Archive for 2009

This fall, I spent another 4 weeks teaching a great class on Climate Change at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. As they did before, the college rented me an apartment for visiting faculty, and I stayed there during the week while I was teaching.

This year, however, the apartment was not part of an old tenement, but converted rooms from one of the largest Victorian-era mansions I have ever been in. This apartment was much larger than the last one, and had it’s own unique features. The kitchen was clearly added on, and in a narrow galley-style that was too small to contain all of the appliances. So, the refrigerator was in the dining room. Oh, and there was a formal dining room. The large mahogany table had room to seat 10.

The house sat on the western edge of the campus, on a hill above Monument Creek and looking out over the town directly at Pikes Peak.

The teaching keeps me incredibly busy for the whole month, but I managed one sunny afternoon to get out and hike up and down the creek.

I find each visit to Colorado Springs makes me like the area a little more. It is an interesting mix of colleges, military installations, tourist traps and outdoor playgrounds. Nearby climbing areas such as Shelf Road, the South Platte and even Red Rock Canyon open space are some of my favorite places.

It was a great trip, and a really nice way to spend the last few weeks of a beautiful fall.

Dylan and Ann were in town for the weekend, so we met up at the warm basalt crags that sit above Golden, Colorado. It was a lovely day, warm enough to climb in tank tops, crowded enough to give the crag a party feel. Sean came up from Denver and met us around lunchtime as well.

I’m not going to chronicle the day hour by hour or anything. One important lesson from our day though: bring a trad rack to this area, even if you expect to only be sport climbing. There are a surprising number of really fun cracks to be climbed on North Table Mountain. If you never plug any gear out there, you’re missing out!

We climbed Toast and Jam (5.7+), Intuition (5.7), Hate Hate (5.9+), Henry Spies the Line (5.10a), and Mark worked up Death of Innocents (5.11d) on TR.

Usually, the minute leaves on aspens start to pale and crinkle, I am all over fall colors in the Rockies with my trusty little camera. It’s one of my favorite times of year, as the seasons shift from long, high-energy days to quiet, contemplative nights.

This year, I spent a(nother) month in Colorado Springs teaching an undergraduate class on Climate Change. It is an incredible learning experience for me, and the three-and-a-half week block system means the course is hugely demanding. I love the chance to throw myself at a task completely: intellectually, physically, and emotionally.

So, the moral of this post is that I gave up the chance at photography of mountains draped in yellow and orange aspens for the chance to talk about clouds and climate with an awesome group of college students. Totally. Worth. It.

In Vedauwoo!!!

The summer was getting late, and Doug and Liz wanted one last weekend romp through the rocks and woods of Vedauwoo. Doug drove up early on Friday morning to grab the best campsite in the area: a huge area of cleared ground below tall lodgepole pines just south of the Beehive Buttress.

Mark, Liz and I arrived late on Friday night, to find Sean and Doug enjoying a roaring fire and the quiet of a Vedauwoo night. Liz had filled our heads with stories of coyotes, bears, and deadly moose in Vedauwoo. Our night was spent looking anxiously out into the darkness around us.

Saturday morning, we moved slowly, waiting for more friends to arrive and watching van after van of climbers arrive and head out to the Beehive. When we finally arrived ourselves, a CMS school was practicing leading on one side, and a boyscout troupe had set top-ropes all over the other.

We had never seen the buttress so busy! Often, we are the only group there.

On Saturday, I led an easy route with one awkward move, and Mark and Doug both led a pair of burlier routes in the middle of the wall. We all got in trips on each route, and then packed up as the crowds grew larger.

The rest of the day was spent playing cards, playing with fire, snacking, and hanging out at camp as people came and left. In the evening, we waited until the other climbers left for the day, and then made another run at the Beehive.

Clouds had blown in, and a bitterly cold wind scoured the granite buttress. I led an interesting route up the far right side, racing Doug’s lead just to my left, and the chilly wind. A couple brave people climbed our routes on TR, but complained of cold rock and numb hands.

A mist filled in as the climbers were working up the routes. The white clouds billowed by below and around them, making the view from the belay weird and ethereal. I have never seen anything like that before, or again.

Saturday night was chilly and misty. Rain drizzled and the fire roared. Liv dashed off into the darkness after some animal, which made an eerie and unearthly squeal. Eventually, Liv came back and we spotted the big fox, watching us from just beyond the firelight.

