14er

14er's

A few years back, my wife and I had the chance (while we were out in Colorado for a graduation), to climb a bonafide Colorado "Fourteener".  Wikipedia defines a fourteener:  "In local mountaineering parlance in the western United States, a fourteener (or "14er") is a mountain peak that exceeds 14,000 feet (4267.2 meters) elevation".

There are actually 53 of them in Colorado.  We started on our bucket list by climbing just one.  Longs Peak, in Rocky Mountain National Park -- located in the northern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America.

And so, early one morning in late May, my wife Terri, my nephew John and I set out to test our resolve and endurance against the vaunted Longs...

8 years later...

On the trail from the 4wd trailhead to lower South Colony Lakes, about one more hour to reach our 11,500 ft. base camp.  4 hours of hiking with a 46 lb. backpack.  We set up camp in the dark, headlamps glowing.  Dinner is boiling in a pot.  The small backpacking stove hissing in the twilight.  Too exhausted to care much about the 40 mph wind gusts that are trying to flatten my tent.

Backpacking is like giving birth to a baby.  The joy of the end result makes you forget the pain of the journey.

The Transformation

As I mentioned, I'm a skier.  My daughter is as well (since she was 4 yrs. old).  I'm not afraid to say I've always had a disdain for snowboarders.  Okay disdain is a strong word.  Not out-right hate.  Not pathological dislike.  More of a skeptical uneasiness.  I just didn't get them.  Always sitting at the top of the hill, fixing their bindings. 

I don't know why.  I just didn't think they had much skill.  And, they always seemed to be cutting in front of me with their side-to-side goofy traversing.  Oh yah, and as everyone already knows:  They scrape ALL of the snow off the hill.

Well, let me go on record as saying:  "I was ALL wrong".

A couple of years ago, my daughter's friends goaded her into trying snowboarding.  It was one of those cold January ice-covered days at Welch.  She rented a board, fell a couple of hundred times, got back up, and never looked back.  She was hooked.

So naturally, as a father I was curious.  It's probably just youthful attraction toward all things different and unusual, I thought.  Then I thought:  Why not give it a try?  I'll take 3 lessons to ensure I give it a real chance, then I'll decide.  I bought a board (a 164 cm Ride No.4 mountain screamer).  By the third lesson I had fell a couple of hundred times.  Bought some knee pads.  Ditched the mountain screaming edge-catching suicide plank.  Got a sweet 158.5cm Burton Rippey (circa 2000) and never looked back.  I was hooked.

Now I'm shredding the DBD Back Bowls at Welch on my Burton Custom Flying-V with new Burton Custom bindings.  We recently made a spring break / college road trip out west and BOARDED Park City UT and Steamboat CO.  Didn't even bring the skis.  Ain't life grand?

Welch Village Back Bowls

Steep and deep.  Well okay -- relatively steep (for MN) and just enough snow to make them shreddable.  Boarded for two-and-a-half hours straight on Welch's backside on Saturday.  Yah, that's right, the Welch Village Back Bowls.  Black gold.  Texas Tea.  I digress.

These are pretty awesome ski runs for these parts.  Adam's Abyss has a couple of nice drops.  Lauren's Ledge is quarter-pipe-bowl-like and super fun to shred from edge to edge...  Just let the back of your board slide over the side edge and cut back -- a rush for sure.

And it's fun to stand at the bottom, waiting for the chair lift, watching people come down the Carter's Cliff headwall at the bottom of the back bowl access run.  The ski patrol likes to stand at the bottom of Carter's Cliff and pick up the "Yard Sale" items left by gapers and gorbys as they fly, out of control, into the side woods above...