Anthony's Wacky Adventures

Monte Cristo and Superior

2010-06-21T23:50:00.000-07:00

The snow is all but gone from slopes on a southerly aspect, so this weekend seemed like a good time to climb Superior and Monte Cristo in summer conditions. Summer is trying to get here, but once gaining the ridge, a lot of the route looked like the highly precise diagram 1. This is why the trip took so long.

Diagram 1: Typical ridge conditions

Also it was windy.

That makes 4 11ers down!

It's like RAAAIIIIIINNNN on your skiing day

2010-06-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

I recently summited my second 11,000 ft peak and managed a clumsy ski descent. The forecast showed a 70% chance of rain, but that seemed like a pathetic and un-manly reason to stay in so we went for it anyway. We drove up the canyon in heavy rain which miraculously cleared about the time we got to the parking lot. By this time we were high enough to be in the clouds, and were treated to this stunning view while skinning up:

Now, climbing mountains is a serious endeavor, particularly when there is snow on the ground, and to some extent requires specialized gear as well as a certain amount of preparedness. Imagine my confusion then when near the summit we were passed by a blond-haired, blue-eyed German man carrying no gear and dressed in black slacks, black suspenders, a dress shirt, a black beret, and a ¾ length black trench coat. Seriously. After a brief stay on the summit, he wandered off into the fog. I tried to get a picture of him, but he didn't show up on camera, confirming my earlier suspicion that he was a ghost. Or it was foggy. Whatever.

Anyway, upon arrival to the summit I pulled out my camera and snapped a shot of the grand vista laid out before us:

And of course we needed incontrovertible proof that we had actually been on the summit, so:

After a quick break on the summit, it was time for a clumsy ski down the same route after determining the chute we wanted to shoot didn't have enough snow. The snow was heavy, soft and hard to ski up top. The poor bond between new and old snow only exacerbated the situation. Of course, it is the middle of June so I suppose I shouldn't be complaining. Lower down the snow got a lot better and was more fun until it started pouring rain mixed with little pieces of graupel. We hurried to the truck and made a hasty retreat to the Great Salt Lake Valley where the sun once again graced me with its presence.

Red Rocks: Moab Aeterno

2010-06-04T22:27:00.000-07:00

Went down to the Moab area to check out Arches NP over the memorial day weekend and do all the usual tourist stuff. We set up camp on some BLM land just North of town and were serenaded all night by 4 wheelers and diesel pickup trucks. Apparently some people feel that enjoyable recreation is impossible below 100 decibels. We got up in the morning, cooked breakfast, peppered it with diesel exhaust ash, and headed down to the park.

Standing around camp

Camping under a full moon

We started the short hike to Delicate Arch, famous for being on the Utah license plate. Actually, as far as I can tell, it's famous because it's very photogenic. From the proper angle, the arch stands out from the rest of the landscape and nicely frames the La Sal mountains in the background. (See this Google Image Search. Most pictures of the arch are identical.)There have been millions of pictures taken of this arch. Seriously. Geologists are worried that photon bombardment from all the cameras is accelerating erosion of the arch.* (Fun fact: The La Sal mountains were named by a Spanish explorer who saw large patches of white stuff on the mountains and assumed it was salt, La Sal being Spanish for "The Salt." Turns out it was snow. Mexico then ceded the region to the USA in the 1840's out of embarrassment and to avoid confusing its citizens.)

Posed photo in front of Delicate Arch,

of license plate fame

It blows my mind that such a sign exists.

After Delicate Arch we hiked to Double O Arch, creatively named for the two O-shaped holes in the rock.It was a fun hike with lots of rock hopping and expansive views in all direction.

Me walking across the top of Double O Arch.

On Sunday, we went to the Tusher tunnel. It's a natural tunnel in a sandstone bluff that formed after water seeped through a crack. The tunnel goes all the way from one cliff face to the other. It's neat.

In the Tusher Tunnel

*This is not true.

Powder turns? On May 12th?

2010-05-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

It's more likely than you think.

Sugarloaf 2: The Sugarloafening

2010-05-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

Dedicated blog readers will recall that last year I tried unsuccessfully to summit Sugarloaf Peak. This year I decided to rectify my failure in true Utah style- on skis. I got up at 5 (in the morning) and headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon for a solo ski adventure. I skinned uphill for a couple uneventful hours until I reached the ridge below the summit. It was very scenic and I saw things like the people at Snowbird who got to ride lifts up to the altitude I'd just spent nearly two hours attaining. I shook my fist at them in impotent rage.

Figure 1: Doing the sacred ski dance below the
summit to appease the mountain gods.

