Colorado Front Range and Vedauwoo

Trail Ridge Boulder V4

After leaving Barb's we wanted to do a little bouldering in Rocky Mountain NP before heading to the front range. We first tried to go to Lumpy Ridge but after hiking for a mile or so, learned that the areas we wanted to go to were closed for raptor nesting. We then went back into the park where we found a nice roadside boulder that Matt found some good problems on.  After we were good and tired from bouldering, we headed to the front range to see more friends. Our first stop was Rachel's (a friend of mine from Colorado College). We had a great time catching up over dinner and hanging out with Rachel and Brett and meeting her twin boys. After that it was into Denver to meet up with Matt's friend Jessica and her husband James. They have done a lot of travelling themselves as part of their multimedia business. It was great to talk with them and share stories of their travels and adventures. Then it was up to Boulder to see our friend Mike. We stayed with Mike over the weekend and even though he is perpetually injured and was unable to climb, he still took us on a great hike up Estes Dome and climbing in boulder canyon.

Flatirons

Mike Paul and Matt atop Estes Dome in RMNP

We felt very fortunate to have so many great friends and family to see along they way. The week was our first break from the van and it was quite nice to take real showers, sleep in real beds, and cook food in a real kitchen. Most of all though it was great to sit down with friends and meet new friends, talk and tell stories. No matter what the setting was, it was seeing friends that made it a great time.

Vedauwoo - The Nautilis

After spending the weekend in Boulder, we headed north to Veedawoo Wyoming. Land of off-width cracks and very coarse granite. Our trad climbing resume is fairly short so we expected to get humbled and were not disappointed. Most of the climbs that looked really good were significantly harder than what we wanted to do, so Matt decided to stick to bouldering. The bouldering is reasonably good, though would be hard to compare to other areas as the granite is extremely coarse and has huge crystals in it. There are literally thousands of boulders, but due to the nature of the rock most are lacking in holds and are unclimbable. As John Gill (the father of bouldering in america) said "You can't see a hold anywhere so it's a matter of spending 30 minutes just trying to get off the ground, I've never been very much in love with the place". We would have to share his sentiment, but in recent years some decent boulders have been found.

Cassie bouldering

Captain's Chair V0 w/ kneebar :)

freakin huge crystals!

Cassie opted for a good crack climb that the book claimed was easy to protect and wasn't disappointed. The climb was able to be sewn up with gear and made for a very enjoyable crack climb. There is an impressive amount of rock around and with all the wildflowers in full bloom it's really quite a magical setting. Also, due to the erosion many potholes form in the rock and are full of water. One we found high up on a rock formation had tiny fairy shrimp in it. Quite amazing given its location and the brutal winters the eggs must endure.

Cassie rappelling on Kim 5.6 at Poland Hill

Granite Pothole

Mike, Linda, and Julius will arrive and climb with us through the weekend. Hopefully the weather will hold out. We keep getting rainstorms in the afternoon even though the weather gave a 0% chance. On Monday we will be leaving Vedauwoo to head north, check out an area called Fremont Canyon and possibly swing by Devil's Tower on the way to Ten Sleep Wyoming.

Mojo napping (as usual)

granite flowers

Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, and family

Three days were spent exploring Rock Mountain National Park. We stayed just outside of the park on the west side off a forest service road. There's free camping, which is excellent, but unfortunately the campsites are quite abused. One campsite had a entire watermellon in pieces all of the site. I threw them as far away from the van as seemed safe, and in the evening a fox came along and decided to have them for dinner! Guess I should have bagged them up and thrown them in a trash can. A park ranger told us that feeding the fox is pretty common so it's not very surprising that it wasn't scared of us and came right into camp. Another site had an entire ribcage and spine of an elk. The sites had great views of the mountains in the park which made up for some of the lackluster stewardship.

