Pigskin Weekend

Fall forces its way in, regardless how hard I wish for a couple more weeks of summer. With the abrupt entrance of this Fall stuff, comes football. I did a doubleheader this weekend, catching the CU/Ariz. State game in Boulder with some buddies Saturday night then the Broncos/Chiefs game in Denver yesterday.

I've been to a whole lot of football games in my life, and without doubt, CU has the worst bunch of fans I've ever witnessed in my life. I had the pleasure of sitting in the student section, which is a mistake that I won't soon make again. The seats were great, about 20 rows up, 50 yard line but the students at CU are terrible. The things I saw and heard were eye opening.

Most of the antics are not even repeatable, but I'll give you an example. I saw the same student, sitting about 5 rows in front and 10 seats down, throw objects into the student section below him 3 separate times. Ridiculous. I don't know what he was throwing, but it didn't matter to me. The fact that he continuously threw objects into other students and no one around him had the sense to say something to him just blew me away. I've heard some horror stories about CU fans, but I honestly didn't really believe it.

On the contrary, the Broncos fans are impressive. Even though the game was a grinder that was barren of big plays and touchdowns, the Broncos fans seem to be classy and knowledgeable. This is the 2nd Bronco's game I've attended, and both times I left impressed with the crowd.

The Broncos game was, well, pretty boring as football games go. It basically consisted of Larry Johnson running for 4-5 yards a carry, the Broncos having 4 or 5 play drives and then punting. I'm not sure how the Broncos actually managed to pull out a victory, as they surely didn't play very well but a win is a win.

And with Fall here it means Fantasy Football....
Dispite having the best player in the league, Landanian Tomlinson, my team falls to 0-2 this week. I've done my best to coach myself into 0-2 by putting in the wrong players in back to back weeks. My teams typically start off super hot then fade down the stretch, so maybe its a reversal of fortune this year. Then again my team may just be terrible all year, but I'll be skiing on Sundays (it snowed down to 8500ft this weekend) in a couple months so it won't matter anyway.

Vagabonds on our doorstep

Jill & I pulled up in the driveway from work yesterday to find two rough and tumble mountain men who had taken up residence on our front porch. Jill's Dad & Brother, Jim & Justin, rambled through Colorado briefly after a month plus of living out of a tent all across the Alaska, Canada and the NW United States.

We got to hear some of their stories, including being on a hunting trip 100 miles north of the Artic Circle and getting snowed in, from their summer of adventure. The two are currently traveling from Alaska to Oklahoma before Justin heads off to his new home in Kentucky after a couple years in Fairbanks, Alaska.

After seeing these two journeymen, I think its clear that if you want to lose weight that you should just spend a summer with these two. Jim & Justin are both big kids, but they were as svelte as I've ever seen them. Of course, they did do an honorable job of devouring a substantial amount of food at the Walnut last night in Boulder.

Although it was a very brief stay, it was certainly good to see them and catch up some. Now why the heck didn't I think to take a couple pictures....

Weekend Lookback

Random thoughts from the past weekend, which would have some pictures of our various adventures had I not once again forgotten to put a media card into my camera:

1. Football is back, and in full force.

OState wins over a patsy, but doesn't look very good doing it. Watching Ohio St./Texas after OState/Arkansas St made was like going from a high school game to a NFL game. A win is a win though, and those can be few and far between during football season for an OState fan at times.

Regardless of how many years removed I am from living under the crimson regime in Oklahoma, I still despise OU. All things Gooners envoke ire for me. Even ex-Gooners, such as Mike Stoops are on my hate list. It was fun watching Les Miles, OState's ex-coach, destroy a Stoops brother, regardless which one it was. It is very refreshing to not have to live in Gooner Nation though, I can avoid them with little trouble here on the Front Range.

2. Hiking with 30lb backpacks isn't easy.

Jill & I had to alter our weekend overnight camping plans due to weather & a stomach bug that got the best of me on Saturday, but we headed out for a long hike and some gear testing today. Jill started with way too much weight, and given the very steep first couple miles wasn't feeling too good as we moved towards the meadow (that we had never previously reached).

I kept asking her to take some weight, trying to explain to her that I wasn't struggling with my pack weight and that we should take some weight from her pack and put it in mine. This routine kept up for a couple of miles until Jill calmly looked at me and said:

"If you tell me how great you are one more time, I'm going to stab you with my hiking pole."

I don't think she was kidding.

I quickly learned how to keep my comments to myself. At the top of the climb she stopped, gave me a bit of a glare and said:

"You want some more weight? I'll give you some weight."

Luckily, after we moved some weight from her pack to mine, I shut my mouth and we continued on and things improved. We stopped and cooked some lunch with our new stove (which is simply incredible), and after some food and a needed rest everything got better. We laughed about our altercation on the way down.