With the pleasant hum of ski lifts in the distance I started skinning up the ridge to Sugarloaf, then stopped to strap my skis to my pack and booted up the rest of the way on intermittent snow and talus.

Figure B: Sastrugi!

A short while later I Captain Morgan'd the summit.

Illustration 3: Captain Morganing the summit cairn

Image 4: View from the summit with
mighty Mt. Timpanogos in the distance

And then my camera's battery died. But all I really did after that was ski down the way I came up. I skied from the summit all the way back to the Taco save for about 10 feet where the snow didn't quite cover some talus. The snow was pretty hard going down Sugarloaf, but below the saddle the sun had cooked it to perfect spring conditions.

Dusting off the hiking boots

2010-04-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

I was hoping for a nice snow-free hike up Mt Olympus yesterday, but alas it was not to be. About 2/3 of the way up the 4,200 ft ascent, snow appeared. It was perfect on the way up: just soft enough to kick steps and put an ax in, but still supportive.

Mandatory summit shot:

Summit panorama:
As the sun cooked the snow, it softened. I was sinking balls deep on the way down. Never before has something inanimate prompted me to string together so many four letter words so creatively. Back on dry land again, I motored past the small children, shirtless frat bros and kids sitting on a rock playing guitar (it's a popular trail, although the crowds went way down at snow line) and arrived back at the Taco 6.5 hours after starting.

Avalanche Rescue Dogs

2010-04-10T18:05:00.000-07:00

The other day I had the opportunity to be involved in a demonstration with an avalanche rescue dog. Lots of ski resorts keep dogs around because in the event of an avalanche they can sniff you out from underneath quite a bit of snow. The bad news is that it takes some time for your scent to waft up through the snow, so a dog rescue is still a last resort. The best plan is not getting caught in the first place. In any case, here's how dog rescues work.

Step 1: Get in a hole in the snow

Step 2: Get inescapably sealed in

Step 3: Let Jake the avalanche dog sniff around and dig you out. (Kind of a bad picture.)

Step 4: Play tug o' war with Jake the avalanche dog. That's his reward; the promise of getting to play keeps him motivated. Plus he pulls really hard, which can help you get out of the hole in the ground.

Did you know

2010-03-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

that this stunning view is only 14.67 miles from my house? I can go places like this on weekday mornings before work. Life is good.

Hey I still have a blog! Neat!

2010-03-10T20:42:00.000-08:00

I've been skiing the backcountry lately. It combines the painful exertion of cross country skiing with the epic wipeouts of downhill skiing. It's awesome.

Almost on top...

A quick descent after hours of climbing

That's a faceplant.

Arrrrgh

2009-06-28T19:47:00.000-07:00

Enough with the rain already.

2009-06-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

If you didn't know, it's been raining in Salt Lake for at least the last 3 weeks. According to the weather forecast, there was a 60% chance of rain in the Wasatch today, so I figured I wouldn't get to do any climbing and I slept in instead. When I got up, the sky was blue and nearly cloudless, so I decided I'd have a go at Reynolds Peak (9,422 ft above sea level) since it looked like a short, relatively easy local climb. When I got to the trailhead, the sky was still blue. About twenty minutes into the hike, I felt a few drops of rain and the air had that feel to it that said "It's gonna pour, fool!" (In my imagination, the air talks like Mr. T.) I reached in my pack to get my rain coat, only to realize I'd left it at the house. I turned around. On my way back to the truck, it started pouring. I started jogging, only to arrive at the truck under bluebird skies. I guess in the end I made the right choice by turning around since the lightning started soon afterward. Still, this unending weather situation is unbearable.

Rafting

2009-06-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

Not climbing, but it was an adventure. Ryan (who works in Montana) had a 3-day weekend and I was getting antsy sitting around Salt Lake, so we decided to float the Snake River in Wyoming this weekend. So I rented a raft from the U and headed up on Friday afternoon. We camped out a few miles south of the town of Jackson. It rained all night.

Saturday morning, we got up and headed to the river. We looked like this at the put-in spot:The high temperature was 53 degrees Fahrenheit, and the sun never came out. The water of course came from melting snow. The river was flooded and fast. We had an average speed 6.5 mph, and a max speed of 12.4 mph in some rapids. It rained all day.

After dinner, we went to bed around 9 because it was still raining and we didn't want to sit around outside. It rained all night.

