5/31
First mountain bike ride of the season. Still a fair amount of snow, but aspens are starting to get a light tinge of green. Saw several deer, a ptarmigan, and the first garter snake of the year
6/1
Elisha and I took a mtn bike trail to get to town and then had brunch at Paradise cafe
6/2
Did an early morning mountain bike ride, but then on my bike commute to Gothic is started snowing. I was not dressed warm enough! Snowed pretty hard throughout the day at Gothic, but not a lot of accumulation
6/3
I had the early (5am) balloon launch, and as always it's nice to watch the mountains slowly wake up. Misty and foggy morning with a family of deer sitting in front of the cabin. Gothic mountain has fresh snow on its slopes.
6/4
Saw the fox kits for the first time this year. So cute!
6/6
After work drove over Lizard Head pass in a driving rainstorm and arrived to Dolores where we had Mexican food at a local joint. Then drove to Mancos (pronounced main-kiss), where I had rented a bus for Elisha's birthday to stay since she likes unique living situations. But we had to keep delaying it, so it ended up being a month later. It's a 1957 old school bus all set up for sleeping on a hill overlooking Mancos and with view of Mesa Verde in the distance. It was cold that night so we utilized the heated blankets
6/7
We started the day by visiting the bakery in downtown Mancos. We then had 2 guided tours of Mesa Verde National Park: Balcony House and Cliff Palace. Was cool to get to see the cliff dwellings up close and even climb up around them a bit using ladders and tiny passageways. Besides the tours, we did a short walk to a viewpoint and then did a couple of car loops to stop at viewpoints highlighting various cliff dwelling or pit dwellings. Between our tours a big storm rolled in with lots of lightning and hail bigger than marbles!
After our time at Mesa Verde we went to a cidery in Mancos and tried the flight samplers. It was a cool little place along the river. We then went to a Mexican restaurant. Mancos is a really cool, hip tiny town. We really got a good vibe about it, and really liked it. After dinner we went up to the bus and watched the sunset with beers from the viewpoint by the bus
6/8
After a chill morning in the bus, we went down to Mancos for breakfast at the bakery. We then drove towards Cortez to bike 30+ miles at the famous Phil's World mtn bike trail system. Super awesome! Really fun, rolling trails, especially ribcage and vertebrae trails. Also the wildflowers were really blooming and the contrast between the red trails and spring green plants was cool. Had a great time!
We then drove to Pagosa Springs via Durango. We walked around town for a bit and then soaked in some hot springs right along the San Juan river as rafts went by. It was a really nice, undeveloped (thus free) hot springs. After soaking we went to dinner at a Bayou place.
We then drove over Wolf Creek Pass on our way home. We stopped just short of Cochetopa Pass to camp before getting up early the next day to drive to CB for work
6/11
The birds nesting under our porch have hatched
6/12
Nuggets win the NBA championships!!! Watch it at Nick and cousin Emma's house
6/14
Did a really long mountain bike ride at Hartman's in Gunnison. Super awesome!
6/16
First day of SAIL pack up. A lot of the LANL and Hamelmann folks arrived to help out with it.
6/17
Pack-up continues. We got quite a lot of heavy snow! Including a couple of inches of accumulation in Gothic
6/18
A group of us floated down the slate river on paddleboards and inflatable kayaks
6/19
First alpenglow concert of the summer, and a great mtn bike ride up Baxter gulch amongst the lupines afterwards in the golden hour glow
6/21
Biked up Schofield pass to Emerald lake to check it out before they open up the mid-section of the road. Emerald lake still had a considerable amount of ice in it, but the rest was a glowing emerald color. There's a large snow plug that will probably keep the upper section of Schofield pass closed for quite a while. First day of music on the mountains up at Mt CB.
6/22
Last day of pack-up. LANL hosted a big bbq for us in town in the evening.
6/23
First day off! Hiked up Gothic mountain for incredible views. So green all around. And really fun glissading back down as there is still quite a lot of snow.