On Sunday morning, Liz made blueberry pancakes for the whole camp, and we hung our tents and flys between trees, waiting for everything to dry out in the sun. It seemed the mountains of Vedauwoo had risen above the clouds into the sun that morning. As we drove home, we watched the clouds washing up on the Front Range, and slowly descended back into the fog of the real world.

It’s been a summer of bounty from the gardens and our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Every day something else is ripening on the vines and every week we get a new big box of fruit and veggies.

Each summer is a learning experience for us, both in learning how and what we can grow in our own gardens as well as how and what we can eat from the CSA! One of the hardest parts of our summer food bounty is researching and finding interesting ways to eat all of these veggies. Here are some of the big hits of the 2009 Summer season!

Mango, Peach and Pineapple Salsa – Uses peaches, tomatoes, onion, peppers and cilantro
2 mangos, peeled, seeded and chopped
2 peaches, halved, pitted, and cut into 1/2-inch dice
4 tomatoes, chopped
1 white onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 cup diced fresh pineapple
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar, or to taste

1. Combine all ingredients in a big bowl. Refrigerate at least one hour. The longer the ingredients mingle, the better the salsa!

Thai pepper chicken with basil – Uses basil, onions, peppers, tomatillos and lettuce
1 bunch of thinly sliced basil
1/4 cups veggie oil
6 large coarsely chopped shallots or onions
5 cloves of minced garlic
1 piece of fresh ginger, peeled and cut into thin strips
1 pound ground chicken or turkey
2 fresh Thai chili peppers or jalapeño peppers and/or tomatillos or other peppers to taste, thinly sliced
2 tsp brown sugar
salt
lettuce leaves

1. Heat 1/4 cup of oil in a wok over medium-high heat for 30 seconds. Add shallots, garlic and ginger; cook and stir 1 minute. Add chicken and stir-fry about 4 minutes or until lightly browned. Push the chicken up the sides of the wok, letting the juice remain in the bottom.

2. Continue to cook about 5 to 7 minutes or until all liquid evaporates. Stir in chili pepper slices, brown sugar and salt; cook 1 minute. Remove from heat.

3. Lay lettuce leaves out on plates, serve chicken on top.

Garbage Pasta – Uses almost anything you need to get rid of.
1/2 onion
1 or 2 tomatoes
1 small summer squash
1 small zucchini
1 bunch kale
1 bunch basil
1 cup of peas
1/4 cup olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
a large handful of spaghetti
(optional other veggies include carrots, broccoli, egg plant, mushrooms, green onions, spinach, etc)
a pile of Parmesan cheese

1. Boil spaghetti in salty water until done. Drain, toss with a little olive oil, and set aside.

2. Saute all veggies in olive oil with garlic, except tomatoes and basil. Steam veggies if preferred (as for carrots, broccoli, spinach or peas).

3. Combine cooked veggies, garlic, raw tomatoes and basil, salt and pepper with spaghetti and just enough of the cooking olive oil to coat. Sprinkle liberally with cheese. Enjoy!

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And this is just the tip of the iceburg. I think it’s very interesting to see the traditional food cultures that our local produce seems to fit best with. With all of the root veggies and dark green leafies, I think we could fill a Tuscan or Northern Italian table without any problem. But also, our peppers, onions, peas, beans and cabbage make some darn tasty Thai food. I never would have thought, but local food grown in Colorado meshes very well with the tropical cuisine of Southeastern Asia! Now I just need to start growing our own coconut trees!

Just wanted to post a few pics from a pretty day of bouldering on Labor Day. Supposedly, it was the unofficial last day of summer. We decided to try something new. Rather than pack the rack and rope in the car, we grabbed our bouldering pads and headed to a remote area in Vedauwoo called Coyote Rocks.

This little island of rocks and woods sits on the extreme northwest edge of Vedauwoo. Yes, further north and further west than the Beehive Buttress. While there are a few interesting looking crack climbs in the area (notably Home on the Range 5.14-), most of the climbing in this area has been on tricky little boulders, scattered through the woods.

Mark and I spent our whole day in the midst of these beautiful trees and rocks, and never saw a single other person.

We attempted several fun problems, some with more success than others. Camp Trick (V2-) was our “warm-up.” We played around on this one for most of an hour, I think.

