Hope Lake June 29, 2008

Allison and I got a late start yesterday. We headed for Hope Lake in the late afternoon. We planned on finishing the 7 mile trip before dark. Hope Lake sits at about 12,000 feet, so we knew we could encounter some snow…

It’s about a 12 mile drive from Telluride. The last few miles are a jeep trail.

Once at the trailhead, Allison was sad to learn that she couldn’t take her dirtbike.

The trail was nice and flat at first, no snow to climb over just yet.

Here’s the first of many snow patches to negotiate. Allison looks terrified.

Don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers.

Climbing higher, the trail began to liquefy. The heaviest snow year in at least a decade has left plenty of volume remaining at higher elevations. The melting snow above us was making travel difficult.

There is a trail somewhere under this water.

We had so many stream crossings to contend with, that eventually you just needed to get your feet wet.

I almost made it across this one in one leap. But not quite…

Take a look at the nature.

Continuing on, we found more streams to cross. I like this shot because it looks like Allison is wearing a magical river-crossing stripper shoe on her left foot. Amazing!

Looking down the valley, post stream crossing.

The water raging downhill, perpendicular to this shot, is actually over the trail. We had to improvise and take routes around.

We worked our way around for a while, but it was getting late. Shortly after we took this photo, the trail turned to steep switchbacks covered in giant mounds of snow. Forward progress was painstakingly slow and difficult. We posed for one last photo.

Heading for home, we decided we would come back in a few weeks to finish the hike to the lake, complete with photos. To be continued….

-A’s

Aspen Mountain Sunset June 25, 2008

Here’s a few pictures of tonight’s sunset.

Some flowers chatting with each other.

The setting sun poured deep red light all over the rocks.

Almost time for bed…

-A

Bridal Veil Falls June 24, 2008

This morning I was planning on heading to Aspen. I have to work tomorrow at 930. Allison and I made a last minute decision to put off my departure until 5am tomorrow morning. There are just too many fun things to do here.

With our new time extension together, we hit the trail that heads east out of town up to Bridal Veil Falls.

For a mile or two, the trail follows the dead end road that leads out of town. The road dead ends because Telluride is situated in a box canyon; that is, a canyon with only one entrance, walled in on three sides.

Behind me is one of those walls. You can see the falls just above my head.

Here’s a far away shot through the 10X zoom. The falls are over 100 feet tall.

Once the trail ended, we walked along the road, which was now unpaved. The road is open to vehicles, but requires 4wd with high clearance. At the start of the dirt road, there were many old mining buildings. The land on both sides of the road is owned by the local mining company, Idarado. More on the Telluride mining history in a future post.

Some aspects of the mine appeared to be operable and workers were moving about. We came across this sign.

I’m thankful Allison is not the kind of girl who sees a sign like this and says, “Why doesn’t it say women working! Those pigs! I’ll show them! I’m getting a job at the mine!”

We passed some nasty retaining ponds. Doesn’t exactly make you want to jump in for a swim.

Approaching the falls, we saw some skiers working hard for a few turns on a north-facing snow patch.

The road crossed an avalanche path which had clearly been active this winter. The debris had been cleared off of the road, but remained on both sides. Still pretty deep and littered with broken trees.

Here’s some destruction in the slide path.

We made it to the falls. There was an enormous cloud of mist, which made Allison chilly.

The mist creates a little microclimate all its own. It felt like the high mountain tropics.

On the descent, we had a nice view of Ingram Falls up above.

Here’s a view of town, looking west. Looks like rain…

Sure enough, it started sprinkling. I convinced Allison to stop for one more photo.

That is the last I saw of her. She took off down the trail, leaving me to pursue my passion: really bad nature photography.

I hung back to play around with my camera. The subject this time? Flowers!

Here’s a white one.

I took these two photos just before I got caught in a raging downpour. I got absolutely drenched. Allison, of course, made it home right before the rain…

-A’s

Telluride Bluegrass. The Last Day. June 22, 2008

This morning Allison and I went for a short walk up the hill to watch a Bluegrass festival tradition: staking claim to precious music viewing real estate. Festival seating is general admission, so if you want good seats, you have to be early. People camp out all night to get a good place in line. Walking through town this morning, the line snaked around the city streets and must have approached a mile in length.

This is not all you have to do to get good seats. Once the flood gates open at nine, you also must be fast. Even if you are number one in line, there is still a few hundred feet to cover before you reach the best seats. In these few hundred feet, you could be passed by many people, setting you a ways back from the stage and negating a hard nights work. Your claim is established simply with a tarp, which you must rig in advance to unroll in a seconds time.

So Allison and I woke up early. Not to get good seats, but just to watch the spectacle from above town. It was unreal. There is a five minute bagpipe ceremony before the gates are opened. Then some reveille is played. As the gates are opened, It looks more like people fleeing a tsunami wave then heading to see some bluegrass.

