Monday,
March 31 Monday,
March 31 Back to the Monday grind. Actually, this is not such a bad week. On Wednesday Dubba, Kevin and I are bailing out early to go ride the 130-mile Kokopelli Trail from Fruita to Moab. We're looking to do it in three days unsupported on rigid singlespeeds, and hopefully things will work out slightly better than the last long distance expedition we attempted.
There really three challenges I foresee. First, after the first 60 miles or so the water situation looks sparce at best. Meaning the only reliable water source appears to something called "Dry Creek." But the locals tell us it's been a wet spring. Second, the last day includes a crossing of a pass at 8,700 feet above sea level. The thing is, I live at 8,700 feet, and right now there is about 6 feet of snow on the ground. Fortunately we've got some snow riding experience under our belts. The final challenge is that between the three of us have about 50 miles of cumulative miles in the saddle since December 2002. Basically, we're fucked, but it should be a sporting try nonetheless.
Speaking of which, I'm building up my craft Johnny Rotten tonight after she underwent a bit of surgery to replace a damaged top tube. She's three years old and entering her prime. Still orange, but this time with no decals so we can be all stealthy. Thanks to Paul over at Rock Lobster for doing the work. Paul does some killer repair work at a super affordable price, so if you ride a steel frame and you have a problem with it, don't replace it, repair it.
Still no images from Sunday, but oh boy did we retrieve a gem of a shot from an unnamed source of Meriweather in full training mode from the '03 DoJoe race.
Dan - 7:19 p.m.
Today was what you might call a major sleeper. While the rest of the Colorado galaxy got ready for the major warm up, old man winter held a last bastion of strength directly over Eldora. All night long the skies dropped a light, almost surreal looking snowfall. Combined with a wind that whistled ghostly sounds through slight cracks in the windows, it was obvious that this would be an epic "left side" day.
The snow was some of the best of the year, but a bit unpredictable. It was not uncommon to go from a 2 foot drift onto sheet ice, a fact that I quickly realized on my second turn of the day down Ambush when I pitched headlong into the snow and tweeked my shoulder on a patch of snow that made concrete seem forgiving. That was the lowpoint in a day full of awesomeness. The highlight was the cornice on Chicken Glades where we all hurled ourselves through space onto the smoothest and softest landing this side of the Continental Divide. The highlights included a gorgeously smooth 360 by Meriweather, Dave sticking three arching launches and a couple nice helis from the unknown with the afro.
There were also a few scary moments. Brandon, who is an amazing skier, learned about the unpredictable nature of Eldora first hand when, after pretty run down a chute, pitched it on a rock solid mogul and went down hard, complaining of tingling in his arms. Not good. The capper was Berto launching off the cornice, getting huge air, missing the landing and slamming free safety style into a small tree. Fortunately Berto had a helmet on, and was OK. Kodak camera bravery, combined with sweet but tough conditions made for some of the best moments of the year and some of the worst crashes.
The highlight for me was run number one down Chickenglades, where I got surreal wind scoured first tracks down a Chute and felt like the late Craig Kelly busting out some huge arcs in the Chugach Mountains. Those were some of the most aesthetically pleasing turns of my life. There was a lot of camera and film action today, and we'll post the visuals soon.
Dan - 2:44 p.m.
A typical rowdy Saturday at the mountain. A small crew this morning, as many of the regulars were prepping for the DoJoe ski race. Freaking King Nimby launched off a cornice that was fucking huge and emerged relatively unscathed. All in all some good to downright great turns once you got off the beaten path. This has been a fun year, and our gatherings remind me a lot of my days back in high school where we'd gather every weekend morning for sessions at Sugarbush Resort in Vermont. It's good to be back in the winter mountain flow and having folks who are a bit better than me help take it to the next level.
A scary ass moment tonight. I was heading home up the Canyon from Boulder, taking a corner near the bottom of the road when a SUV in the other lane came skidding around the corner at 45 degrees fishtailing and going about 60 mph. Needless to say, hurtling 2 ton out of control projectiles tend to boost the adrenaline and heart rate levels a bit. Out of my rearview window I saw them bite it hard into the right side of the canyon.
