Month: June 2017

Pic: The windshield reads “LOOK, BUT DON’T TOUCH”. Subaru BRAT, Boulder, CO

I had some errands to run while moving from Dave and Julie’s to Doug and Michelle’s and before heading up to Rocky Mountain NP: an oil change, groceries, maps and information from the Roosevelt National Forest Boulder District Ranger Station (holy nouns, Batman!), a burrito.

Dark clouds loomed throughout the afternoon. The drizzle began while I searched for the burrito place, flashes of lightning catching my eye with increasing frequency. The restaurant’s driveway was not well-signed, so I missed it and looped around while fighting traffic and cursing Apple Maps. Rather than risk another lengthy go-around I pulled into the large adjacent parking lot, figuring I’d acquire my burrito on foot.

The instant I closed my door, the deluge started. Hail followed close on its heels. I huddled under the Wendy’s awning and waited out the brief but violent storm.

Vid: Hiding from a sudden thunderstorm. Wendy’s, Boulder, CO

As the storm blew through, I met the 300-pound Wendy’s-employee owner of the sweet BRAT pictured above. I forgot to ask if the hood scoop was functional[1], but homeboy told me he’d just put in a new five-speed. Lookin’ sharp, bro!

 

[1] Some later models apparently did come with turbos. but Jon’s early-model WRX also features a GNDN[2] hood scoop, so you never know with Subaru.

[2] Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing

Pic: The Rockies from Twin Sisters Peak, Nederland, CO

Earlier this week, while staying with Doug and Michelle and their daughter, I started a List Of Things I Have Done For Children by repatriating an American robin chick that had been defenestrated by a European starling trying to seize the robins’ nest for her own children. (Fun fact: baby birds are incredibly warm and soft. Fun fact: European starlings are assholes.)

Today, I added to the List:

• Read aloud from a comic book adaptation of Return of the Jedi (Fun fact: comic books have a lot of expository text. Fun fact: small children don’t care about the expository text.)
• Do a semi-decent Chewbacca voice
• Do a not-very-good C3-PO voice

Later, Dave and I snuck off for a quick grown-up hike — well, a hike for me; Dave routinely does this six mile route as a run. I expressed how glad I was to hang out with him and Julie and their kids. He apologized for not keeping in touch very well. We talked about the friction of adult relationships and I told one of Dave’s stories back to him:

After college and a short stint of gainful employment, Dave spent a year bumming around South America. When he returned, he visited two of his good friends: his old roommate Viv and her boyfriend (now husband) Hoss.

“Dave!” cried Viv. “It’s great to see you! It’s been so long! How was your trip? Oh my God, we have so much to talk about!”

Hoss came into the room. “Sup, dude,” he said.

I, like Dave, am no good at staying in touch, but I try to make up for it by maintaining low-friction friendships. Years have passed, children have been born, but in no time at all Dave and I were chatting like we had on long bike rides through the Berkeley Hills, half a lifetime ago.

In contrast to the sometimes-high friction of adult relationships, I watched with envy as Dave and Julie’s son made a friend in the parking lot after dinner at Kathmandu Restaurant. Cole, whose face was painted thanks to a festival at his school that afternoon, was climbing on rocks in front of the restaurant when a slightly older kid approached: “What’s on your face? You look like a ladybug!” After a short discussion, the new pals were jumping on and off of the rocks together. In between leaps, Cole’s new acquaintance turned to me and explained matter-of-factly, “Kid face paint washes off after a day or so, but adult face paint can stay for up to a year!” Good to know, son. Good to know.

Pic: He does look happy. Cole on the Carousel of Happiness, Nederland, CO

“Yes, yes,” you say. “Cute kid on a merry-go-round. Fine piece of Americana. What is happening on the wall behind him?!” Good question.

Pic: Somewhere Else. Carousel of Happiness, Nederland, CO

Dave, Julie, the kids, and I kicked off the day with a short hike toward Lost Lake. Lots of low-key Colorado views: a creek swollen with snowmelt, framed by Douglas fir and set against the imposing Rockies.

Cole started ski lessons last winter at Eldora Mountain Resort, whose chair lifts and groomed runs preside over this part of the valley. The name of the program for 4-5 year olds? The Eldorables.

We re-energized with a trip to “downtown” Nederland: fresh-fried mini-donuts at Train Cars Coffee and Yogurt Company (located in a couple of actual train cars) followed by a ride on the Carousel of Happiness.

Any carousel is cool, doubly so if you’re hanging out with appropriately-aged kids. Old carousels that play music mechanically (proto-robots!) are even cooler. The Carousel of Happiness has these ingredients, plus an inspiring history featuring another amateur wood carver!

As a young Marine in Vietnam, Scott had received a tiny music box that he held to his ear to distract him from the horror of the war going on around him. The music, Chopin’s “Tristesse“, brought him a peaceful image of a carousel in a mountain meadow. After rescuing the abandoned Looff carousel in Utah he spent the next 26 years hand-carving animals to bring it back to life.

