Saturday, January 30, 2010

2009 Year in Review

2009 Recap, Stats and Photos:

2009 was a year of change, or at least setting the tones for future change. We were told in 2009 that we’d have a baby in 2010. I was also told in 2009 that my job was ending in 2010. So 2009 was a year of preparation for an almost new life in 2010. As of right now it appears we are heading for a C-section on February 11th. I also have my job until at least March 30th. So the 1st quarter of 2010 will be crazy.

While 2009 was somewhat frustrating it was very rewarding and I did a ton of things!

First off, 2009 was the year of geocaching for Jess and I (and the dogs) as here we are getting an island cache on Lake Mendota on a perfect winter day:
Caches in 2009: 485 found, 1 placed (near Rice Lake.) We found caches of all size and shapes in all sorts of different places:
States I geocached in: 11 (Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Florida, Colorado and Pennsylvania) Jess didn’t get to cache in PA. This is our favorite cache ever, located near Ames, Iowa, a crazy night cache that was cold, hard and high! We basically had to find a shiny little reflective point with a flash light, head to it, then shine the light again to find the next one on a little trail. While a ladder was supposed to be required, I gave Jess the ultimate boost to tackle this one.We also caches in 5 countries or territories: 5 (US, St. John, St Maarten, St Thomas, Bahamas)

Fitness and adventure stats:

This was a down year for cycling, running and sports of that nature. My totals? 1733 miles of cycling, 127 miles of running. 1 running race (Free to Breathe 5k) and 2 bike races (Levis 50 and Breckenridge 32 which was actually 37) I weighed 12lbs more this new years than I did last new years. Played a lot of basketball, went downhill skiing and snowboarding (once) and swam twice. I then sold my wetsuit. Snowboarding on January 3rd, 2009:
I summited 5 14ers this year and here and here are the reports (beating my previous record of basically 2 in 2007.) Went to two state high points (Illinois and Pennsylvania) bringing my total to 4 (WI in 2005 and CO in 2007.)
I attended 15 baseball games (9 home Brewers game, 2 Brewers/Cardinals games at St Louis, 1 game each at Kaufmann Field in Kansas City and Coors Field in Denver, an Iowa Cubs minor league game and a Madison Mallards game.) I even got to play triva at a Brewers game on the jumbotron and won me a sweet bat!!!
Other things to note:
January was the birth of our second niece, Maya (shown here with her sister Anna and their grandma Larson at Christmas this year!)
February we went on a cruise with 6 of our friends. It was the best and most memorable cruise yet! Bahamas, St Thomas, St John and St Maarten were all dominated including getting destroyed by a jet engine at Maho Beach, a once in a lifetime experience. Zip lining rocked!


In May we went on a baseball trip to see one Royals game (and Cy-Young winner Zach Greike) and two Brewers/Cardinals games in St Louis:

Man V Food was the show for me this year and we visited several locations that the show was filmed (See food blog for that!)
Travel for work was another important theme of 2009. Many trips to Bedford, PA and the all important and fun trip to Park City, UT for some awesome riding. This ride on Mid Mountain trail is an Imba certifed epic 50 mile offroad ride that my friend Jonnie and I tackled one morning/afternoon/evening out in Park City:
June 2009 was a great month, we found out we were pregnant! A dream come true and a great start to the second half of the year!

In late July we took our annual Breckenridge pilgrimage and this time invited some friends. It was one of the most memorable trips ever.
I raced the Breck 32 (which ended up being about 37, race report here) and had a great race despite two flat tires and having to walk over a mile. Also did lots of mountain hikes, riding, exploring and eating!
In August my grandma Cook (middle center) turned 80 and we partied! In early September my grandmother Larson passed away. She’ll be greatly missed.
In late September we found out our baby will be a girl! We celebrated by heading to our second home, Des Moines, Iowa for a triple feature concert of my favorite bands (Silversun Pickups, Manchester Orchestra and Cage the Elephant)
I spent 4 weeks in Bedford, PA for work. I visited all of the covered bridges in the county and went to the Flight 93 memorial. It was a beautiful fall out in the mountains! October and November were rather tame months with work travel and house work but we did head to Chicago to cheer on our friend Kyle in the Urbanathalon and Jess created the best Halloween costume I’ve ever seen. We got an unseasonably warm fall/winter day and hit the Wollershiem winery with friends in late November.
December was all about family and friends. We had our annual Christmas party with some of our friends in addition to our work Christmas party. We celebrated Christmas all over the state with family. We even flew down to Florida for a week with my parents! Even rode the teathered hot air balloon over downtown Disney. Disney World and the beach both happened but took a back-seat to just relaxing and not being in the cold and spending time with family. From there we went to two Christmas Parties (one for work and one with friends) and then we celebrated Christmas 4 seperate times with family! It was a great time.
Overall 2009 was a pretty good year! It has lots of ups and downs but overall we had a fun time, advanced some of our hobbies and just enjoyed lots of time together! Looking forward to 2010!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Quandary Summit and Breck/Keystone Extreme


So I thought I should also update the other 14er summit I did this summer, this time with my good friend Kyle!