Being the only person around, I stopped and sprinted over to the car. Fortunately the two occupants were uninjured, although the car reeked of alchohol. It was a man and a woman driving. The women was super freaked, understandably, and the dude was a drunken mess. Based on the way the passengers were situated in the car following the crash, however, I'm pretty positive the women, who apparentely was sober, was driving. That's a lucky thing, because had it been the drunken stupor dude driving I would have been sorely tempted to toss him in Boulder Creek for fucking scaring the shit out of me. Isn't there some stat how the average person gets into 2-point-something crashes in their lifetime? Hopefully this counts for one of mine, and I get to avoid that bullet. Yet more reasons to commute via bike and as much trail as possible to work. That or ride the bus.
Anyhow, the cops finally showed up and I was the witness on the site. High excitement. Moments like that definitely make you hug the girlfriend and pups with a little more urgency.
More snow tonight, so this kids going to bed.
Yo pilots. I'm getting bored reading my own drivel. Send some journal entries my way when something pops into the membrane.
Dan - 11:54 p.m.
Every now and then you just hit it right. Such was the case this morning at heaven, aka Eldora. Seven inches of real deal mofo champagne pow pow. A number of silky smooth season making runs on all the back bowl slopes, and a real fun time matching skills with B-D-White. A damn good way to start the day.
I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that I'm not perfectly adapted to office work. Yesterday was agony for me, as the snow fell and being in the office became downright claustrophobic. Don't get me wrong, as office jobs go, mine is pretty darned good. It's fun work, the people are cool and the environment is flexible. I just get antsy, dammit. I think I'm going to be blessed with a life of relative poverty for the foreseeable future, simply because I'm not willing to compromise my life to the point where work becomes the most important thing in my living and breathing existence. I need my mornings in the mountains, my solo adventures into the backcountry just to lose myself. I could care less about 401K, and while I want to do well in my job simply because I need to excel, I sometimes find the mind wandering to other places.
It's not that I'm a slacker. I hate to quote Eminem, but there was a good line in that movie 8 Mile - "Yo, when do you decide to go from living up here to down here?" I hope to always live "up here." I feel like there is some bigger goal that I'm going to hit, but I just don't know what the fuck it is. I have to admit my career path at 28 is about as foggy as it was at 18. I guess my dream job would be to make a decent salary by snowboarding on remote peaks in Greenland, mountain biking across Tibet, being creative with design, video and music, and spending the rest of my time drawing up the next adventure in my little house in the Happy Valley (Eldora) canyon. In the meantime, I'll keep living the good life, trying to be the early fucking hawk who catches the mother fucking python snake and laughs at the mice scrambling for parking. Or something like that.
Thanks for dealing with my rant. Two days coming up of fun in the snow with some of my closest friends. Maybe that's what life is all about.
On a side note my fabulous girlfriend made a custom, home made i-Pod holder for my Puffball jacket that allows me to change volume and songs without having to completely disrobe. If any of you pilots are interested in a similar contraption email me and I'll give you the full skinny.
Dan - 11:58 p.m.
Thursday,
March 27 Yo yo it's dumping and the Tundra Cam is looking like Casper the Ghost. As much as I love mountain biking, I wouldn't be that dissapointed if winter lasted until about June every year. Actually, we're entering the golden time right now, where you can ride singletrack in the A.M. and carve through corny slush in sweatshirt in the afternoon pumping the Daft Punk on the I-pod and soaking up the sun. Now if only we had a beach with waves and a surf at say...Boulder Reservoir, life would indeed be perfect.
Seems like a nice day to bail work early and spend the hours snowboarding through a blizzard.
Dan - 11:44 a.m.
Scary as all hell ride to work today. The wind was absolutely raging, making the descent down Mag and Boulder Canyon akin to flying a glider drunk in a hurricane. Good to be out again though after all snow. Not feeling overly verbose tonight, so good night.
Dan - 7:38 p.m.
Skateboarding may not be a crime, but massive inboxes of email sure as heck is. Life in the 21st century...ain't it grand!? To elaborate on yesterdays entry...the portrayal of war on Tee Vee is nothing less than sensationalistic fiction. Unfortunately, the reality of dying in the Iraq desert or seeing your kid on TV as a P.O.W. is as real as it gets. And this is where the problem lies.