In the evening was the chainless race. A very fun "race" where everyone cruises down the 7 miles from the top of Kebler Pass to Elk Street downtown. Frank, Tom, Elisha, and I all dressed up in fun costumes. It's a fun event because of all the costumes and unique bikes that are purposely built for the race. There is always a few bikes with large speakers that you follow down the pass. They pull off the road here and there and a dance party ensues. A fun and special event.
6/24
Took Bruno (a visiting colleague from the Azores DOE ARM site) on a mtn bike ride. In the evening when on a bike ride with Lisa Foster who is visiting from Estes. The lupines were insane! Just mountainsides of purple!
6/25
Hiked up Gothic Mtn. with Elisha. Fun glissading down the snowfields on the way down
6/26
The containers and radar from the AOS were removed today using a crane and truck
6/30
Drove to Salida and did some sweet bike riding in the area there. Stayed the night at the little hut Nate has built up in Turett. Turett is an old mining town about 30 minutes up forest service roads out of Salida. He has great views from his place of the Collegiate Peaks. Turett is totally off the grid with no electricity or running water.
7/1
Did some more biking in Salida before hanging out with Nate and Treasure in Turett.
7/2
Did another awesome ride out of Salida, then drove home before the Jake Hess and family arrived to CB
7/3
Took Jake and Elya on a bike ride on the mtn before taking the whole family on Teddy's trail where the flowers are really popping. Then Jake and I did a ride down to Slate River where everyone else was attempting to play in the cold water. At night we took them to the Alpenglow concert series where we played some spikeball with my bro as well
7/4
Jake and I went for a morning bike ride before we all headed to the parade. Zach and I were in the KBUT disco inferno float, which was lots of fun! After the parade was the town waterfight. After downtown festivities we drove up Schofield pass as far as we could until we ran into snow and then hiked the rest of the way up to Emerald Lake. We then attended the RMBL 4th of July BBQ which was just as tasty as last year (pulled pork, brisket, bbq chicken, and more). After the BBQ we played some basketball at RMBL before heading back to MT CB to listen to the band on the mountain and then watch the fireworks
7/5
We did a short hike with the Hesses before they headed out, but then Elisha and I biked the Walrod cutoff loop to enjoy the huge bloom of sunflowers!
It was a great visit with the Hesses. They were so happy and excited to be here and really thought we lived in a Paradise. They truly couldn't believe the beauty.
7/6
Elisha got her new e-bike as part of the town's e-bike rebate program. Really amazing program to promote the use of biking instead of driving, so Elisha will be bike commuting to work (in the summer at least)
7/7
Mtn biked a big loop with Tom today, starting with Deadman's up Cement Mtn pass and trail, down Roaring Judy, and finishing with Eccher Gulch
7/8
Biked the beautiful Teocalli ridge loop with stunning wildflowers
7/9
Bro and I biked a huge loop (~50 miles) including Upper Loop, Strand, and Deer Creek. Flowers were just stunning. I accidentally left my phone at a rest spot early in the ride, and went back and found it after the ride.
7/10
I biked the same loop again, but also added Snodgrass trail as the flowers had been so amazing, and I had forgotten my phone and wanted to take photos of the amazing flowers.
7/11
Biked Strand loop as well as some trails on MT CB.
Our anniversary! Went to the alpenglow concert. We went out for dinner to Elk Prime as a treat from my parents. In our opinion not that amazing and WAY too expensive
7/12
Started off really early in the morning with a ski on Cinnamon Mountain with bro. Some nice late season turns!
Biked deer creek loop with Elisha b/c, again, the flowers were so amazing, and I wanted to show Elisha. Went to dinner at Teo Burrito for our anniversary as well, and then drove up Paradise Divide to camp for our Anniversary. We were able to camp at a super beautiful spot, looking across the gorge and towards snowy mountains.
7/13
I got up early and skied Treasury mountain, which still had great snow. Then Elisha and I hiked up Cinnamon mountain and glissaded back down due to all the snow.
