Memorial Day Weekend

On Thursday I flew up to Denver to spend a 4-day weekend with Sarah and her sister. Caitlin flew into town for a class at the ULA plant in Denver, so she flew in on Friday to hang out with us.

On Friday night, we got invited to a neighborhood party. Once a month, six different families that live next to us get together and have a cookout. With the exception of one couple, this was the first time that Sarah and I saw, let alone met our neighbors. They were all exceptionally nice and we're excited to live in this neighborhood.

Saturday was basically a lazy day around Denver, and we decided to scrap our camping plans for a warm couch and relaxation.

On Sunday, we got up at 5am and headed out west of Denver to Georgetown, CO. Just south of Georgetown is Mt. Bierstadt. At 14,060ft, Mt. Bierstadt is the 38th tallest peak in Colorado.

We got to the trail head around 7:30am and threw on our snowshoes and started up the mountain. This was a really nice hike because the trail head is at 11,500ft which means you are above the treeline for the whole hike.

The views from Mt. Bierstadt are amazing. We could even see Greys and Torrey's peak to the west (two more 14ers that we plan on hiking soon).

We took Bela along and she had a blast running all over the mountain. This was her first time to really play in snow and she had a blast. It's amazing how much energy that dog has, even at the end of the day.

We reach the peak in a few hours and stopped to eat our lunch. We decided the traverse to Mt. Evans was too hard so we decended back to the car.

On Monday, we headed out to Boulder Mountain Park to hike up to Bear Peak again. This time we took a different route and headed up the Bear Creak Trail. This is probably my favorite trail in the park now. It's very gradual, leads up through a beautiful canyon, and you walk along the creak the whole time.

Here are the pictures on Flickr.

Economic Stimulous Plan

Like good Americans, Sarah and I each received our check from Uncle Sam and promptly did our part to stimulate the economy by buying snowshoes and crampons. Unlike most Americans though, we didn't blow the whole thing, and what we bought was actually made in America, a double win.

On Saturday, after doing our chores, Sarah, Bella and I headed over to Boulder Mountain Park. This time we went to the southern trail head which we decided was way better than the one at Chatauqua. There we less people and the scenery is way better.

The first part of our hike took us up a gradually climbing trail through the open space to the base of South Boulder Peak. From there we jumped on the next trail which started switch-backing it's way up the mountain.

There were quite a few people at the peak, lounging on the rock outcropping and enjoying the views of the mountains.

After eating our lunch, we traversed across the ridge to Bear Mountain. The peak of Bear Mountain is very narrow and requires handholds to get to, so Bella only made it halfway before getting scared and lying down.

Sarah and I took turns babysitting her while the other person made the peak.

All said we did around 8.5 miles on Saturday with about 3000 ft of elevation gain.

Which leads to a very tired puppy...

On Sunday we decided to give our snowshoes a try, so we headed back to Rocky Mountain National Park where we had hike the last weekend.

This time we headed up the Flattop Mountain Trail to see if we could reach the summit. The park was pretty busy but as we gained in elevation we saw less and less people.

The great thing about spring hiking in Colorado is even if there is snow, it's usually warm enough to just hike in a t-shirt which is awesome.

Once we got above treeline though, the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. As we got close to the top we had to drop our snowshoes and continue on foot. The spot where we stopped overlooked the Dream Lake valley with a beautiful view of Hallet Peak.

Where we were sitting had a 1000ft sheer drop to the valley below and provide a fantastic view of the surrounding area.

The trip down went very quickly due to the amount of sliding that we did in the snowshoes. At one point Sarah decided that the fastest way down the hill was on her butt, and she was correct...

The Flattop Mountain hike was around 8 miles and about 4000ft of elevation gain.

Here are the rest of the pics on Flickr

Flat Out 5k

On Saturday, Sarah and I both ran in the Flat out 5k at the Flat Irons Mall in Broomfield. I've been looking forward to this for quite a while because it is the first time I've competed in a race. Sarah probably doesn't know it yet, but she's created a monster. I'm naturally competitive, hence the reason I play soccer 5 days a week. But now I have another outlet for my competitive vigor. In general, I wouldn't consider myself a runner. I do run once in a while, but for the most part I play soccer. I figured I would do OK, so going into the race, I didn't set my sites too high. After I finished the race, I ended up doing better than I thought I would. I finished 56th out of 689 people with an overall time of 20:15.

On Sunday Sarah and I decided to get out of the house and head up to Rocky Mountain National Park for some hiking. For our first hike we headed up to Bear Lake at 9350ft. From there we hiked over the snow packed trail up to Nymph lake. Right above Nymph Lake was a great lookout with views towards Half Mountain, Spearhead and Thatchtop.

From there we continued our ascent to Dream Lake at 10007 ft. Dream Lake is at the mouth of the valley between Hallet Peak and Flattop Mountain. We were hoping to push on to Emerald Lake, but the snow started to get too deep and we started post-holing. We turned around and headed back to the car.

Right now our mountain adventures are limited by deep snow and icy trails. By next weekend we're going to purchase some crampons for the ice and snowshoes for the deep snow so that we can extend our hiking season. After we got back to the car we headed down the mountain to Sprague Lake. The trail that we tried to hike was too snowed over, so we did a 1/2 mile nature walk around the lake. We eventually headed back to town and ate at our favorite sushi place before heading in for the night. The full set on Flickr is here.

A wedding and a weekend

Two weekends ago Sarah and I hopped on a flight to Birmingham, AL to go to a wedding of one of her friends from college. Her track friend Danielle was nice enough to pick us up at the airport on Friday night and to give us a place to stay which was awesome. The wedding was beautiful and the reception was fantastic, but of course we forgot to take pictures, so just imagine the beauty in your head and insert Sarah and I. See, isn't that nice?

So while we were in the airport we saw this lady sitting a little ways away from us. WARNING: Understatement of the year ahead... Her hair was massive. I mean huge. It's hard to image the size of a human head underneath that much hair, so I've inserted an oval to represent the extent of her cranium.

The scary thing is that this lady had to look in the mirror in the morning, and deliberately make it that big. I could just hear her saying, "Oooh, just a little bit bigger. Yeah, right there. That looks goooood."

On Sunday night we fly back to Denver, and first thing Monday morning I was back on the plane again, only this time to Boston for the week. After having cancelled the last two years in a row, I was finally able to present at the MIT Space Control Conference. Everything went off without a hitch and I'm happy to say I didn't sound all that stupid.

I flew back into town on Saturday and we had a wonderful lazy weekend at our home. I finally broke down and purchased a lawn mower because our lawn was getting pretty long, and was by far the worst looking one in the neighborhood. Somehow, purchasing a mower made me feel that much older, like I've just doomed myself to mowing the lawn and doing yard work, every weekend, for the rest of my life.

As I'm sure you can tell, I've finally gotten around to taking some pictures of my house. These are the rooms that have furniture in them. We still have two empty bedrooms and a sparsely populated master bedroom that I didn't bother with.

But anyways. Mostly we hung out, played with the dog, and finally set up our new king bed.