Fall in Colorado

Here's a couple of pics from last weekend. The first is a collage of Aspens, Cottonwoods, Junipers and Pinon in the San Luis Valley.



This second picture is from the next day, driving 285 through South Park. Yah, winter's a coming.

Cripple Creek Mining & the Molly Kathleen Mine Tour

1000 feet underground ... My body shook, my vision blurred, 5 deep, strong, hearty blasts were felt ... more than heard. What was happening? I really wanted it to be done. OK, please stop now .. When it was over - 30 seconds later, Chuck said that was NOT part of the tour. I understand why. I'm sure many would soil their trousers. In any case, mining goes on and it was closer than expected this day.

A rainy day at the Shelf Road climbing area chased us upstairs to the town of Cripple Creek (satellite view, Wikipedia)- the famous gold mining town. I've always wanted to do the Molly Kathleen mine tour and now was the time.

Chuck was a great tour guide. He still has his fingers in mining and told some great stories, like the time his light went out. He was in a crosscut between the Molly Kathleen and an adjacent mine. He crawled for 2-1/2 hours before he found light again.

The Molly Kathleen is still being mined. I had no idea. Lot's of gold still but the processing is more expensive than it used to be. Unless grandfathered in, a mine can no longer use cyanide to process their ore. Mines have to ship the ore to Canada to process. This really kills the profit of course. The mines ship the ore to Canada during the winter, when the train shipping costs are down.

Chuck was a great guide. Our group of 9 entered 2 "cars" over the shaft. Chuck said - You see the town down there? We are going 400 ft below that. This was a really good visual of our destination depth. He demonstrated operation of much of the equipment when he could and explained the rest. Julia had a great time. We'll be back again. More for me than for Julia. I've always hankered to do more than just gold pan mining.

More pics here

A September Day Around Breckenridge

This is the perfect hike for a youngster - provided you have a high clearance vehicle to get to the trailhead. This hike has lots to see in a short distance, scenery and historic value. What more could you ask? Better weather would help but the cold and rain reminded us summer was about done and skiing was coming soon!

After half a mile, one arrives at Mayflower Lake. This is surrounded by old miner's cabins. Nice spot but it gets better. About 3/4 mile, we stumbled upon the Continental Cabin which is somewhat restored and a good place to hang out in the rain. Yes, it was raining off and on. As we hiked up, we told Julia stories about the miners. Then we found a mining adit, a horizontal shaft. Interesting that there was a warning sign here to stay the heck out and stay alive. Probably a smart idea ... This really fit into the stories, of course. Even better, we found wild rasberries. Yum!

A mile from the trailhead was Lower Mohawk Lake (topo, picture) and a great lunch spot. We had hoped to get to Upper Mohawk Lake but it started raining again and it was cold. It was time to get to the Octoberfest in Breck anyway.

The German weather cleared out much of the Octoberfest crowds. This made it easier for us to get Bratwursts and a Weissbier. More room for dancing to the Austrian band too.

More pics here!

A hike up Mount Ouray

Looming about Mia & Julia is Mount Ouray (topo) - a 14'eer wannabe at 13,971'. Mount Ouray is in the Southern Sawatch range. We haven't done a peak in years. Now that Julia is getting bigger and stronger, we have a chance. Julia hiked to about 13,200'. With the clouds moving in, Christy & Dave volunteered to walk Julia down. Thanks Guys!!

More pics here!

A great ski weekend (part 2) and first bump runs

Mia's been working on tele'ing the bumps lately. I haven't. Not really anyway. Bumps are tough if you're a below knee amputee skiing with free heel gear. (Some would say telemark gear instead of free heel gear but telemark is a friggin' turn not a piece of equipment. Get with the program!) Anyway I've been trying to improve my skiing - bumps were just not on the agenda. I've been watching Mia close though ... and others in the bumps - just in case ...

Well at Mary Jane on Saturday, Mia did her first expert bump run. Yeah, conditions were soft but still ... I started following her on the easier bumps and listening to her advice. (She's been reading the Paul Parker book: Free Heel Skiing, when she sits on the can.) It was frustrating but I was starting to figure out the intermediate bumps. Sometimes it's just scary because I have this big ass board strapped to my wobbly prosthetic / leg connection and I'm going way too fast. I'm worried about blowing something out, like a tendon or knee. It was also just too cold and windy to take off my leg and reset everything in case of a torquey crash.

Back to the Wallace cabin for dinner and great company. Their place looks just like you think it should at a ski area. Lot's of snow encroaching on life. (Click on picture for full effect.) Mare & Tom totally spoiled us, especially with the hot tub. Julia had a great time.

Mare volunteered to sit Julia on Sunday. We know that kid sitting = spoiling Julia rotten but it's worth it so we ski together. (Thanks Mare!)

Sunday, I really worked it with Mia and Tom. Tom showed us many good runs we didn't know about. I tried for the balance of technique, speed and control that would allow me to ski bumps without crashing. It sounds like hocus pocus but it worked, especially when I pretended I had a submachine gun strapped over my shoulder and was sneaking up on the enemy. (yeah - no kidding). I don't know where I get this stuff ..

So I did my first expert bump run, then another. Yeah, conditions were soft but it's a good start. I'm pretty pysched!! What I'm really dreaming of now - is getting up high on the ski mountaineering tours. Tom wants to come too! Did I say I'm pysched?? Now I can put one of those "No Pain, No Jane" stickers on my truck. Hopefully Tom doesn't get into the backcountry thing too much. He'll have to trade in his Acura SUV for a truck or an old Landcruiser or Jeep. You can't be a serious backcountry skier with an nice SUV ;-)

... long before my accident I used to ski bumps. Not with style though. I was just stronger than Zeus back then and could muscle it through. Now I have to ski smart and use technique. We'll see where it leads.

A great ski weekend (part 1)

We were invited to stay with the Wallaces at their cabin in Winter Park (google map) last weekend - and go skiing. It was not so easy though. We had just received a decent snow and the wind had picked up. The snow was drifting bad - covering the roads and shutting some down. The wind turned a 2 hour drive into a 4 hours. CO-93 was shut down by the drifts, so we took a parallel road to the East, Indiana. Bad choice. We should have went even further East. By the time we reached 72, I was sick of traffic. We drove West on 72 and quickly learned why 93 was closed. Sometimes we drove in a total whiteout. Scar-rey! We reached 93 and continued West. Up and up until we reached 119. Then South towards Rt 6 and Blackhawk. Lot's of whiteouts. Lot's of driving which would be fun if we weren't supposed to be in Winter Park already. Yeah, we were bringing the dinner!

Finally, we reached I-70 and drove 40 towards Berthoud Pass (topozone map). The pass was pretty nasty too. Lot's of whiteouts. Luckily no Californians or N'Yorkers were on the road. They were in the ditch long ago .. ;-)

Finally we found the cabin and life was good. A beer put everything right and we hit the sack.

The whiteouts on the drive up probably ranked in the top 3 worst I've experienced. The other two required head out the window driving - Yikes! (Good fodder for a future post)