Allison snapped a time-lapse series of the venue filling up with tarps. It takes place over about one minute.

We actually went into the festival later for some music, but not till the afternoon. Around noon, a storm rolled in with intense thunder and lightning. Mushy hail stones the size of a gumball started to fall. I tried to make Allison pose outside for a picture.

The thick sheets of hail shortened visibility, almost like haze.

The storm soon passed, and we went into the show. We watched some music and got some snacks.

Unfortunately, we were just in time for the “kids parade.” Some kids walked around the venue and sang songs amidst some really scary festival monsters!

This one looked like a grumpy Flavor Flav. He also had the periodic table of elements stapled to his back.

I’m not quite sure what they were going for with this one. Maybe the guy from Predator?

The festival ends tonight. It’s been really fun, but we can’t wait for town to quiet down again.

-A+A

Telluride Bluegrass Festival June 21, 2008

Allison and I have waking up to music for the past few days. Just 1/4 mile from the venue for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, our room has been flooded with some familiar voices. Soundchecks start at 8am or so, and just got us excited for the real thing.

We set out to buy some tickets yesterday. We were lucky enough to find one 4-day pass ahead of time, but we needed one more so we could go together. A sign was quickly constructed, and we took to the streets.

At first, we took notice that there were a dozen or so other folks who were looking for tickets. No one seemed to have any for sale. I walked up and down the main streets, some sympathetic folks gave condolences, but that wasn’t what I was looking for. I met up with Allison and we found a cozy bench by our second-favorite java joint, Cowboy Coffee, to relax and hold out our sign. Here, we received additional condolences, and the occasional onlooker who would read our sign aloud to us. “Need…..1……ticket……Oh sorry man.” This happened more than once.

Well, It took longer than expected, but we eventually found a nice guy who gave us a good price on a 4-day pass.

We were happy once inside the show. We watched Bruce Hornsby and Ricky Skaggs collaborate as the sun went down over the summer sky.

The scene just a short time later….

This morning we went on another hike overlooking the festival, which fits about 10,000 or so people. It was already jam-packed long before noon.

Now it’s off to the summer solstice show to catch Sam Bush…

-A+A

Ophir Pass June 20, 2008

Allison and I rested our legs today and let some fossil fuels do the work for us. We decided to head to Durango to meet up for lunch with Joe and Karen, Allison’s dad and step-mom. We picked a short-cut through the mountains, taking our one-way mileage from 120, down to 80 miles. We headed 12 miles south to the town of Ophir, where we picked up the road to Ophir pass.

The road is a jeep trail which connects Ophir with Silverton. Ophir is a tiny town, without much infrastructure. It is really beautiful, but littered with avalanche paths. More on that later. Here’s a photo I snapped of Ophir.

It’s hard to see, but it’s there, nestled in the valley.

The road is fairly rough, and requires 4WD. I drove…

Allison took the helm at the camera, which kept her mind off of the heights and drop-offs.

The road got very narrow toward the top.

Luckily no other cars came from the other direction through the narrow section. This could have required a lot of dangerous backing up, which adds to Allison’s anxiety!

Here the Jeep looks pretty dwarfed by the snow banks.

All the minerals up in the hills provide for the really rich colors you can see in the background.

Nearing the top, we passed a friendless soul looking for some snow to ski on.

Rule #1- Always ski with a partner.

This area is known for its avalanches. Look at this hill. It’s avalanche paths are spread out like fingers, leaving it with a striped appearance.

Across the valley, we spotted a bald patch of land littered with downed trees. Since all the trees above the patch were in tact, Allison surmised this was from a snow slide which had so much energy, it traveled a ways UP the opposite hill after it reached the valley floor. My contention? Obviously the work of Aliens. Click on it and see for yourself….

…Aliens!

The descent was a much easier drive.

We were soon on the highway and before long, in Durango. Lunch was fantastic. A gem of a Mexican restaurant hidden in an Albertson’s parking lot.

After, it was off to the local industrial park, where Allison knew of a local brewery. Much to our surprise, when we arrived we found a raging party, complete with cheap beer, free food, and a live band. These are all ingredients for a good time.

Any decent ski patroller can find some quality eats, free of charge. It’s in our blood.

Allison showed me how pound a microbrew. It’s a lot like pounding an MGD, but more expensive.

The party was complete with hippies and their leashless dogs. This is the drummer from the band. He alternated between beating his drum, and beating the dogs that were trying to eat his shift meal pizza. No joke.

This is the rest of the band. I never did catch their name, but they looked like they might have been called Southbound or something. Great Hank Williams covers….(senior, of course)

On the drive back I snapped one last photo of the road leaving Ophir.

