Rocky Mountain High

The view of Quandry from 13,000.  Those little dots are people.

Just a little bit more on the 14'r hike if you don't mind.

Before the looooong hike down

These guys wouldn't get off the trail

Keystone Co.

The Kid wanted to do some downhill so The Lovely Wife and I went along with him to the Keystone ski area.  I had no idea what to expect but we were pleasantly surprised.  It's like it's own city, complete with shops and restaurants.

The view of Quandry from Keystone

After watching a rider endo and compound fracture his collar bone I was apprehensive while watching The Kid get on the lift.  After he made a lap down the mountain safely The Lovely Wife and I grabbed a seat at a restaurant call Kickapoo.  They had tables on a deck right next to a creek. You know a beer at lunch always tastes better, add clear blue sky, mountains, and no gnats, and you've got an almost perfect day.

We bought lift tickets and went to the top of the mountain to hike a 2 mile trail.  Riding up was definitely easier than what we did the day before.

The Kid all armored up after his first run

The Kid ended his day with a big grin.  He said I wouldn't like it, said it was too technical for me.  Whatever.

Anyhoo, we had a great day.

The next day we went on the slowest road ride I've ever gone on.  All bike path.  Not the most fun but still an experience.

Headed Home

So much to do out there, so beautiful, so far away from us.  So hard to look at these pictures and not yearn to be back there.  I guess that's why we go away.  I want to try other places, we've been to Breck twice now, I wonder if the rest of the west has got anything better?  I hope we get to find out.

We Might as Well Enjoy the Trip Down

We hung around on the summit for a while.  With all the people on the trail I was surprised how few were at the top.

Proof

It didn't get tricky going back down till we hit the snow field.  There was a path about 2' deep but the bottom was ice over rocks.  Probably no trouble for most of these folks but it kinda freaked me out. People were waiting at the bottom to get up so there was an audience.  The Lovely Wife did a little slide about half way down but recovered quick.

Going back down this was interesting.

I kept thinking tree line wasn't that far down.  But as the rocks kept going, I got a hate going.  My knees were sore, I was just plain tired, and I was ready to get off the mountain.  

Sometimes you just had to stop but that only seemed to make it worse when you got back up.

Finally the tree line and a path that wasn't full of rocks

The Kid comes back to check on us

You see all kinds of folks on the mountain

Of course in the end we made it back to the stinky rental car.  7 hours is a long time to hike above 11,000'.  Some of us were faster so we could have cut some time off, but why bother, the mountain doesn't care how long it takes you.  We were fortunate we had good weather, I'd hate to be trying to scramble down that in a thunderstorm.

We saw people running up and back down, then again, we saw quite a few folks turn back at 13'000'. Some people seemed well prepared, some looked like they were shell shocked.  We saw one girl coming through the snow field in sandals.  Lots of dogs and young kids, those guys are braver than I am.

Would we do it again?  Sure, maybe not that mountain but another 14'r.  I don't think The Kid wants to go with us anymore though.  He tends to worry about the old folks, says we scare him if he has to watch us.

We were so tired we almost didn't want to go out to eat.  Nobody stayed awake past 9 that night.  And yes, we were some other kind of sore for the next few days.  Still, the plan called for a trip to Keystone the next day.  I call these days freestyle days.  We just do whatever comes up.  The Kid wanted to do downhill so that's how we ended up in Keystone.  It was interesting.  More tomorrow.

Hey Colorado

The water tastes better when you're far from home, or is it only the thirsty that hunger to roam?  I know coffee on the porch tastes better when it's 41 and frosty outside in late July.

I had hired a MTB guide along with rented bikes for The Kid and I on Monday.  It was my first time doing something like this, plus it was a little expensive, so I had my doubts.  But it all turned out great. We rode single track from downtown Breckenridge and by the time we hit 3 hours my legs were done.  I did wish for magic legs, or 19 year old legs, because I would to have done it all over again.

Tuesday

We walked out to the car to find this guy eating the grass off the back deck.  We did not disturb him.

Today was 14'r day.  Mt. Quandary, just outside of Breck was the mountain.  We got to the trail head at 6:30 and the parking lot was already half full.  The hike below tree line was like a computer generated landscape.  I hummed all the John Denver songs I knew.

Once we got above tree line things got a little tougher.  All scree and talus, which to start with had a trail through it.  That soon disappeared.

They say there are no easy 14'rs.  I now believe them.

The hike started around 11,000', I started to get tired around 13,000.  We hit the snow patch at 13,500, and the summit at 14,265.

I have to say it was an awesome view.  Very windy and 50 degrees.  Then we started down.

I feel like the guy in Avatar who gets the alien body for the first time when I'm up here. 

It was 3.5 miles to the top according to Strava, we averaged 1 mph (The Kid would want it know that he had to wait on us all the time).  The trip down would prove to be twice as difficult as the trip up.

Funny, it doesn't look steep in this picture, but we were crawling here.

Tomorrow I'll tell you how the trip down went.

The West is the Best

It was an auspicious start.  As we taxied away from the gate at the Tallahassee Airport at 6:00 in the morning, the pilot came on the intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a computer malfunction and will need to shut the plane down for a minute and see if it will come back up.  The emergency lights will be the only thing on, I apologize for the inconvenience."  You could hear a pin drop when he shut it down.  We all sat in silence until he restarted and told us it had worked, then everybody let out a collective sigh.  We would make our connection in Atlanta.  I was to be a challenging day of travel to Colorado.

On the flight to Denver the two young children behind me amused themselves by kicking the back of my seat and squealing intermittently the whole flight.

I had arranged for a rental car through Priceline with Advantage.  When we got to their pick up lot there was a long line and only two people working the desks.  After a 30 minute wait the clerk handed me the keys, he said "You don't mind a Corolla instead of a Kia do you?"  I shook my head and left to find our car.

The little Corolla was filthy with so many dents and scratches I couldn't take pictures of all of them. The inside was stained and smelled like old shoes.  We crammed the bags in the trunk and got in line to go out the gate.  Two cars in front of us an older couple must have gotten in the wrong car and the lady checking us out told them to back up, so they did, which caused the car in front of me to start backing up, so I put it in reverse and turned around to try and see out of the muddy rear window.  I hear a horn blow and felt a bump.  Yes I had backed into another car.  All manner of chaos ensued.

Fortunately no damage except to my families ears due to my sudden inability to control my temper. We got out of Denver only to sit in stalled traffic on I-70 for an hour.  Hey, at least the view was nice.

Stopping at a Mexican Restaurant I had a beer.  The temperature was 61 and windy.  I forgot about the trip out, almost.

Crews Rest, our home for the next few days

The view off the porch

Sunrise

The Giant Kid and the old Smurff

We made it to the cabin.  Monday was better.  Can I tell you about that later?