If you ever find yourself in Jackson, Wyoming, leave. It is an unholy tourist trap with more T-shirt shops per capita than any other town in the USA. Seriously, I saw a T-shirt shop next to a T-shirt shop. If you want to buy a T-shirt proclaiming "I got drunk in Jackson, Wyoming", Jackson is the place to be. If you want to gorge yourself on all-you-can-eat buffets, guzzle clear alcohol diluted with high fructose corn syrup and take pictures in front of a place called "Cowboy Bar," (2 shows nightly!) go to Jackson. If you want to wiggle your way through a suffocatingly dense horde of obese retirees waddling around the town square, go to Jackson.

If you want to have fun, explore the surrounding countryside. Just south of Grand Teton National Park, it's in a great location. At least I assume it is, but the weather kept me from getting a good view.

Spring Training

2009-04-09T22:08:00.000-07:00

Shaping up...ish. Maybe I'll be in decent shape by the time the snow melts.

Plans for this summer

2009-03-27T21:32:00.000-07:00

Living in Salt Lake, I have great mountains right next to town. It's great. I mean really really great. There are 3 different foothills with 1,000 to 2,000 feet of elevation gain that I can climb on weeknights as a nice workout. All the trailheads are within about 2 miles of my house.

On weekends, I've been doing a little snowshoeing but I've been keeping away from the big peaks because I don't know anything about avalanche safety. But the snow's starting to melt (or was, until we got two epic storms this week) and I'm getting antsy to get out. And so, I present my goal for this summer:

The Wasatch 11,000 ft peaks

Zacatecas

2008-12-07T17:07:00.000-08:00

I am in Zacatecas, a wonderful old mining town in Zacatecas state dating back to the 1500s. I took a guided tour this morning of one of the old silver mines and I think I annoyed the tour guide with my myriad technical questions. Then I found a bunch of other mine adits and shafts where the locals seem to have been dumping garbage for years.

I'm on a computer right now that has a card reader, so here are some pictures from my camera:

I take a hydrometer reading at a tequila distillery in the town of Tequila

Crocodiles in Chiapas state.

Hanging out in the oh so touristy but still fascinating Mina el Eden in Zacatecas

I just realized I haven't been taking many pictures of myself.

Back in Mexico City

2008-12-05T13:28:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Mexico City for a quick stop after the 14 hour overnight bus ride from San Cristóbal. I was seated near the back, where I caught a good whiff every time somebody opened the door to the lavatory. On top of this, there was an obnoxious group of loud people next to me who wouldn't shut up. I didn't really want to come back through Mexico City, but it's a pretty major transportation hub so another visit was practically unavoidable.

I ought to be back in New Mexico in about 5 days or 6 days, barring any unforeseen obstacles such as a bus driver strike, guerilla attack, etc. On my way back I'm going to wind through some of the old mining towns in the northern mountains.

San Cristóbal

2008-12-03T09:58:00.001-08:00

is a pleasant small city in the mountainous forests of Chiapas. That's where I am. I'm still alive, in case anybody was wondering.

Oaxaca

2008-11-27T18:43:00.001-08:00

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, but I've been too busy having the time of my life. Last Thursday night I went to the Ska-P concert which was beyond amazing. They only have about 9 fans in the US, so you haven't heard of them, but they're a brilliant ska-punk outfit from Madrid. These guys are huge down here; I've never been to such a massive, energetic ska show. It was worth hanging out for 4 days in Mexico City to wait for it.

Then, after a quick 6 hour jaunt by bus last Friday, I arrived to the much smaller and more pleasant town of Oaxaca. This town has managed to suck me in and keep me here for a week. It's up in the mountains, the weather's great, and I've been spending the days volunteering with a charity that runs a small kindergarten for some of the poor children, gives them a meal, and helps them get into primary schools around the city. So far I've spent two days in the kitchen, washing dishes and performing other menial kitchen tasks that even I am capable of. Yesterday they started me translating the children's letters to their sponsors. Here's the best of the best of what I got to translate:

"It's very very cold out. I almost freeze in the morning when I go to school. I even drink hot coffee and I'm still cold. Maybe I should start eating pure chiles and the spice will make me forget about the cold."

"I'm doing well in all of my classes, except for Spanish, physics, P.E., math, history, and English."

Also, since I've been here, I've been trying out various local dive bars and have found a clear winner. I'd tried out a couple that weren't terribly exciting, but then one night a couple of the more intrepid travelers staying at the hostel went out and found another one to try. We walked through the old-fashioned, saloon style swinging doors and everybody looked at us kind of funny. Looking back, that was the first sign that we'd struck gold. The patrons were actually quite friendly, one proudly telling us in English "Welcome to Oaxaca" and we chatted for a couple minutes. We ordered a round of beers, and partway through the bartender came over and showed us a bottle of mescal (liquor kind of like tequila) with dead scorpions floating in it. He buys the mescal himself and throws the scorpions in live. He claimed it was an aphrodisiac, which he emphatically illustrated by holding his index finger limp in front of him and then quickly pointing it up. It's a hell of a drink, but an aphrodisiac it is not.

