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.

Now I'm learning to Telemark.  So who knew the weird places this journey would take me?

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...

It's the Journey

It's not the destination, it's the journey... A while back, a friend of mine said that, and it really stuck with me.

I'm a lifelong skier (40+ years).  I've skied all over the Midwest and West as a teenager with my family, then with my own family as an adult.  Back in my younger days, I learned to ski at Buck Hill, since it was close to home.  In the mid-70's, my sister and I received a Christmas gift of 5 ski lessons from our parents.  We we're skaters; my Sister a figure skater and I a hockey player -- having learned on second-hand double-runners when we were just 4 years old at the rink across from my Grandmothers' house in St. Peter, MN.

Ahhhhhhhh, the smell of wet wool mittens on a cast iron warming house stove in the morning...

You know, it was a big deal back then to ski, and not everyone got the chance.  In retrospect, lift tickets were only $10-15, but that was a lot of money in that day and age.  This was after Stein Eriksen and leather Henkel ski boots -- the dawn of when Wayne Wong and "Hotdog" skiing were the rage.  If you remember Jet Turns, Ballet Skiing, orange Olin Mark IV's and Lange Boots famous poster proclaiming "Keep Those Tips Up", then you're getting warmer.

Well, our first ski lesson was in mid-January, and as I recall, the temperature was approaching zero with a wind chill nearing -50°F below zero.  No matter.  We bundled up and were ready and raring to go.  The ski instructor, surprisingly, was not deterred by the weather, perhaps being infected with our googley, wild-eyed enthusiasm. 

After that first lesson, I knew I wanted to be a skier.

How I Caught (and Released) the Colorado State Record Rainbow Trout

I drove up to do some lake fly-fishing in northern Colorado a couple of years ago during spring break in mid-March, 2012. It was just after first ice-out, with plenty of snow on the ground, and only a small section of the lake open on the north side of the lake.

I stepped out of my rental car, read the mountain lion warning sign, then hiked around the lake from the public launch area to a small beach that was relatively shallow, adjacent to a rip-rapped dam that created this reservoir-lake.

I was alone at the time, but after a few minutes, another guy shows up and takes a spot just down the shore.  I was wading, casting black tunghead wooly bugger and catching 12" rainbows, one after another.   Then, for some reason I look down, and there was a huge trout near my feet, nosed into the rocks.

After closer examination, I could see the huge fishes gills working, so I knew it was alive. I guess the icy water was still cold enough to slow the fishes metabolism down or maybe it was old age. In my best estimate, the fish looked to be four feet in length, or possibly longer.

Having caught great lakes steelhead in the 28"+ range, this fish was as long as my leg; probably 20+ pounds and most likely a state record rainbow trout.

After fishing for an hour or so and observing this gigantic fish, I decided to reach down to see if the fish would respond. I stuck my hand down into the water and grasped the fish by the tail, and in one fell swoop, put my other hand under it's belly and lifted it out of the water. At the same moment, I yelled to the fisherman down the beach to take a look.

His expression was one that can only be described as dumb-founded.

The fish was so large that when lifted, it could only shimmy side-to-side in a slow-motion wag. Fourty-eight inches was a base minimum. After a triumphant whoop, it occurred to me I had to make a decision. Turn and walk back to shore with my trophy, or release this magnificent fish.

With little regret, I gently placed the fish back in the water, head first, still grasping the tail. After a couple swishes back an forth to revive him, he gave a mighty thrust of the tail and with a splash returned to the icy water.

You would have had to use a shovel to wipe the smile off, as the perma-grin stayed resident on my face for quite some time.