Oh well, fuck it. Going to the western desert in one week to ride the Kokopelli Trail from Loma to Moab. Exactly what the doctor ordered. Bare bones supplies, a backpack and one fucking speed.
DK's getting published in a real magazine, color photos and all! Check it out.
Dan - 11:46 a.m.
The Oscars were on Tee Vee last night, and through all the lame ass pomp and circumstance, there was a moment of brilliance. Michael Moore, who directed the Oscar winning documentary Bowling for Columbine, pretty much called out George Bush on national TV, eliciting hostility from the crowd but sheer glee from many of us who are sick of this force fed war bullshit. His speech:
"Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to — they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much. "
It's dumping in Eldora. Round 2. Our friend Sue summed up this week pretty well with this photo.
Dan - 9:43 a.m.
The dig continues. Just when I though the effects of last weeks storm had pretty much been dealt with, I trekked a mere 100 yards from my house to Klondike Avenue in Eldora. They're still buried, and the 35-plus residents who live there have had to deal. I saw a women outside of her Klondike Avenue home who looked slightly less distraught than Jack Nicholson around hour two of The Shining.
Personally, I love it. At least on Klondike Avenue, Eldora is still basically the same town - minus the brothels - that it was 120 years ago before the advent of the worst invention of all time, the automobile. I did a fun ski this afternoon up to Enterprise Mine on the side of Spencer Mountain and reminisced that this was exactly how the old school miners got around back in the day. Cool shit. Here's to more big dumps in the weeks to come.
A few of our good friends finally dragged themselves out of the snow today. Josh was sighted at Annie's, looking cheerful and stoked to be free. Ray was finally sighted at Eldora, and had a...umm...slightly crazed yet also psyched look about him. And why not? Ray is the coolest late 40-something I know. The dude snowboards like a god, and, like many in our posse, seems to be defying this whole father time bullshit with amazing grace. Which gives me huge hope for the future.
Again performed the standard duty and hit Eldora bright and early. The line was about 5% capacity of yesterday, but we were still in position for what was left of first tracks. Unfortunately, all of us were seriously hashed from yesterday. Dave described himself as a drunken scud missile, which, if you've ever seen Dave snowboard, must mean he was seriously tired. We ended up taking about three very scary runs through the woods before calling it a day, and hopefully leaving West Ridge first tracks to old man Ray. We did get to hear some nice explosions on West Ridge as the patrol prepped it.
The session, however, was not without its highlights. For me, the ultimate was the traverse over to Placer Glades. Big deal you say, who gives a flying fuck about a traverse? A valid point, but this was no mere traverse. The famous Eldora wind was in full affect, blowing a nice 40 mph blast of snow across the slope. The traverse was impossible to push kick or walk, due to the fact that the snow is still six feet deep and you sink to your chest. So we went surf style, laying flat on our boards and paddling through the powdery tempest. I've only surfed once in my life, but the feeling of this experience way almost identical to paddling out into a surf, save for the fact that the blowing powder basically exfoliated our faces. Maybe similar to paddling out into the surf in the Bering Sea. Eldora Giveth and Eldora Taketh and on this day Eldora definitely giveth.
Based on the picture included with this entry, it appears the ski patrol noticed some evil poachers yesterday. How exciting!
Dan - 6:57 p.m.
Stellar day at the mountain (is there any other type?). Rose early to catch the first chair at 8:30 a.m. at Eldora. Of course, to do this, you basically have to arrive their well in advance of 8:30, especially when the storm of the century has closed the mountain for the past three days, leaving six feet of...ahem...fresh champagne powder on the hill. So my girlfriend Suz and I arrived at the mountain at 7:30, just in time to meet our good friends Whit and Dave for an hour of bantering before the fun began. The sacred time of the day.
Truth be told, the conditions were anything but champagne powder. Warm temperatures had laid a nice 4 inch thich crust on top of the six feet, making conditions challenging. The ski patrol warned us to be careful, and it was probably good advice, but being a bit foolish and fanatical when it comes to six feet of new snow, we pretty much tossed caution to the wind.