Mexico City Part 2

2008-11-20T15:08:00.000-08:00

I´ve done a lot of things in Mexico City, and am having a surprisingly good time considering how I tend to feel about large, polluted, overcrowded cities.

Day before yesterday, a few of us went to visit the pyramids at Teotihuacan. I got to climb the 3rd biggest pyramid in the world!

Yesterday, I went to the Leon Trotsky museum. The museum is in the house he lived in when one of Stalin´s men found him and killed him with an ice pick. I got to see his study (where the murder went down) as well as the rest of the house, which has been preserved pretty much how it was on the last days of his life. (They do seem to have cleaned the blood stains out of the study, however) Those of you who knew me in high school may recall that I once played Trotsky in a school play. His ashes and his wife´s ashes are kept in the yard under a Soviet flag.

Today I went to the anthropology museum, which was very impressive, even to a guy like me who has little to no interest in anthropology. There was an excellent display of Mayan and Aztec art, especially stone sculptures of their gods with several explanations which body parts of who were sacrificed to which gods. These folks seriously sacrificed a lot of people to their gods.

Tonight I´m hitting the Ska-P and Panteón Rococcó concert, then tomorrow I head to Oaxaca.

Mexico City

2008-11-19T08:57:00.000-08:00

is big.

Guadalajara

2008-11-15T08:07:00.000-08:00

I´ve been in Guadalajara now for 4 nights and I love it here. My second night, a few of us from the hostel went out and took a salsa dancing lesson with some locals. They were very friendly and welcoming to us, and well as patient with my awkward gringo dance moves. I eventually learned the basic steps and a few fancier moves, again thanks to the kind patience of the Guadalajarans.

I spent a good half of the next day trying to find a place to do laundry, which I finally did on a sketchy looking street where a shady character tried to sell me marijuana and cell phones. I just did my laundry.

Yesterday we went to the nearby town of Tequila, birthplace of the distilled beverage of the same name, and got to see a couple distilleries. It´s a fascinating process.

Fun Fact: To legally be called Tequila, the beverage has to come from one of a select few places in Mexico where the blue agave plant grows just right.

That´s all for now. I´m kicking myself for not bringing the right cable to upload pictures.

Mexico!

2008-11-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

I made it to Mexico! I crossed the border in Nogales, AZ on the 7th and have been having quite an adventure. I spent my first night in Hermosillo, the capital of the great state of Sonora. The town itself wasn´t too exciting, but there were a few friendly people on the street who spotted me (apparently I stand out from the crowd down here. Who would have guessed?) and started talking to me in English.

Next I went to Mazatlàn, which is an interesting mix of a real Mexican town and a gringo-infested beach resort. Luckily, the resorts are a few miles from the real part of town, so I wasn´t too bothered, although it was funny to walk around the resorts and see nervous Americans on the streets at night.

If you´ve never been down here, the bus system in Mexico is fantastic. I can walk into the bus station and be on my way within an hour to just about anywhere I want to go. It´s far more efficient and heavily used than the Greyhound system in the states. Contrary to popular belief, the buses are not disgusting old school buses filled with livestock. They are new, clean nice buses with plush seating and usually TVs showing American movies dubbed in Spanish. Also, they´re cheap: You usually end up paying about 50 pesos for each hour you´re in transport, which comes out to around $4. The buses are rarely more than half full, so I have plenty of room to stretch out and nap.

I´m currently in Guadalajara (pop. 4.1 million), the second largest city in the country. It is delightful, although I haven´t really done anything here yet so I´ll have to write about it later.

Right...No updates...

2008-09-17T18:42:00.000-07:00

So yeah haven't updated this thingy in a while. Called it quits at 32 mountains due to weather, frustration, and a lack of motivation. Had an amazing summer. It's tough re-adjusting to normal life (sleeping indoors on a bed, using a toilet instead of going wherever I want, etc).

Last weekend went to Flagstaff and climbed Humphrey's Peak, the highest point in Arizona. It's no 14er (just a 12er) and the trail was sickeningly crowded, although I've never seen so many college students on a mountain. I did the hike with my old roommate Connor, so I guess it was kind of good to see him too.

That's all for now. Stay tuned though, as I'm going to start updating this blog again when I head to Mexico. That'll probably be in a couple months.

The 2 greatest sports in the world, together at last!

