The Rockies and Rocky Mountain Natl Park

Friday night we took advantage of some afternoon T-Storms that cooled the temps off and went to a Rockies game with Chris & Molly. The Rockies got shutout, only had 5 hits, but the weather was magnificent and we had a good time regardless of the outcome. Coors Field is a cool place to take in a game, especially on a nice night like last evening.

Today we got a bit of a late start after somehow managing to sleep in till 8 a.m., which is about 1.5 hours longer than most Saturdays. We ended up deciding to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park and explore a new trail.

We set out to hike to Timberland Falls above The Loch, about an 8-9 mile hike with quite a bit of elevation gain. We started just below the Glacier Gorge trailhead and hiked up and started on our way. We encountered some groups of people near Alberta Falls (pic below), but we really didn't have any trouble making our way through the increasing summer crowds.



After Alberta Falls you continue on the same path as Mills Lake, before the trail splits and goes west to The Loch and continues to Timberland Falls. As we continued on the crowds thinned, but the weather threatened. Its pretty much a fact of life that every afternoon T-Storms roll in, especially near the Continental Divide. The Loch is at 10,200ft elevation, so I kept a watchful eye on the fast moving storm clouds as we treked along.

After a mile of rocky switchback climbs, we started seeing more and more snow which was a precursor of things to come. We eventually came around a corner to see an enormous snow bank in front of us. Luckily, the snow bank was packed and able to be walked across easily. Just passed the first snow bank we found The Loch, which is a high elevation lake comparable to Mills and/or Emerald.



We decided that due to the pending storms (we had no jackets) and the mounting snow at 10k and above, that The Loch would suffice as our ultimate destination and Timberland Falls would have to wait. So we sat on a rocky ledge, had some lunch and repeatedly said how lucky we both felt to live so close to such an amazing place.

We didn't stay too long, as a wicked wind was coming off the peaks and the temps were easily 20 degrees less at The Loch than at the parking lot. We made great time heading back down, stopping only for a couple photos before arriving back at the car. We ended up doing a bit over 7 miles, with somewhere around 2,000 ft in elevation gain.

I decided to take the scenic route home (Hghwy 7 instead of 36) for a change, and we stumbled upon St. Malo Chapel (The Church on the Rock). We stopped long enough to snap some pics, take a quick tour inside and then headed back home for some pizza for dinner.

Triple Digit Week

After hitting 90+ miles last week, this week I surpassed 100 miles on Wednesday. Of course, doing a 50 mile ride on Sunday gets me 1/2 way there, but 100 miles is a 100 miles right? And yeah I know that tons of people do a 100 miles in a day, but a milestone is a milestone regardless of how small it may be to some people.

Sunday - 52 miles at Elephant Rock
Monday - Rest Day
Tuesday - Easy ride at lunch, 14 miles
Wednesday - Hard 36 mile ride. Ouch.

102 miles Sunday - Wednesday with a day off thrown in there. Pretty good by my standards, but I keep upping my standards so in two months time it will look pretty poor.

I'll probably approach 150 miles this week assuming I do something pseudo-big on Saturday. The road bike has really helped me be more consistent with riding and get in a lot more miles, but I do hear the sweet siren that I call singletrack calling my name this weekend.

Thinking about possibly doing a big ride at Winter Park, the Tipperary Creek Loop. If I don't do that, maybe either lift-aided downhilling at Winter Park with Jill or go up to West Magnolia and explore some new stuff.

When I get home and get the chance I'll throw up a glorious chart or graph detailing some quantitative method of tracking mileage/distance/speed/etc, as I know that Jill just won't be able to sleep until I bore her to sleep with some statistics. That is if she is really reading this.... :)

Sunday Doubleheader Part 1 - Elephant Rock

Yesterday was a great example why I love living in Colorado. Wake up at 4:45a.m. to drive to Sarah's house to head down to the Elephant Rock Ride in Castle Rock. Sarah & I had opted for the 50 mile route and would be riding along with about 6,998 other cyclist. The doubleheader aspect is that we had also booked a Class III/IV whitewater rafting adventure in Idaho Springs from 3:30pm. Sunday would not be a dull day.

