It began Thursday night. After Obama's acceptance speech - only a slight part was I able to watch due to making sure meltdown didn't happen with our post-speech coverage - Janet and I headed down to the CNN Grill. CNN rented out Brooklyn's Grill next to the Pepsi Center and used it as a studio, workspace and free advertisement during the DNC. I called my contact in Atlanta and got some passes in for myself and a few coworkers.
Really the blur reads CNN Grill in blinking lights. Really.
Audra, Robyn and Everett enjoy some much-deserved refreshments inside.
Friday at work was tedious. Tedious because after the long hours and the constant controlled - and some of a Gommorah scale - we all just wanted the week to be over with.
Saturday started with chores, housework, some shopping and a trail run. I noticed while driving to the trailhead that I still had a pair of climbing slippers in my truck. So I switched destinations and headed to my mountain home; Three Sisters. Would run up the trail to some boulders, switch into my slippers and climb. Repeat. Wish I remembered my chalk bag but got by just wiping my hands on the granite multiple times. Finally finished with several highballs.
Made a wrong sequence on this one and was glad I was pulling with my strong side - the right - to correct my mistake. 5.8 is fun and easy but you really feel it when you're 30 feet from the deck.
Saturday night went to Audra's birthday party downtown at a couple of places. A good time was had by all, especially the birthday girl.
Sunday woke up rather lethargic. Not hungover; didn't drink that much. Not sick, just bleh. My original agenda of backpacking into the Gore Range, setting up camp and climbing up Outpost Peak's south ridge, followed by a day on one of the Partners on Monday seemed tedious. Some days you just don't want to go uphill forever.
Instead rode the bike from my place down to Confluence Park, past that to Coors Field and Five Points and back home. A good 30-mile tour, nice and mellow and relatively flat. Sunday night was an early night of a few rounds with some friends.
Monday woke at 6 am. I intended to get up Pawnee and Little Pawnee and climb the 4th-class exposed knife-edge which connects the two. However it rained lightly at my place late Sunday night and Monday dawned with more clouds than I felt comfortable with; I'm still a little lightning-shy since last weekend.
So back to bed and out for some dirt-rash. I try to bike around Pine Valley Ranch at least once a year. The past couple I've been fortunate to have my buddy Jason join me, but today him and Sandi were making the down payment on a place for their wedding next year.
It's always a great fun ride but when you think about it, you can't help but think of the long uphill which marks the beginning. And when you're grueling at a very slow grind for what seems like eternity, I'll profess, it's nice to have somebody suffering along with you.
For some reason it wasn't as bad this time. Actually cut out about two stops that we'd usually take to catch our breath and decompress our calves and quads.
This spot marks the end of the constant uphill. Roughly 1,200 feet higher than the trailhead.
Rode really well actually. I remembered quickly the tricks of Buffalo Creek area riding. It gets fast and it gets loose and deep. Meaning there are innocuous stretches that will fishtail you out and dump you before you realize what happened. Also you can't brake while in those quagmired sections; that is a guarantee for a wipeout. You just have to remain alert.
The ramifications of the Buffalo Creek Fire are still readily evident more than a dozen years later.
At the end of the Skipper Trail, I took a right instead of heading back to the trailhead. A few miles up I took a break by some beefy boulders. The entire area is littered with giant granite boulders - many of them too sheer and devoid of imperfections for anybody to scale unless your last name happens to be Sharma or Graham or Nicole.
The ride back was exhilarating. Took on a couple sections I've wussed out on in the past. Discovered a new downed tree in the middle of the trail at the last section and not quite sure how I hopped over and avoided a nasty collision. Also a couple other sections of downhill I pleasantly surprised myself by staying in my saddle when coming across some technical difficulties which were thrown in at the last second around a curve.
A drive back to Conifer, a stop at Heidi's Deli for refueling and I was back to my mountain home again. Switched into my approach shoes which can get me up some good moderate stuff. Climbed up The Brothers for about the twelfth time. This time I played the game of you must climb everything in front of you. Started right at the trail junction and up a slab and a headwall, traverse over on a ridge, up another headwall to a slab (the nature of much of the climbing on this side of the formation). Several hundred feet of mid-fifth class - with a couple of highball headwalls in the 5.9+ range to season things up - interspersed with some easy scrambling.
Looking down the south side. There is a fun moderate route up just to the left of my feet.
Cut across the forest to my secret little saddle. It's an area which I find in harmony with. To me it's a perfect idyllic forest scene with a few rock outcrops to clamber up and contemplate.
Checked out a few rocks past that and climbed some more. Then my Platypus went dry. Back to civilization.
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