2008-08-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I climbed another fun peak in the Elk Range: Pyramid Peak, elevation 14,018 ft. It was a fun climb up with enough class 4 scrambling to make it exciting. We walked across fun narrow ledges and scrambled up exciting, crumbly sedimentary rock.

Don't be fooled, though. This was no ordinary climb. This was a history-making climb. At the summit, we combined the two greatest sports in the world: mountaineering and beer pong! As far as either of us knew, nobody has ever played the sport of kings atop a 14er. As we approached the summit, I spotted a short rock spire a few feet away that would serve as a perfect table. Here's a picture of the game:

This was probably also the most dangerous game of beer pong ever played, which is why we only had half a beer each. Given that Gabe's perch was small and overlooked a precarious precipice, he was allowed to lean over the table for safety purposes. Anyway, the climb down was a lot of fun too. Maybe I'll write about it later.

Snowmass and Maroon

2008-08-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

I climbed Snowmass Mountain yesterday and it was a lot of fun.

On Wednesday I climbed Maroon Peak with a group from 14ers.com. It was also a lot of fun. I don't feel like writing a lot.

Castle and Conundrum

2008-08-19T12:22:00.000-07:00

To climb these, I met up with Gabe again at his house on Friday afternoon where he promptly informed me that the weather on Saturday would be terrible, and we decided not to even try to climb that day. We had a 3-peak weekend planned, but with the weather so bad on Saturday, we ended up just climbing Castle and Conundrum. So, Friday night we drove 50+ miles on dirt roads trying to find a party that he'd heard about. Alas, it was to no avail. We did see the moose that night though, which I think is as good or better than a party.

Anyway, on Saturday morning after a 2:00 AM wakeup call, we picked up Gabe's friend Dan and started driving toward the Elk Range. The Elk Mountains are near Aspen, or Ass-pain as Gabe calls it. We got a chilly start around 6 AM, surrounded by clouds left over from Saturday's horrendous weather. We hoped the sun would come out and burn off the clouds, but we were greeted with this view from the summit at around 9:00:

We took advantage of a rare moment of (relatively) little fog to snap this summit pose:

The plan was to hold a beer pong tournament on the summit, however two factors were working to our disadvantage:

1) We forgot to get cups and ping pong balls
2) It was really cold. Like well below freezing and windy at times.

From the summit of Castle, we spent a good hour debating whether or not we should continue to Conundrum. The conditions weren't ideal, and we were concerned the fog would hinder our route finding. We took the opportunity to bone up on our juggling skills:

After an hour of debating, we decided to go for the gusto and try to hit Conundrum too. We're glad we did this, because it was a quick 45 minute walk that would have been tough to get lost on. Additionally, the route down from Conundrum provided the opportunity for a really good glissade. The most important part of this glissade was braking fully before getting to the crevasse above a small lake. Somebody told us the crack in the earth is caused by a glacier flowing under the scree

(the crack is covered with snow where we would have hit it, had something gone wrong)

The rest of the route back to the truck involved a lot of glissading on the still plentiful snow. Overall, it was a pretty easy day but a lot of fun.

Moose!

2008-08-16T17:29:00.000-07:00

Gabe and I saw 2 of 'em last night while driving on a dirt road just north of Vail. It was dark, and Gabe told me not to get too close because they're dangerous animals so the picture I got of the bull is far away and dark and not too intelligible.

See, the bright spot is the eye and the body goes to the right. You can kind of make out the antlers above the head. Most photos of bigfoot are better than this.

1 More down!

2008-08-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

After something like 4 days of inactivity, I was itching to climb something and the weather was perfect yesterday. I decided to climb Quandary Peak (14,265') last night for the following reasons:

1) Night climbing suits my biorhythms much better than the normal 5 AM start.

2) Hiking after dark might make a relatively dull climb more interesting. You never know when a rabid marmot or sex-crazed hillbilly (as in the classic film Deliverance) might be hiding behind the next rock.

c) Last night was the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, which I thought might be fun to observe from atop a mountain.

Reasons 1 and 2 worked out pretty well, but the summit was so cold and windy I didn't stick around to watch the meteor shower. I did see a few on the way down, though.

Anyway, here I am all bundled up on the summit:

The weather has been truly awful

2008-08-11T11:44:00.000-07:00

There's been some sort of system keeping all the mountains here pretty well socked in, and it's been doing nothing but raining for the last few days. The peaks are all in clouds. Hence, when I wake up at 5 every morning to climb, and it's raining, or about to rain, or just finished raining (and it's invariably one of those) nothing seems better than going back to sleep. So, due to a lack of ideal conditions but mostly my own laziness, I haven't hit a summit since Humboldt last Wednesday. It's not that I couldn't climb, because the mountains I've been quasi-attempting are easy walk-ups and no real danger if they're wet.