We arrived at the event a bit before 7 and by 7:30 we were rolling across the start line. The course elevation profile showed 1900ft of climbing, with almost all of it in the first 25 miles. So off we went, slowly ascending as the miles clicked off. After about 8 miles we hit the first rest stop and we regrouped after the climb. I pulled out front for Sarah trying to shed the wind for her, but the road as the road continuously climbed gradually she slipped off my wheel and I pushed forward to the second rest stop.

Hitting the 2nd rest stop, we were at the decision point. Right turn meant we'd do our original plan of 50 miles. Straight and we could do the 65 mile route. Sarah openly chastised me that I should do the 65 mile route and see if I could catch her doing the 50 mile route. I thought about it, but considering most of the remaining 30 miles of her route would be downhill I didn't think I could make up 15 miles on her so we hopped back on our bikes and trudged over the next 5 miles of rolling hills before getting an easy pass on the downhills to Palmer Lake where the next rest stop area was located.

After Palmer Lake we headed for home, although into a sometimes stiff headwind. Sarah & I both hopped into pace lines (a group of cyclist riding single file, where the person up front is doing most of the work) and made great time from mile 30 to mile 40. Leaving the 40 mile rest area, we had another steady climb that split us up again, but I waited at the apex and we descended together.

We hit the service road (the last 6 mile stretch) together and started down the home stretch. We hopped on the back of another pace line (or so we thought), but the pace quickly dropped. As the pace dropped I notice Sarah jump out and start to hammer forward. I figure she's found some new life in her legs so I jump out to take the pace making duties and cut the wind for her since my legs are feeling great. As I hammer forward, I feel someone drop in behind me (it makes a noticeable difference in wind on a bike) so I get on the drop bars and start powering a big pace down the final stretch.

As I looked back I realized it isn't Sarah behind me, but some random guy who jumped on my wheel. No big deal, I'm assuming Sarah is behind him and the three of us are powering along. Up front, I do a huge pull of about 3.5 miles in the upper 20mph range. Finally I've used myself up somewhat and motion to the random guy behind me that he needs to pull through and do some work while I recover. As he pulls through I realize that its just the two of us and we've either dropped Sarah or never had her. Well after about a mile the guy in front blows up so I jump back around and try to take over the pulling duties, but he can't get back on my wheel and so I just motor ahead on my own for the final 1.5 miles.

At the stop just before the finish I wait up for Sarah so we can finish together. She shows up looking somewhat dejected and somewhat angry. She tells me that when I jumped up earlier the random guy jumped on my wheel before she could and she missed her chance and wasn't able to bridge the gap to his wheel and then the two of us were long gone. So some random guy got a free pull back to the parking lot, but at least I made him do a little work.

We finished up the last mile, coming across the anticlimactic finish line area about noon (4 hours total, 3 hours ride time) and then grabbed some of the complimentary BBQ. Knowing we had to get back to Sarah's by 2pm to meet up with Jill (who was already at Sarah's house) and Scott & Kim Turner, we headed to the car.

Here is the data from my heart rate monitor. Averaged 17ish mph pace with an average heart rate of about 150 (my max is 200). I probably hit 85% on some of the climbs, but never felt out of breath or hurting too much. All this climbing/riding I've done really paid off as felt really strong out there yesterday.

On the graph, the solid line in the back is the elevation profile, and the jagged red line is my heart rate curve.

Sunday Doubleheader Part 2 - Whitewater rafting

We got to the car about 12:15, loaded up and assumed our spot in the line of cars that was trying to get out. After about 30 minutes of sitting in the same spot (hadn't moved 5ft) Sarah got out to see what the problem was. An enormous line of cars had formed behind us as there was only one way out of the fairgrounds (and with 7,000 cyclists all finishing up about now there were lots of people wanting to go home).

Sarah had been up and back several times and basically said there were about 15 different parking areas funneling into one line, but since our line was furthest back it wasn't moving. We had literally moved 15ft in about 1.5 hours. We're now getting frantic and paranoid as we're already too late to make it to Westminster to meet up with the other rafting crew, but can maybe make it if we cut across straight to Idaho Springs.

