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....