In the mean time, here's a picture taken from the top of Humboldt peak:

And video from Little Bear:

Weather...

2008-08-08T13:40:00.000-07:00

I got back from my trip to Lake Como with Michael's family, where I successfully climbed Little Bear with Gabe. I was really glad to get this one out of the way, since Little Bear is usually considered one of the hardest and most dangerous 14ers. It was also a lot of fun, especially since we were able to rappel down "The Hourglass," which is probably the most challenging part of the mountain.

After that, I headed to the Crestones (part of the Sangre de Cristo range) where some epic fail started to happen. I met up with a girl named Jamie and we climbed Humboldt Peak on Wednesday, 1 of 5 mountains we intended to attack from a single base camp at the South Colony Lakes.

Scott came up Wednesday afternoon to climb with us Thursday and Friday. Thursday we had planned to climb Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle, but it rained continuously from about 4 PM the afternoon before until 4 AM that morning, when we needed to start climbing. We figured we shouldn't try to climb, as the ridge traverse between them is a bit technical and the rock would be wet and slick. As it turned out, nobody we saw going up the trail all day was able to climb the Crestones because of the weather. While we were sitting in camp, I introduced Jamie and Scott to the fantastic game of Scrabble and they both hated it.

It rained again all Thursday night and into Friday morning, with fog covering the mountains all morning. Again, the rock would be too slick and we wouldn't be able to see far enough to do any route finding. That makes 2 frustrating days of no climbing. To console myself, I came back up to the Sawatch range where the climbing is easier (basically just hiking) and I'm more confident I can climb in less than perfect conditions.

I hate tourists.

2008-08-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

I'm too lazy to do any video, so READ! (Don't worry, there are pictures.)

This is a picture of the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, one of the main tourist attractions in the area. I had to buy a grossly overpriced ticket and ride it to the trailhead for 3 of the 14ers. It was kind of fun riding on an honest-to-god coal-fired steam locomotive, but the long (2.5 hour) ride reminded me why I hate tourists. On the way there, I was stuck in a gondola with the world's biggest douchebag. He spent the whole time hooting, hollering, and waving at people (while his video camera was running) from the train like he was so fucking special that everybody needed to recognize him. Hey buddy, guess what? You're just on a train ride. THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of people have ridden this train. You're not special. The train leaves Durango 2 or 3 times a day, filled with hundreds of people. You're not doing anything unique.

At one point, while the train was going through a very nice canyon, this guy remarked between primate-esque grunts that "this is nature at its finest." Apparently he missed the irony of the entire situation: That he was riding on a meticulously engineered manmade contraption upon a track whose existence owes itself to the blasting and removal of several thousand tons of "nature at its finest." Idiot.

On the train ride back from the trailhead, I met another stupid person who has obviously never traveled beyond the standard tourist attractions. As I boarded, she asked if I was hiking. "Yes, some hiking and mountain climbing" I responded. She then asked if I was camping out there, to which I again responded in the affirmative. As a follow-up to the camping question, she asked if I spent the whole night out there. (as opposed to camping out for part of the night, I suppose) I explained that yes, I had in fact spent two whole nights out there. Then, as if to confirm her stupidity, she asked if I ate any food while I was camping. I did a quick double-take, then repeated the question back to her as if to say "seriously, you can't be asking something that stupid." She nodded, and I explained that I carried food with me. She went back to her beer.

Ha! That must be where all women live!

Goats invaded my campsite. Whatever delicious plant life was growing there, they really found it tasty.

Since I am no good at waking up early (i.e. 3-4 AM) I only managed to summit 1 of the 3 14ers in the area. (An early start is necessary to avoid the almost daily afternoon thunderstorms. A high peak is a likely place to be hit by lightning) This seals my fate: I will not be finishing the 14ers this summer, because 2 summits are not worth the moronic tourists and $75 price tag of riding the train again.

Wilson Group Pictures/Video

2008-07-28T10:56:00.001-07:00

I didn't get any good pictures or video on Sneffels or San Luis Peak, but here are the requisite summit shots anyway:

And some fantastic video, superbly shot and edited, from the Wilson Group. In order to access them, we had to hike about 5 miles in and set up a base camp on the shore of Navajo Lake in the basin below the peaks. We tried to access one of them a different way, but had a little mishap* along the way which is described fully in the video.

*The mishap described in the video is entirely fictional. The land was really just closed but Scott made up this imaginative story about a crazy old coot guarding his mining claim with a 12-gauge. Later, we found out that the land was not actually closed and had in fact changed hands just 2 weeks ago and we would have been fine hiking through it.