A slab route just behind Camp Trick made for a fun little romp.

We both enjoyed a lovely little finger crack (rated 5.9 in our book) in the shape of a Y.

Mark spent some time trying the start to Black Tea (V4), but only once or twice made it off the ground.

Just as we went around to climb Dead Wood (V1), it started to rain. We napped under the overhanging boulder for half an hour or so, and then as the drizzle refused to let up, we hiked out.

What is the most worn-out, beat-the-hell-up, torn-to-shreds, broken, scratched-beyond-recognition, threadbare, timeworn, used-well-past-reason-says-you-should piece of gear that you own?

I was looking for some missing slings in our “graveyard of gear” basement last week, and ran across these lovely items. They made me laugh at all of the hell we put them through, and I thought I would share them here.

Of course, Mark and I are not nearly the hardest climbers in the world, and we don’t stress gear the way the rest of you probably do! Let’s see some even better pictures of worn-out gear! Let’s hear the stories behind them! Post pictures or links in the comments!

Wow, almost the entire month of September has gone by, with only a single blog post. Sad. But, I have a little time now, and I wanted to post something about our “learning experience” on Long’s Peak in August.

We have lived in Colorado for more than five years now, and never set foot on the one 14’er that we can see from our house – Long’s Peak. And for several good reasons. The easiest route up the mountain is a class 3 climb, legendary for it’s exposure and pucker factor. The approach to said climb is more than 7 miles long, making a summit trip a 16 mile long hike. Add that to the fact that the route is usually only snow-free for about 8 weeks a year, and you get several summers of Mark and I putting off the climb.

This summer, I thought ahead and snagged campsite reservations in Rocky Mountain for the last weekend in August. As the time came near, the weather looked great, we had a very fun alpine climb earlier in the summer and decided to head up Long’s on a technical (roped climbing) route on the North Face.

We had a rough night of it Friday night, when we arrived at the campsite to find that I had left all of our sleeping gear (bags, pads, blankets and pillows) at home. We made the trip back to the Fort and then back to the park with the gear in about 3 hours, and crashed Friday night around midnight. Not going to be getting up at 3am to climb the next day. Instead, we spent Saturday doing a light, 6 mile hike up to Lake Helene and back.

Sunday morning we woke up at 2:30a, packed up our campsite, and were hiking up the Long’s trail by 3:30a. Six miles of hiking and 4,000ft of elevation gain later, we arrived at the Boulderfield backcountry campground at around 8:30a. And I was sick as a dog. I was dizzy, with a massive headache, nauseated and exhausted.

Mark left me to nap on top of the ropes (surrounded by giant marmots) for an hour or so while he hiked up to Chasm view, what would have been the start of our climb. He thought the spot was absolutely fantastic, and came back with a new found love of a mountain he had never really wanted to climb before.

We headed down just before noon, watching clouds gather for afternoon rainstorms, and without climbing or summiting Long’s. So, what happened? Here’s my take-away lessons from the day:
1. Even if I’m pretty fit and live at altitude, I can’t wake up one morning and decide to hike 16 miles with a 25 pound pack. Our longest approach this summer was probably only 2 miles long. I should have recognized my lack of hiking fitness.
2. I should not carry the same weight as Mark on long, high altitude hikes. I like to pretend that I’m an awesome, hard-core mountain climber that can “pull her own weight,” but the reality of the situation is that I weight 40 pounds less than Mark, and should not be carrying the same (or slightly more) weight in gear as he does. If my pack had weighed 10 pounds less, we might have succeeded that day.
3. Carry less water, eat more food. Because I felt I needed to save the food for later, I did not eat enough on the hike up. I also carried nearly 3 liters of water with me, which is not necessary. We have filter and could fill up from the creak that flows alongside the trail at any point. I could have shed some significant weight in my pack if I had just carried a single liter.
4. And finally, treat headaches before they become serious. I know this, and if I take Tylenol at the first sign of altitude headaches, I can go all day without much problem. But on Sunday, I decided to keep moving instead of stopping to dig pills out of my pack. Big mistake.

So, even though Mark thoroughly enjoyed his day romping across the slopes of the highest peak in RoMo, I was disappointed, sick, and in huge pain by the time we made it back to the car. Maybe next year I’ll get in some training, and finally succeed on this beautiful climb.