Colorado Trip: The Finale

After a fun rest day in Ft. Collins filled with belly dancin, free music, naps, food, and beer, we headed to Idaho Springs to sleep for the night and get ready for our hike out to Mt. Evans.

Echo Lake, Mt. Evans

Monday: We hiked into Mt. Evans which wasn't super heinous and got on all the classics to see where we stood with what we may wanna try and do the next couple days. Our fav problem was Seurat so we knew we wanted to come back for that. Patti was psyched on Bierstadt but I didn't find it super appealing for the shorties.

Patti on a classic warmup the Ladder with beautiful scenery

Mt. Evans

Tuesday: After much debate, we decided to check out Lincoln Lake as an active rest day ish thing. We went up a little past the parking to check out some scenery which was all epic and beautiful, duh. T-Schohl talked us into going to Lincoln Lake, saying it was "a super chill 20 min downhill hike in, just kinda heinous on the way out." Let me tell you, I felt like I had to watch every step very carefully on the way down for if I missed one, I would roll into the lake for sure. It was super steep and my huge Metolius pad did not make walking downhill any easier. Then you have the elevation, which got me pretty winded pretty much the entire day.

CO stocked with levitating billy goats

Hike into Lincoln Lake

Lincoln Lake 

As for the climbing, Patti and I got on a cool crimpy v7 that we finally deemed difficult due to the large boulder behind you as you threw for the end jug. Needless to say, we were kinda ready to get back to our sweet Southern Sandstone with 20 min easy approaches and classic fun problems with nice landings. Call us soft, but we got it made in the South! We spent the rest of the day with T-Schohl on his project Phobos and boulder hoppin and looking at problems. We didn't know the names/grades of anything, but there were a lot of cool looking lines at Lincoln. I would def be psyched to go back.

Matt T-Schohl on Phobos, Lincoln Lake

After the ridiuculous hike out with very little food for the day, we decided to drive up to the top of Mt. Evans @ 14,000 feet. This was by far the most I felt the elevation. I stepped outta the van, took 3 steps and couldn't catch my breath! I felt like such a fat kid. It was so fun.

Er mer gerd... werlud-lyfe!

 We saw lots of wildlife on that drive, billy goats, mountain goats, marmots, pikas, etc.. I'm not the best at farm animal knowledge, that's my mothers fault ;)

Our first 14'ner... errrr ish

We went out that night for brews n burgers at Tommy Knocker, then hung out a lil in Idaho Springs. It's a cute lil town. Def a cool place to spend a couple nights.

Wednesday: We woke up and got everything packed, we were in for a long day. We enjoyed our morning coffee at our "campsite" and hit the hike to Mt. Evans. 

 After trying to find problems we were psyched on, we realized we missed a lot from the first day we were there. We spent some time on this awkward v7, finally left it to find another one we thought was v7. We tried it, it felt impossible and we realized it was v11. Doh!

Patti working the v7

 Then we found this amazing free standing boulder on our way out, called the Gateway Boulder.  Something about these boulders all by themselves in the middle of the field with grass and beautiful mountains around them, so pretty. We spent some time on that boulder and had a LOT of fun. Patti was able to climb the two v6s (Gateway and Horn Arete) and the v7 big move dyno thing (Black Tornado). I was able to do the two v6s pretty fast. A thunderstorm rolled up on us just as we were getting ready to leave. We hiked our lil butts out as fast as we could, and literally made it to the car and it began to downpour. Perfect timing once again! We were then in for a long 20 hr ride home.

Double rainbow lightening storm

Our ride home consisted of first witnessing a double rainbow and sweet freaking lightening storm near Denver. Then as the moon rose, we realized it was a Blue/Red/Full moon that only happens like twice a year or something. Then! We stopped at one gas station and found a woman with a truck full of goats. I love ungulates so I was obviously very excited to see them and pet them. This was like icing on the cake. Our trip went so perfectly well the ENTIRE time, then we ended it with this. What a trip! We got a lot of amazing video footage that we'll compile here soon. Patti was an amazing travel partner, I couldn't have asked for a better time! Cannot wait to do it again. 

Memories:

1. Is that a raft? Is that a canoe? IS THAT A TENT?!

2. Er mer gerd.. WERLD-LYFE! ERRRRKS! Wermz is wermz!!!!!!!

3. Don't Let Go jammin

4. MOUNTAINS

5. "Super chill easy downhill approaches"

6. Full/Red/Blue moon

7. Double rainbow!

8. ALT-J jammin
9. The SMELL of everything.. sage, pine, crisp, clean air, dirt, river, wildflowers... <3
10. The BEST travel partner I could possibly ask for. Seriously, love you Patti!
11. Being HIGH on LIFE. Never felt so alive and satisfied in my life. 

..... Everything going perfectly! Perfect weather (no humidity, perfect temps for sending during the day, ideal temps for sleeping at night, NO FREAKING BUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), fun 20 hour drives, everything being where it was suppose to be, car not breaking down, yummy dinners, etc etc etc!!!

... this list goes on...

Till my next adventure...