21 down

2008-07-28T09:22:00.000-07:00

I'm really starting to get the hang of this hobo thing. I'm up to 21 peaks now, as we just finished a backpacking trip to climb Mt. Wilson and Wilson Peak. (Don't confuse them with each other, they are indeed separate mountains.) These were fun, as they involved a lot of scrambling and death-defying bad ass moves. Scott and I agree, huge cajones are required to climb these bad boys. And helmets, which may or may not have cameras attached, are also a good idea. Video to come later, with footage from the NEW IPROVED HELMET-CAM 2.0!

Before the Wilson Group, we climbed Mt. Sneffels which was a lot of fun, although at the end of the day I wanted to let the air out of the tires on all the rental jeeps on that road. You see, idiots are allowed (surely through some omission of law) to rent jeeps in these mountain towns so that they may "explore" back roads which have been pre-approved by the jeep rental company. For Example, Farabee's Jeep Rentals ("On the edge of adventure!") charges you $100-$125 a day to sit on your ass and burn $4/gallon gasoline which is not included in the rental price. Here is a short script describing what must surely happen in these vehicles:

Dad: Kids! We made it! We're all the way to the base of the mountain! What an accomplishment!

Kid 1: Yay! We sure are exploring in the middle of nowhere!

(A caravan of rental jeeps and landscape photographers drives by)

Dad: Yes kids, this is living! Smell that fresh mountain air!

Kid 2: Dad, the mountain air smells like exhaust fumes!

Dad: Yes kids, you need gasoline to explore! God Bless America! Let's have a twinkie and a Coke! We sure earned it after that hard climb.

(Dad, highly obese, huffs and puffs as he steps out of his red rental jeep to get the twinkies and Coke out of the back)

Mom: OH MY GOD! LOOK! THAT POOR PERSON IS WALKING! (calling to a nearby hiker) ARE YOU ALL RIGHT??? YOU NEED HELP?

Hiker: No, I'm walking. For fun.

Mom: But you must be at least A MILE FROM YOUR CAR! HERE, HAVE A TWINKIE AND COKE, YOU POOR THING! (speaking to husband) Honey, can you give that poor hobo a twinkie and coke? I've been having trouble standing up under my own power lately.

(The scene changes, and we see the family of jeep renters driving down a dirt road one lane wide, with no room for 2 cars to pass)

Dad: Oh no! There's somebody coming the other way! What do we do? I'd better just sit here and not move. Hopefully the situation will improve itself.

THE END

Stay tuned

2008-07-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

Lots of stuff has happened but I haven't had time to write about it...stay tuned.

The shenanigans continue

2008-07-18T12:13:00.001-07:00

Scott abandoned me to go to a hippie music festival, so I climbed Handies Peak solo. I met a couple fine young ladies though, so it worked out fine. Anyway, I'm really enjoying the video thing so here is a fine summary of my exploits on Handies Peak.

Statistical Update & Video

2008-07-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

I didn't climb yesterday because I slept too late and I didn't climb today because I had a gnarly case of food poisoning this morning...this simply won't do. In any case, here's a video from my latest climb, Mt. Antero (14,269 ft):

Some stats:

Peaks reached: 14
Feet climbed: 49620
Miles Walked: 98
Miles Driven: (forgot to check)
Days without showering:
Current: 6
Record : 10

Kicking it up a notch!

2008-07-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

Allright, no more pussyfooting around these lumps of rock. I'm doing 2-3 days in a row of climbing to try to knock 'em all out. I'm getting in good enough shape that walking up a mountain is actually more pleasant than excruciating. Got 13 down now: Since my last update I've climbed Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. Harvard was a lot of fun...some rocky scrambling at the top which is a nice change from boring old walking. I think it was said best in Dumb and Dumber:

Harry: I expected the rocky mountains to be a little rockier than this.
Lloyd: I was thinking the same thing. That John Denver's full of shit, man.

Here's the summit photo:

That other guy is Scott. We both had the same dream for the summer: living out of our cars like dirty hobos and climbing peaks. So we've teamed up. He's really good at being a bum; he knows where all the free wi-fi is in these towns and taught me how to camp in the Wal-Mart parking lot. (Free bathrooms, 24 hours a day!)

Then, on the way down, I stopped for a side trip at Bear Lake. I tried to take video of me jumping in, but my camera's battery died about 3 seconds before I hit the water. In any case, here's a picture of the lake. It's where I want to go when I die. It has the clearest and tastiest water I've ever experienced. You can see in this photo that the far side of the lake is covered in a sheet of ice. The water was cold. Very cold. And refreshing, in a "my testicles have taken refuge inside me" kind of way.

