Archive for November, 2006

This was the last lake we passed on the way down. It was mostly frozen over. Close enough for the people who walked across it. More shots from the day are here.

On Saturday, Mark and I donned our brand new mountaineering boots, our favorite snow shoes, and our best winter gear for a trek up to Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

We spent the morning getting everything together. Hopefully now that we’ve done a full-gear trek this season, it will go much faster next time. We didn’t leave the Bear Lake trailhead until about 12:30p. We hiked up the trail past Nymph Lake to Dream Lake where we stopped and put on our snow shoes. We were able to short-cut a good bit of trail by hiking straight across the lake, which was kind of creepy as the day was warm enough to melt a thin layer on top of the ice. But nothing cracked or creaked or moaned, and we made good time.

We arrived at Emerald Lake at just before 2p. While we passed a couple people on the way down, when we got to the high lake, we had the whole area to ourselves. The wind was coming and going. Occasionally it would blast us with ferocious spindrift, and then it would die down for several minutes of sunny peacefulness. The thermometer read 35F degrees, which is pretty warm, and with a 40mph wind only equates to a 20F degree windchill, so a balmy day by comparison to some.

Photos all around, and then we headed back down. We wore the snowshoes for traction the whole way down, and they helped quite a bit. We were back at the car around 3:30p, and Mark was not tired at all. He kept saying “That was it? Lame.” But it was a fun day, and a beautiful place. We’ll just have to make sure the next trek covers more miles!

The rest of the pictures from the day are in the photo album: Snowshoe to Emerald Lake.

Some days around here are beautiful. You can walk around in shorts in the middle of January. But some days are just plain icky. Today was cold, dreary, rainy, windy, gross. That’s ok though. I’ve got a lot of projects to finish before Christmas, and it’s good to have the time to work on them.

Seems like we’ve had a lot of amazing sunsets lately. I thought I’d try to find something interesting to put in front of one. This one is just for the fun of it too. :-)

Part of the approach to my climb in Eldo last Sunday, was described in the guidebook as “cross over the creek and hike up the bank on the other side…” This was the creek crossing. Needless to say, it was an exciting jump!

Mark and I got new boots in Boulder today, and then stopped by Eldorado Canyon State Park to climb a bit. Unfortunately, it was late in the day and the wind was brisk, so we just hiked a bit looking for cool climbs to hit next time we’re in the area.

I got a lot of shots of climbers on their way back towards the ground. I believe this guy was on Long John Wall (5.8), a definate must do!

Just wandering around this evening trying to take a few pictures. I lost my light pretty quickly, and so started playing with the flash. We had a great down-slope wind this evening. I say “great” because my ride home from work is west to east, and so this was a fantastic tail-wind. I lost my bike computer last summer, so I don’t know how fast I was going, but it felt great!

In this picture, the wind was blowing these tall stalks of grass all around. I was swaying back and forth trying to catch them with the camera. :)

I voted today! We have an early voting option here in Ft. Collins, and three locations staffed in town at which we can vote. I got to use one of the Dibold electronic voting machines, which I got a kick out of. I know there’s been a lot of worry about these machines, but I found it very easy to use, and I saw the paper trail go by with the correct votes, so I feel confidant in the machine.

Another picture today from another sunset. I love the sky out here.