Fox and Watermelon

Adam's Falls

East Inlet Trail

East Inlet Trail

Overlook of East Inlet Trail

Our first hike in the park was up the East Inlet trail. We quickly checked out Adams Falls which has an impressive amount of water gushing through it. The trail continued on to beautiful open meadows with a meandering river flowing through it. We saw moose grazing across the river and what I was sure were ducks, but Cassie informed me they were just decoys. The hike continued up to the Devils Staircase and went up to Lone Pine Lake but unfortuately we hit snow and were unable/unwilling to continue on through waist deep snow to see the lake.

The following day our legs were sore from our previous hike so we did a couple of smaller hikes, and were thwarted again by snow and mud. We tried the Colorado River trail and hit snow in under a mile. The river itself was swollen and overflowing its banks. To avoid more snow we drove back down river a bit and did a nice short hike along the Coyote Trailhead. There we sat and snacked while watching elk in a meadow do the same. We also almost hit a moose who ran across the road.

Almost roadkill Moose

Flooded Colorado River Trail

Surprised Elk and Moose

Our third day we headed all the way through the park to get to Estes Park and see Cassie's cousin Barb. The drive was exquisite with great vistas of snow covered mountains. We also stopped to take pictures of elk, and were rewarded with a twofer. A moose ran right by the elk we were photographing. That was a great stroke of luck.

Self-Explanatory

The summit of the road was incredibly windy with gusts buffeting the van back and forth. On the east side of the park we were greeted with tons of elk and more sheer cliffs than we had seen on the west side. Longs Peak and others were out in full force and were quite photogenic. We did short hikes to Bear Lake, up the Old Fall River road which was still closed but allowed us to take Mojo (normally national parks don't allows dogs on any trail). Mojo enjoyed getting out of the van since he had been stuck in it for the last few days. We hiked around Sprague Lake and called it a day thinking our photography session was over. Arriving in Estes Park we phoned Barb, received directions to her house, and drove straight there. Barb and her family were gracious hosts. They had dinner ready and beer and we had a great time talking and catching up. We swapped stories of traveling and ticks (Cassie got her first tick at Penitente). After dinner Barb took us for a drive around town to see some of the local wildlife such as a beaver pond with a very amiable beaver, and some elk just grazing away in a neighbor's yard. Turns out the pictures from town were some of the best of the wildlife we took! After the drive we came back, had a great dessert, and talked until we all called it a night and headed to bed.

Barb, Keenan, Jade our excellent hosts

This morning we are headed to some local bouldering to see how our bodies are doing. It's the first climbing we'll have done in a week. We'll sample the bouldering and then head to Cassie's friend Rachel's house for another evening of spending time with friends.

RMNP!

Sprague Lake

Beaver

Fall River Road view

flower

Alluvial Fan Falls

Elk

On the way to Rock Mountain National Park

Colorado Homestead

We've taken a few rest days after 3 weeks of climbing. Our bodies and minds needed it. The next major destination is Rocky Mountain National Park but we've taken the scenic way to get there. Currently we are in Granby, CO which is on the south-westside of the park. Our last post was from Cripple Creek. Since then we've been to 3 free campsites in national forests. It's been a beautiful drive and we've seen some amazing rock climbing areas in the South Platte of Colorado. It's unfortunate that we didn't climb but sometimes even with rock around it's best to just take pictures and pass it by. We stayed just north of Florissant Colorado Wednesday night,

South Platte Granite

Sheeps Rock

South Platte River

Flowers

near Jefferson Colorado the following night,

Duck Moon

Busy Beavers

Beaver Pond

Ducky

 and last night we camped about 30 minutes south-west of Hot Sulphur Springs, Co.

How High? The Van breaks into the Ozone near Breckenridge.

We had our first equipment issue of the trip this morning. Our solar panel blew over in a strong wind gust and is cracked probably beyond repair, the glass is completely spiderwebbed. Surprisingly the panel is still putting out over 50% of its normal output, which is pretty cool, but we're sure we'll need to replace it at a minimum cost of $280. So much for being under budget, but alas these are things that will happen.

Today is laundry day and tomorrow we head into the Park. Should have some cool photos to post by sometime next week. After that we'll be in Boulder, Co with our friend Mike Loh.

Trees in beaver pond

A falcon searches for its breakfast while we have ours.