Jumping back a few days, here I was on the 4th of July:

America! Fuck Yeah!

Status update

2008-07-02T18:02:00.000-07:00

Peaks reached: 9
Feet climbed: 28,070
Miles Walked: 58.4
Miles Driven: 1051
Days without showering:
Current: 10
Record : 10

These mountains are kicking my ass

2008-07-02T16:39:00.000-07:00

That said, I got 3 more: Belford, Oxford, and Princeton.

To climb Princeton, I met up with some dudes I met on a climbing forum. We had an instant rapport due to our mutual love of bathroom humor. This was one of my favorite climbs so far. In the morning, the clouds were climbing up the mountain and the scenery was amazing. By the time we hit the summit, we were above the clouds! Also, we ended up bumming beer off some other climbers on the way down. It was a long climb of 5300 vertical feet and 13 miles.

Clouds rising up the mountain:

I climbed a couple others too:

I'm slowly getting quicker at climbing...slowly...And as the snow melts, it gets easier to climb. I may actually be able to finish my climbs this summer!

2008-06-27T16:45:00.001-07:00

I didn't climb a damn thing today.

Some thought on Glissading

2008-06-26T16:25:00.001-07:00

A glissade has to be the best way to go down a mountain. You sit on snow, and slide. No stupid walking. No breathing hard. No looking for a trail. It's like being a kid and going on the really big slide at the playground. A glissade (anagram: ass glide) is a beautiful thing.

2 more down!

2008-06-26T16:11:00.000-07:00

Summit shot on Mt. Sherman: (Warning: Rated PG-13)

Small children, avert your eyes.

This is how I took the summit shot when I found myself alone on a summit.

My climbing partner on Mt. Massive

Marmots don't take very good photos.

One more down

2008-06-22T18:10:00.001-07:00

Today I climbed Mt. Elbert, the highest point in the Rocky Mountains. This one was excruciating. It entailed 4400 ft of elevation gain, followed of course by 4400 ft of downhill. The view from the top was fantastic though. I could see a 360 degree panorama around the Rockies...not that I bothered to photograph this panorama. (D'oh!)Anyway, here's the requisite summit photo:

On the trail I met a New Mexico Tech alum! (I spotted him by his Socorro Springs hat) Class of '95 and nephew of the late Dr. David Norman. He also had a hot engineer wife. (Not a techie though)

If you want to keep track, here are some statistics on my trip so far:

Peaks reached: 4
Feet climbed: 10,770
Miles Walked: 24
Miles Driven: 830
Days without showering:
Current: 0
Record : 6

3 down!

2008-06-21T12:16:00.001-07:00

I've now climbed 3 of the 14ers. Here's a photo from my first summit:

On my first day of climbing, I summitted Gray's peak and Torrey's Peak. This was the most physically challenging thing I have ever done. Once I got down, all I could do was pass out. I hardly had the energy to make dinner later. (I did, however, have energy to check out the old mine by the trailhead. It was mostly dismantled and there wasn't much to see. The portal was snowed in.)

Next I climbed Mt. Bierstadt. It was a little easier because I was more acclimated.

But before I climbed, I stopped in Vail one evening to see the Reverend Horton Heat!
(You uncultured swine out there will know them from Guitar Hero's Psychobilly Freakout. I want to make it perfectly clear that I liked them before they were cool.)

Fun fact: I haven't showered in 5 days!

In Socorro

2008-06-16T08:16:00.001-07:00

I'm back in Socorro now. I'm going to leave this afternoon and try to spend the night somewhere on the North side of the CO/NM border.

I tested out my truck camper setup last night. It worked smashingly. For those of you who haven't seen it:

So I sleep on top and store gear underneath. This eliminates the hassle of a tent. The platform is designed using 5 2x4's crossing the width of the truck and resting on the bedrails. They are spaced at no more than 20" centers. Then, assuming an evenly distributed load on the plywood, and treating the plywood as a simple beam, and making a general assumption about the strength of plywood (thank you, mechanics of materials textbook) the platform should be able to withstand 1200 lbs of down force. That means it'll sleep 2 200 lb adults with a safety factor of three.

The platform is made of 4 rectangular panels. The two in the front are smaller, allowing access to the gear there which would otherwise be hard to reach.

First Post

2008-06-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

I've made this blog so that all may share in my exploits this summer. In short, my plan is to climb all of the peaks in Colorado which are more than 14,000 ft above mean sea level. I plan to start around the 18th of June, and take about 2 months out of my life to complete all of the climbs.

More news to follow. Right now I'm visiting my parents and trying to work out as much as I can to get ready.