We actually got up about 4:30 am for this hike and were at the trailhead ready to go by 5:30am. Not too many cars here and a couple cars even had a couple people sleeping in them. Here's a before shot of me, armed with GPS and ready to rock!


This was Kyle's 1st 14er and it's basically right up the long side of the mountain, turn around, and come back. It's not very technical, just very long! The sunrise on Quandary was amazing but to our backs. Kyle is a pretty fit dude and we had been at elevation for a few days so he was up for the challenge. He set a pretty rippin' pace early that I struggled to keep up with (I pride myself on being average speed but all day long endurance) but eventually he leveled off and we were able to find a great pace we both could maintain for the duration of the hike. We made quick work of the mountain early passing everyone we saw and we hit the false summit (which isn't very false) in under an hour. I snapped a black and white shot back with one of my next conquests, Grays and Torreys in the background. Looking towards the sun caused a neat haze.We also spotted mountain goats down the mountain towards the resevoir! First goats I've seen in my (5-7 14er climbs)The last part of Quandary is steep and relentless but we were pretty sure we would have a clear summit and with no one else so we hauled up to the top passing the two people that were in front of us! And we were alone! Kyle's first 14er summit! And here's my summit shot too! Elbert and Massive are in the background, way back there! Summit certified!And then a father/son combo from Chicago came up and took this photo for us! The view to the north was stunning. That's the upper part of McCullough gulch. Kyle was not afraid to live on the edge on the way down. The weather was beautiful! We saw no less than 500+ people accending on a perfect Thursday morning so glad we got there early. There was a school field trip, a group of maybe 50 people each with balloons to let fly at the summit to honor a friend who died exactly a year ago and loved climbing. Many retirees who didn't even care of they made the top, etc. Oh yeah and 6 non-people too! Some mountain goats! They were curious and probably looking for food and standing right in the trail! Too much fun! We kept making our way down the mountain and were to the treeline in no time. Going down is easier on the lungs but harder on the joints but we made it down with no injuries or falls so all was well! Here's me in standard warm weather Colorado climbing gear. The road back to Breck has a pull out to view Quandary. My camera viewed us and Quandary. What a fun day with a good friend, perfect weather and a nice sense of adventure!We then met up with Hez and Jess and got our spelunking on. This was a pretty cool gold mine and freezing cold in there!Jess and I went around Breck to find our favroite spot, a nice mountian stream with a little ropes course action!And no blog post would be complete without the trip to Keystone. Because Jess was pregnant no biking for her so it was just Kyle and I again. Keystone is the single most fun you can have on a mountain bike as far as I've experienced. Shuttle up and then dozens of different routes down. The easy routes are some sweet flowy and rocky singletreack! Perfect! You can also opt for harder routes with drops, stunts and features. What to do, the double black diamond bypass or the triple black diamond corkscrew?Why the corkscrew of course! It's hard to ride when you are shaking in fear but I had no choice but to not crash! Here is the finish (a reenactment) but it shows the whole thing. Pretty cool, I've missed seeing this stunt on previous trips so glad we saw it this time! Kyle liked bombing steep, rocky drops! This was just the start of a black diamond natural terrain trail with rocks, jumps, ledges and many successive drops. No problems! That pretty much catches you up on my Colorado Adventures for 2009. Thanks for reading!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

4 14ers in one day!

A Colorado Mountain hiking update! This post has been a half-year in the making but wanted to make sure it was posted before I moved on to other things as it was very important to me!

Monday, July 20th was my biggest planned day in Colorado on our weeklong summer vacation, to summit 4 14ers in one hike. I’ve been wanting to summit another 14er ever since hiking to Colorado’s highpoint (Mt Elbert) 2 years ago.

Well in Colorado they make some easy and some difficult. Each of these would be fairly easy but the cumulative total of 4 of them and continued exposure at 13,500ft + would make it a challenge for an out of shape person from Wisconsin 2-days removed from a difficult bike race. Where there is a will, there is a way however and because everyone else had plans to go rafting Monday was the day!
The trailhead was roughly a half hour drive, from Breckenridge over Hoosier Pass to Alma and then up to the Kite Lake trailhead. They recommend a high clearance two-wheel drive or four wheel drive to get to the trailhead but the Avalon is never scared and handled it all smoothly (I went to much worse trailheads on this trip.) I left Breck at 5am with coffee in hand and got to Kite Lake a little after 5:30. It took some getting ready at the trailhead but I got started before 6pm with a belly full of fuel. This was the first hard solo hike I’ve ever really done so I was a little on the anxious side as it was just me versus the mountains, no Larkin or Jess or someone in it with me. There were only 3 groups that Icould see that started out ahead of me. I’ve never actually felt stronger on a tough hike than I did this morning. The afternoon before we hiked McCullough Gulch (one of the world’s best hikes) and I wasn’t feeling particularly strong. But when I set out today I quickly caught a group of 4 who started about 5 minutes ahead of me. They all looked fit but in group hiking you are only as fast as your slowest, who wasn’t as fast as me I guess. On my way up I got the first glance of the sun! I passed another group before I hit the saddle that separates Mt Democrat (my first goal) and Mt Cameron (my second goal.) This is where life got rough!