7/14-7/16
Zach's bachelor party. The first day we went to water world. The rest of the guys went out to Meow Wolf. Since I'd already been and b/c it's rather expensive, I stayed back and went toured around Regis Jesuit University. The 2nd day we played paintball, which I didn't like at all. Then we did grand prix racing with go-karts, in which I managed to win! We went out to really yummy ramen for dinner in Denver and then scootered around a lot before going clubbing in LoDo. On the 3rd day we went out to brunch and then I headed towards Vail, but stopped in Boulder along the way to work on putting an offer on a house with Elisha and our McCall realtor. We ended up not putting the offer down
7/16
Drove up to Vail and mountain biked a trail up on the mountain, which was really awesome. I camped out near Minturn in my car
7/17
Did a huge loop (50.4 miles) on Vail mountain that included the 2 elk trail and the back bowls. The loop dipped down to Minturn before climbing back up Vail mountain and descending to Vail.
7/18
Big biking day. Biked a cool loop in Minturn, then biked some awesome trails in Eagle, and then finished it off by biking a sweet trail in Glenwood
7/19
Elisha and I hiked up Scarp Ridge to see the flowers. It was Bro and Mary's engagement party at an outdoor venue in MT CB with plenty of dancing.
7/20
Had the Halbach family over to Gothic for a family picnic
7/21
Found out late at night that I wasn't selected to go to Tasmania. This was an incredibly huge shocker. Did not see that coming at all!
7/22
Drove bags over to Aspen for some of Elisha's guests to make $400. On the way back I biked at Red Hill in Carbondale, but super depressed b/c of the news, and yea very shocked. I called up Michael and let him have it
7/24
Hiked up Mount Owen, a 13er near Lake Irwin. It had some incredible views! I accessed the mountain via Scarp Ridge due to a landowner dispute with the National Forest on the normal trail. Along the way, I visited beautiful green lake (which is actually a beautiful blue), which still had some icebergs in it.
7/25-27 San Juan trip.
We drove to Montrose where we stayed with our old neighbors Carleen and Glenn. It's always great to catch up with them. We hiked up to the Blue Lakes (3 stunning lakes) above Ridgeway and below Mt Sneffels (which was the 1st 14er Elisha ever climbed), and we continued up to Blue Lakes pass from whence you can look down at Yankee Boy Basin. The flowers along the hike were just incredible, especially as we got higher up, and the lakes were stunning. We met Nate Dub for dinner at a Thai place in Montrose as he was in the area for some work (he does mining clean up now)
Our plan for the 2nd day was to bike a sweet loop in Telluride and take advantage of the free gondola to not have so much vertical climbing. On the way there Elisha's bike was put the wrong way on the bike rack and her tube popped ad tire shredded from the heat of my exhaust. So we had to start the day getting a new tire for her. But then we took the gondola up and road some of the super sweet trails including Prospect, Magic Meadows, and Sunshine. We also stopped by a ghost town and a pretty subalpine lake where there were so, so many dragonflies, and the fish were going crazy. We had dinner at Elisha's favorite, Gnar Tacos in Ridgeway.
7/30-31 Another San Juan Trip
We drove to Lake City in Gunther our van. We had dinner at a cute little place in Lake City, and then we drove Gunther up in the dark in the rain up to American Basin, which is a pretty rough road. But Gunther did great! We camped in the van in the storm up above tree-line.
We got up early to climb Handies Peak, a 14er (14,058). The weather cooperated and we were able to summit with good views. On the way down we enjoyed the beautiful lake up there, but especially had fun looking at the flowers and taking beautiful photos of the flowers and mountain in American Basin. So beautiful!
8/1
Bro and I biked up Pearl Pass and did some other trails in the area. Again beautiful flowers!
8/2
Our friend from Antarctica (Clair) and her friend were visiting for a couple days and stayed with us. We went on an early morning hike to West Maroon Pass with them. Elisha and I did a beautiful flower hike in the North Pole Basin and then I biked the 401 trail.
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