You will recognize this road after you watch this short video on Ophir avalanches.

Try and disregard the Jihadist music, because this is the most incredible video on avalanches I’ve ever seen, and right in our own backyard!

-A’s

Up To Mountain Village June 18, 2008

This morning Allison and I went to Mountain Village. It’s a town perched above Telluride, accessible via the free gondola. We chose instead to walk(Allison’s idea) the 3 miles from town via the Boomerang Trail. We started on the river trail, which follows the San Miguel river. The river is swollen from snow-melt, and at times the path was a little flooded.

Further down the river there was so much water, we had to circumnavigate the path

I worked on my crappy urban nature photography.

Along the way we passed a hippie school. Looks like the hippie children made some birdhouses.

Telluride has some of the most interesting architecture that I’ve ever seen. A lot of ultra-modern looks mixed with classic mountain Victorian. Here’s a picture of an old mining cabin directly adjacent to a modern building intended to look like an old mining cabin. It’s an unusual concept, but I think it works really well.

Once we made it to Mountain Village, we took the gondola back into town. Time for a vegetabletarian lunch.

Here’s the happy cook…

-A^2

The Jud Wiebe Trail June 18, 2008

Allison and I went for a really nice walk yesterday. We picked up the Jud Wiebe trail at the north end of town. It is an hour and a half or so round trip. It climbs steeply into the terrain that seems to hang right over Telluride. There is a beautiful view at the trail’s apex.

Allison found a bench and waited for me to catch up.

Here’s one of me with the ski hill in the background…

…and one of us.

We finished with the photo ops and continued on the path. Allison is a fast hiker and quickly left me trailing behind.

This is her saying, “C’mon!”

On the descent, Allison found a cliff she wanted to look over. Good thing she found a nice sturdy tree to anchor to…

We found a fuzzy little nature creature living in a rusty old pipe..

Here’s a shot of the venue for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

What a pretty town…

We arrived back in town just in time to take a quick shower and head out to watch the Celtics win! A few celebratory games of Pac-Man, and we called it a day.

A+A

From Aspen To Telluride June 17, 2008

Skiing on Aspen Mountain is officially done. The abundance of snow we started out with on Friday, is gone.

By Sunday afternoon, skiers watched snow disappear before their eyes as temperatures sailed into the upper 70’s. Talk of trying for “one more weekend” dissipated along with the snow. It was a fun weekend, but it is now time to finally put winter away and move onto to fun summer activities.

It’s off to Telluride!

-A+A

Getting settled in Telluride June 13, 2008

In continuing to avoid work, I thought I’d write my first blog post! Actually, my boss for this summer is currently in the Bahamas and is a bit too busy with his other projects to be concerned with me right now…which is great. So I’ve decided to not take work too seriously until next week. For now, there’s lots of fun things to do in Telluride!

Here is a picture of the gorgeous, 3 bedroom house where Alex and I are staying. In the basement is a 1 bedroom apartment (with a separate entrance) and to the house’s rear is a free standing garage (which was built to mimic the historic mining cabins throughout the town). Above the garage is an artist’s studio that is rented out to a local painter.

We share the house with Richard, a board member of the Telluride Foundation, the organization I’m indirectly working for this summer. Richard’s son and the son’s girlfriend (who are about the same age as me and Alex) live in the basement. Richard works constantly and is almost never home.

Here are a couple pictures of the upstairs of the house:

My “office” is presently located at the table adjacent to the kitchen (the bag is mine). Looking out of the window next to the table (the window isn’t visible in the above picture…it’s to the left a bit), is this stunning view of the mountains:

At the saddle of the two closest mountains is a huge waterfall, which is particularly swollen right now with spring snowmelt. It is actually a different waterfall than the one Alex and I hiked to the other day. So…this morning I decided to blow off work and hike to the bottom of this waterfall. It’s ridiculous how many absolutely gorgeous hikes are directly accessible from downtown Telluride!

After the hike, I went to the weekly farmer’s market and bought a bunch of wonderful organic produce. Here’s lunch:

The stand where I bought the sourdough raisin bread (above) runs a totally organic Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. I decided to join the CSA for the next 6 weeks. Each week I’m supposed to go to their website, select which of the available fruits, veggies, cheeses, breads, meats, eggs, jams, mustards, tamales (!), etc. I want delivered and – WOW! – it will appear on our doorstep every Friday. The prices are totally reasonable and we should be able to get just about everything we’ll need to eat from them — no trips to the grocery store! I am so, so happy to have such wonderful access to yummy food all summer!

Other than the hikes and food shopping, I’ve been spending my time with the local Telluride town councilors, Planning and Zoning commission members, and other politically active townspeople. It’s been fascinating. To be honest, though, I just want to hike and have afternoon beers with Alex…when is he coming back???

-Lonely A2