3. Backpacking means improvising

We got to our lunch spot today and realized with all the things we had stuffed into our packs, we had forgotten any forks/spoons/utensils. Oops. Lets see what we can find...We managed to find a wooden tongue depressor for Jill to use, and I made do with a paper tag that I use to scrape food and shovel it into my mouth. The freeze-dried camping food was surprisingly really good, and quite filling for the two of us strangely enough.

I wanted to fashion a fork out of three sticks and some zip ties to release my inner Macgyver, but a rain storm that blew in as we started to cook lunch made me rethink that whole idea. Maybe next time.

The End of Summer

You can pretty much stick a fork in Summer here on the Front Range, as Fall has pushed its way through rather abruptly. Fall is a really great time here, as you have some gorgeous days and the colors come alive in the high country. Of course that also means that when the evil Daylight Savings day comes that the 3 months of darkness and winter will be here. But I've learned to cope thanks to ski season...

We had a pretty relaxed Labor Day Weekend for our standards. We expected Jill's brother & Dad would be stopping by on their trek from Alaska to Kentucky. We stayed pretty close to home expecting some night we'd drive up to see a couple of grizzled vagabonds waiting on our doorstep but evidently they are stuck in Seattle waiting to pick up their car from the ferry.

We attended a small get-together at the Turner's on Friday night, took the dogs for a hike on Saturday morning and then took in some dinner on Saturday night. Sunday we hit up Winter Park for the last time this season for some lift-aided downhill runs. We only did 4 runs, but the final 3 runs we smoked down the hill and took some more technical trails that left us completely worn out.

Yesterday my plans for a big, high country ride up at Sourdough or something comparable were completely ignored. We ran some errands and picked up some odds and ends for our upcoming camping trips. We're going to be doing a "dry run" of back country camping in Grand Teton/Yellowstone up in Lion's Gulch this weekend. We've got a serious pile of new gear so we figured we'd pack everything up, do a hike and camp overnight with the dogs and then head back the next morning.

We'll be spending 6 or so days in Grand Teton & Yellowstone, many of which we'll be doing backcountry camping and trying to avoid getting the Timothy Treadwell treatment. New packs, new sleeping pads, new ultralight tent, new stove, etc. We're stocked up and ready to see the sights that are far from the parking lots. I can't wait....

Weekend Adventures - Part 2

After our long day of being up before dawn and hiking to a lake at 11,000 feet, Jill & I were worn out. We grabbed some dinner in Grand Lake and headed back to the tent anxiously awaiting sunset so we could get some much needed sleep.

Things didn't go quite as planned as neither of us seemed to get much sleep for some reason. The funny part was every time that I woke up and looked over I thought Jill was sleeping soundly. And every time that Jill woke up she looked over and thought I was sleeping as well. I think we alternated tossing and turning at different times all night long.

Regardless, we got up just before sunrise. Our plan was to go hit Cascade Falls, which was about a 7 mile hike, but wasn't as severe of a climb. Unzipping the tent, we peered out to see a small group of elk about 30 yards from our tent. So we didn't sleep much, but waking up to the sites of RMNP was worth it after all.

The morning was cool and crisp, with fog in all the lower areas. We started down the hiking path and made it about a mile before Jill stopped and pointed out something in the field. About the same time she pointed the animal out, it noticed us and was on the move. We were about 1/8 mile from it, but it was quite clear that we had just seen a wolf. The animal was very large, much more so than a coyote, and it moved very quickly. I had no chance at getting a picture of this reclusive creature, which makes me appreciate how all these nature photographers can do it.

We had barely quit talking about how great it was to see a wolf before we stumbled upon our next wildlife find. Again, Jill pointed out a big black mass out in the field. As we neared and got a better angle, we realized it was a family of moose getting an early morning snack along a creek bed. They took note of use, but didn't seem to threatened as I got to within about 50 yards of them for some quick photos. Why didn't I bring my big lens again?



After the wolf and the moose encounter, I was sure that we'd finally see a black bear to complete the rarely seen animal trifecta. While we did stumble across a deer who barely moved until we got within 6 feet, but no bear was to be found. Perhaps they were still napping in the cool morning air.

We pushed on towards Cascade Falls cursing every small climb as we went. Our bodies were tired, but we could hear the falls so we knew we were near. Finally, we reached our destination and were very pleased to see Cascade Falls. Much bigger than I expected, especially this late in the season, we both agreed it was well worth the hike.









We spent an hour or so taking pictures, enjoying the views, and eating a snack before packing up and heading out. We passed a lot of hikers on the way back to the car, and we were both glad we had "traveled like old people" and hit the trails early. I've said it many times before, but to truly appreciate Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park, you've got to get out of the car and hike in to the sights, which is exactly what we've been doing.

We're entering the transition between Summer & Fall, which means the leaves will start to turn and the elk will start the bugling. And that means Jill & I will be up before dawn at RMNP again many more times in the coming months. When did I become a morning person?