This video (taken sideways, oops) shows how windy it was. I estimate a sustained 60-70mph wind but it wasn't very gusty. It was cold. This part rips right through a valley that channels it through and the only escape was for the wind to blow over here. The cool part was most of the trail was protected from this, but probably 20% of the time I was dealing with wind. I saw people ahead however and read it could be windy so I kept rocking it. The way up was awesome. Words can't explain how badly I wanted (needed) to be at the top of Mt. Lincoln. So I chugged it hard! I got up to the false summit and there was a snowfield to walk through, how awesome! I had passed everyone else that day so I summited all by myself! The emotions were strong as this summit was symbolic of a resolution of all the struggles I've had the past 2 years. It was cold and still a little windy but manageable. The weather was starting to cloud up so I had to make sure to keep watching it as there is no place to hide. I hung out for only about 5 minutes as the weather wasn't great but got some awesome photos and was able to see and identify several other 14ers across the land! I headed back down the same way I came to get back to the saddle. When I got to the snowfield I had to piss like a racehorse. There are no trees or anything so I went over to the side of the snowfield to "write my name in the snow" because I am still 10 apparently. Of course about 2/3 of the way through a hiker came up towards my front and she just happened to be a nice young lady. I was able to turn around so she didn't see what I was doing (she knew full-well what I was doing, minus the writing my name thing). When she approached me, she wanted me to take her photo and she took one for me in return so no big deal, just a funny memory! Here's the photo. The rest of the way down wasn't too bad, the wind was a little more mild (like 30-40mph) and I quickly made it back to the traverse. People were afraid of the weather at this point and either turning around or deciding on just doing Mt Democrat. I had no time for decisions and I was 50:50 on whether I should continue but there was no way I was actually going to quit so I headed up towards Cameron. This seemed to be the sketchiest part of the hike weatherwise. It was long and seemingly took forever. I did get a look back at the trailhead and now I realize why they call it Kite Lake.I even got passed by a couple people younger than me who were jogging up, crazy! Mt Cameron isn't an "offical" summit because of how close it is to Mt Lincoln and there isn't enough of an elevation change between the two. But Cameron has a very cool summit, you could see all 4 of the summits of the hike from this one, an awesome snow field and cliff and this pond that had snow in it and couldn't be more than 33F. Crazy stuff!I was having good momentum at this point and the weather remained bad. Plus I had the most technical accent ahead, that of Mt. Lincoln. The top of Mt Lincoln was smaller than most and had a sheer face on one side but the views were great as you could see all the mountains to the north, east and south (Pikes Peak, Grays & Torreys, Quandary, etc.) Got a good self photo:Made quick work down and then took the traverse over to Mt. Bross. There was some confusion as to whether Bross was open or not but supposedly the route most take to the top was open so I passed by some routes to the top to take the one that wasn't closed. I finally made it after alot of walking and the size on top had to be about a quarter mile long by an eight mile wide, enormous. Bross was famous for allowing 4 wheelers (which aren't allowed currently) at the top but again I had a summit to myself.The weather got bad as I assumed a storm at any moment so I found the quickest way down from the summit. I decended 500 feet on what might have been a trail. The footing was so loose and it was so rocky that parts of it did not resemble a trail. While I thought the decent down Bross would be easy, it was the hardest part of the trip. It was so loose that I almost fell so many times and was a bit out of control. The trail was awful with rocks big enough to kind of support you but small enough to slip without notice. I took one fall but mostly it was an unfun 40 minutes of trying not to get hurt. Then I got down to some flora and the trail leveled out and got nice again. I came across this icy waterfall, so beautiful, and the weather got nice!I looked like I was so close to the lot but then you have a good mile to go with a couple stream crossings. But I hustled and made it! I felt like a rock star.

I finished off the day with a wade in Kite Lake, which was cold but felt great on tired feet and ankles. The trout were plentiful too, I'd love to camp here for a day! A Dr. Pepper and a granola bar later I was back on to Breck where I met back up with part of our crew for some lunch at my favorite restaurant, Empire Burger.

I can't believe how well it went. The weather made me keep pressing on and I couldn't wait to get back up for Quandary Peak 3 days later!