In what can only be divine intervention, Sarah was running around the fairgrounds looking for a back way out. At the same time, I had flagged down a worker in a golf cart and asked what was going on. He told me there was a back way out but he needed to get a gate open. Sarah came back to the car and said she thought we could get out the back, so we started making our way towards the back. In the process we had to explain, beg and plead with all the other stopped cars that we thought we had a way out, if they could just let us by maybe we could all get out right then. We must have been pretty convincing in our desperate state as we managed to get about 10 cars to back up and follow us. As we pulled to the back, we see the worker that I had flagged down opening the gate that Sarah had found.

Redemption.

We get out of the fairgrounds and worked our way north as quickly as possible, hit I-25 and off we went. We cut across 470 to I-70 and before we knew it we were in Idaho Springs, and with 20 minutes to spare. What a relief....

On to the rafting...

We were all a bit skeptical about how intense the rafting on Clear Creek would be, considering some of the life altering scary rafting we've done in the past. The trip was listed as "continuous Class III & IV rapids" so we figured at this point in the year with the high water levels we'd give it a shot. It was close to home and reasonably priced, so even if it wasn't uber impressive it still beat a mundane Sunday at the mall.

The 5 in our group got put in a raft with 2 other college girls from Wisconsin, who were interning in Denver for the summer. Jill & I were up front, with Sarah and Kim behind us and Scott and the two Wisconsin girls behind them. We had all gotten very hot standing around in the sun outfitted in wetsuits, water jackets with lifevest on top of them so hitting the water was a very welcome thing, or so we thought.

The water was frigid, even with the wetsuits. I heard the guides say the water was in the 45-50 deg range, but it was sure a wakeup call. As we started down the river, it was evident early that the high water would make for a fun, and fast trip down the river. We started out in some rolling dips, but being in the front of the raft Jill & I were taking the brunt of the punishment from the cold water insurges.

As we quickly traveled down river, the cold water shots to the face became pretty routine as adrenaline built as the rapids got bigger and bigger. I've always felt the class ratings on rapids to be very subjective. I've done 4 trips now with rapids from Class II to Class V+, and this trip was probably just slightly less difficult than the rafting we did in Denali National Park on the Nenanna River. Nonetheless, we did have some fairly large drops in quick succession that kept us on our toes.

The penultimate rapid of the day, Outer Limits, proved to be quite a rush. It was a fairly short rapid, but it consisted of a narrow chute that dropped about 5ft into a large crashing wave, then did several other slightly smaller drops and waves in rapid succession.

After The Outer Limits, the rapids calmed and as adrenaline wore off and the sun set, we all started getting rather cold. We made it back shortly, dried off and headed out to an Idaho Springs staple Tommyknocker's Brewery for some spirts and much needed food.

All in all a huge Sunday and a great weekend in all. I feel so much more alive when I can piece together an epic weekend like this one. Now I just have to make it through another week of the desk job so I can afford to do it all again next weekend.

We honeymooned next to a ghost...

Jill & I have been watching the Sci-Fi Channel Show Ghost Hunters for the last year or so. Basically these are a group of people who go to places that are claimed to be haunted and they do scientific type research to try and document or disprove the haunting. They have multiple video recorders, audio devices, thermal imaging and a team of investigators that stay overnight in these places and try to capture evidence. The thing I like about the show is they are always trying to disprove a place is haunted, instead of just jumping on the bandwagon.



Last night's episode was shot at the Stanley Hotel, where Jill and I got married way back in 2001. The Stanley has a storied past of hauntings, and it was where Steven King stayed while writing The Shining. For our honeymoon, we had rented out Suite 1301, which was a 3rd story room in the building just to the west of the main building. Last night on Ghost Hunters they were investigating multiple places including the room right next door to where we stayed, Room 1302.

During the show they captured a pretty cool event where a table and chairs moved forcefully while the crew was in the room. A pretty strange occurrence, in a place that can certainly feel pretty spooky. I spent the night before our wedding next door to that room alone, and while a violent storm came through I never got to see any ghosts or goblins. Nonetheless, Jill & I got a kick out of seeing that we had stayed right next door to Casper or one of his not so friendly relatives.