Scott had never carved before but […] he went on to create more than 50 one-of-a-kind animals.

—The Story of the Carousel

The ride cost a buck, making the Carousel of Happiness my other Best $1 Purchase of the trip.

Pic: Poutine, kinda. Southern Sun Pub and Brewery, Boulder, CO

The plan was to hike to Devil’s Head Lookout, “the last of the seven original Front Range Lookout towers still in continuous use”.[1] These days, fire-spotting is a game played mostly with aircraft.

Yet, after navigating past four-wheelers in one of those aforementioned OHV areas, I learned that the trail was CLOSED for the week. Isn’t this the kind of information the forest service should put on its website, or, at the very least, tell me about in person when I visit the forest office and ask about this hike specifically? #ThanksObama.

With no internet, no backup plan, and no desire to hang out with dirt bikes zipping around, I proceeded to Sedalia in hopes it was a real town with services.

Nope!

I think there was a general store. It may or may not have been open.

“HILLARY AND OBAMA LIE AND SUCK”
–hand-drawn sign on a house in Foxton, CO

I continued on to Castle Rock, which was a real town — including Mexican food! And shitty LTE coverage, demonstrating the maxim that one bar of signal is no bars, two bars is one bar (aka Good Luck With That), and three bars is some actual internet.

Ultimately I got a hold of Kevin, who agreed to meet for ice cream, beers, and “poutine”[2] in Boulder.

I looked for camping in the hills outside of Boulder but, as Dave put it, “There’s sites, but they’re used pretty heavily between the party crowd, the shooting crowd, and the transient / rainbow crowd.” I took in the sunset from a high point, then imposed upon Dave and Julie’s hospitality a day earlier than scheduled.

 

[1] Devil’s Head Trailhead #611

[2] As someone who has gotten no closer to real poutine than Toronto, even I know that no cheese curds = no poutine. To be fair, the resulting dish was quite satisfying regardless of authenticity.

Pic: LPT: Be like this tree — adapt! Colorado Trail, Pike NF, CO

National Parks get all the press, but National Forests are the workaday heroes of public lands. Forestry management is a complex and tricky topic, lying at the intersection of environmental conservation, public recreational access, agricultural business interests, and power struggles between local and federal governments. In spite of all this contention, I think it’s cool that I can visit the “Land of Many Uses” and find hiking trails, biking trails, off-highway vehicle areas, wilderness areas where no vehicles are allowed, wildlife refuges, hunting, boating, fishing, timber extraction, and developed and dispersed camping — all within a few miles of one another.

I also like when capitalist/free market forces are employed for good:

Pic: Only you can prevent capital losses. Pike NF, CO

I feel like this marketing campaign may reach people who otherwise wouldn’t listen to an anthropomorphic bear or treehugging hippie rhetoric.

Pic: Found the snow line! Above Tanglewood Creek, Pike NF, CO. Larger image

After a week of comfortable but noisy luxury, I was ready to give my gracious Denver-area hosts a break (thanks Nat and Sarah! thanks Doug and Michelle! thanks Ben’s hotel points program!) and get out in the woods for a few days. The Flaming Lips show had been the last fixed date on my calendar. With no impending deadlines of any kind (except for running out of money eventually), I was eager to slow my pace of exploration even further.

I planned to visit a few more friends in Boulder so I didn’t want to stray too far. I had just driven through the Front Range west of Denver; those mountains still held an awful lot of snow. My trajectory in the coming weeks would lead me north to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks and I would hit Rocky Mountain NP on the way. Eastern Colorado is basically Kansas. This left me with Pike National Forest, a couple hours southwest of Denver.

I found some dispersed camping and a couple of trails near Tanglewood Creek. June had arrived; how cold could it possibly be at 9200 feet? Oh, it’s dumping big slushy hailstones? Ok.

The hike was… not awesome. It started pleasantly enough, following Tanglewood Creek through dense pine forest for the first mile or two:

Pic: I’ll stop the world and melt with you. Tanglewood Creek, Pike NF, CO

The route hugged the shady side of the valley, maximizing snow retention and jealously guarding any view of the surrounding mountains until I reached the tree line. There, the trail left the creek and switchbacked up to a saddle between Mt. Rosalie and Rosedale Peak. Well, that’s what the maps claimed anyway — this is where I lost any hint of the trail. No signs, no markers, no cairns, just snow and willows. I picked my way up the hillside for a while, got high enough for some view of the area, and abandoned my summit bid.

On the way down, my expert pathfinding had me postholing through rotten, waist-deep snow while whacking through head-high bushes. By the time I stumbled back onto the trail, which alternated from slippery freeze-thaw hardpack to wet stones perfectly-sized for rolling an ankle, I was wet and tired. I had also lost my Nalgene somewhere. On the bright side, I found a well-used trekking pole while crashing through a willow on the way down the hill.

I limped back to camp, where a thundershower greeted me just as I set my gear out to dry. Quite a reintroduction to the great outdoors.