taking the standard route) we gained 3,800' of elevation and ultimately achieved the summit! I was too nervous to take my Subaru on the 2.1 mile 4-wheel-drive road, so we walked it. I felt ok about that because we saw nothing but trucks and jeeps at the trailhead and passed bits of cars on the road on the way up. After the road portion, the hike pretty much went up, steeply at times, for the rest of the way. We started at 6:00 am, and hit the top right around 9:00 am. After a night filled intermittently with sleep in a tent, 6:00 am felt quite early:

The sky was clouded for most of the ascent and there was still ice on the creek in some spots. It even snowed a bit just after we departed the summit. Overall though there wasn't much snow - a complete departure from last year's snow situation.

Summit shots - this was Seth and Dempsey's first 14er and they did great!

The Three Apostles were stunning from the summit:

The hike out was a slow back and forth down switchbacks to get below treeline and back onto the road. We were treated to plenty of flowers and more amazing views on the hike out:

We were packed up and back on paved roads by noon.  All in all, a fantastic way to spend a Saturday morning.

Frolicking

The Blah life went on the road this weekend - to Steamboat Springs, Colorado!

Per the Colorado norm, the weather was gorgeous.  An 11 mile hike in the Mount Zirkel wilderness was the highlight of the trip. We hiked the Gold Creek Lake-Gilpin Trail loop from the Slavonia trailhead.  The information said that the trailhead had limited parking and that there was heavy usage, so we arrived around 8 AM. There was plenty of parking and we saw almost no one on the entire hike. The guidebook also said that the scenery was "above average." We pondered what "average" scenery is for Colorado and what does "above average" mean...seems like a strange scale.

Although upon completion of the hike, I have to agree with the "above average" rating. Not only were there aspen forests and fields of avalanche lilies, there was a porcupine! It just ambled across the trail and away into the woods as if we weren't even there. The photo below is the only evidence I have and is of its retreat.

The fields of little yellow, down-turned avalanche lilies provided a perfect stage for frolicking:

There was also fungus, which was a big surprise because I don't normally expect to see mushrooms until late summer/early fall. There was even fungus coming up out of the snow!

We even spotted a beefsteak morel (aka brain mushroom), I've only ever seen these one other time in Colorado and they were fairly plentiful on this hike. Here's a little clump of them. 

We did eventually run into some snow near an alpine lake and we lost the trail...this might explain why there were fewer cars and people than expected. Here's what it looked like at the shore of the lake:

There were some ominous clouds that made us a little anxious when we lost the trail completely on the north side of the lake.  Luckily there were some footsteps in the snow that led us back to the beaten path.

The next day we did a short hike to and around Fish Creek Falls. It too had great things - slugs, butterflies, beautiful flora:

And, bonus! There was a cute guy hanging around the falls:

So that was a vacation from the blah life. Now I'm back to the blah. I'm not complaining though! A blah day in Colorado is worth a good week in many other places.

Until next time...

Bored Panda

Boredom has entered parts of my life lately. Boredom plus access to computers constantly leads to wandering the internet for amusement. In these travels I have found Bored Panda. It’s perfect for mindless entertainment; it contains lots of photos of street art and other hilarity. Here is a sampling from the post “33 Perfectly Timed Photos”

I also enjoyed their photos of bus shelter adverts:

The IKEA bus stop:

Not an IKEA ad but clever:

There’s plenty more – check it out for yourself.

20

Gummy love

I found these two gummy lovebirds perched on a flower on 14th Ave.

Seeing these little guys reminded me that finding love is random and that it often exists on a parallel path.  You could easily be oblivious to it and just go on about your life. Luckily this time I didn’t miss it.  

19

Eating Baby Animals

There was a time when I wouldn't eat baby animals but it seems that time is fading into the distance. Last night I ate Greek-style lamb sliders with yogurt-cucumber sauce. These were made on the grill, with fresh-from-the-garden mint, and with feta cheese added to the lamb concoction. They were AMAZING. Here is the before shot:

This is the final product paired with fresh-off-the-cob corn sauteed with butter:

You may be noticing the sauce and thinking, "wait a minute, she doesn't eat sauce on things." You'd be right, generally.  I gave the yogurt-cucumber sauce (which included garlic!) a day in court and, to my surprise, really enjoyed it. It added a creamy, tangy element without stealing the show. The downside is that it made the little slider a bit gooey and hard to hold but it was worth it. 

As a side note the prep was accompanied by New Belgium's Cocao Mole Ale, which I tried fresh off the tap for the first time at the New Belgium brewery on a tour on Friday. I recommend it - spicy, fresh flavor but not overpowering. The meal was paired with New Belgium's Shift pale lager. I think it was too light to stand up to the oniony, minty, garlicky goodness that was dinner.  I'll need to try it again on its own to really be fair and review it. 

So, in the end I went out on a limb and tried things I hadn't tried before and had an amazing meal. There must be some kind of positive influence at work here...