Caught the first chair and b-lined it to Ambush. What a phenomenal experience! Instead of breaking through the snow, the snowboard just glided over crust, sinking just enough to let you know that there was indeed a shit load of snow to be had. Over to Corona for more fun. First tracks or near first tracks on Corona Bowl, Muleshoe and Bryan Glades. Tons of fun riding the lift up too, watching skiers struggle mightily in the crusty conditions.
As always tends to happen, the day ended up in the trees, with the highlight being a quasi-legal run on a sweet powder stash near Cascade Trail. Some of the best turns of the year, and for that matter, of my life. Of course, you had to earn it, and I fell in enough tree wells to earn it.
A good day indeed. Suz is piling some logs in the fire, and the fresh smell of burning pine is permeating the household. Time to rest up and do it all over again tommorrow. Good news...apparentely a repeat storm is scheduled for late next week. It's sitting in the Gulf of Alaska, building and brewing. Still looking for more snowboard stoke...check out DK's latest masterpiece on a recent pow day at the hill.
Dan - 5:50 p.m.
Crazy times here in Colorado. Just when it looked like el summer-o was just around the corner and another season of burn baby burn, the mother of all storms struck us. Seven feet of snow at my home in Eldora, and the rest of the crew is still snowed into their homes. It's nice to know that el madre nature can still deal a serious blow when she needs to. Like everything on this silly little website, it's all documented with digi photos.
Here's a tangent for you. I've been sort of following the news lately about the war. Nevermind that the quality of viewing is slightly higher than that of reality TV. The real question is who the heck came up with the names for these operations. Operation Decapitation? Operation Strike and Awe. I mean, are they trying to make us laugh, or did Dick, Bush and Colin spend too much time around the XBOX playing Doom?
That's all for now...girlfriend arrived with Chinese food.
Dan - 7:04 p.m.
Just got home. Bad news kids. The access road to Eldora is still SHUT. We'll see what happens. Eldora's got to be seriously bumming, since this is likely to be a big time dinero making weekend for them with all the snow. Oh well - we'll still get up and go through the drill.
My Ionic has had quite an adventure the last few days. Paul over at Rock Lobster sent it to me last Monday after he completed the repairs. Well, all moved fairly smoothly for the first part of the journey, which I tracked on the UPS website (gotta love work). During the storm, it showed up somewhere in Commerce City, which leads me to believe it was probably stranded in I-C470 or whatever the hell it's called in a UPS truck in 3 feet of snow. I like the thought of my bike being stuck in some mega storm though. Enhances the soul of the ride.
I still believe bikes have a soul, despite the fact that every scientific "fact" would prove otherwise. Then again, science is about 2% accurate - the things we know today as "FACT" will be something kids in 200 years will laugh at. Which makes me question science as much as I'd question any other religion.
I was born in the wrong freaking century. I liked it when we were snowed in, and it took an hour to post hole 1/2 a mile and Nederland, which sits only about 4 miles from here, might as well have been the moon. Life is too easy now, and I'm fucking bored.
Dan - 8:46 p.m.
Locs,
I've been warping around Ecuador, working a lot at a local University doing research projects for different aquifers and rivers and volcano mud slides. It's alright.
I took the Surly on a punisher the other weekend. On Saturday morning I loaded up the panniers for a couple days and went down the street and got bagels with cream cheese (thank god for the American dude who runs that place). I put on my orange and yellow reflecto-gringo vest and headed out on top of about 60 pounds of bike and gear. Weather: partly cloudy, 60 degrees. I headed east out of Quito (9200') up to the 'east bay hills' at the edge of town (9700'). I then dropped into the Machangara valley via a bone-rattling cobblestone road, winding through super wiley cliffside dwellings and home to numerous rabid dogs. I crossed the Rio Machangara (84% untreated sewage, 16% spring water), raging in a frothy brownish grey mass below. I then climbed a bit more on the cobbles, and crested a small hill, dropping down into the town of Cumbaya. Cumbaya is the Marin of Quito- all the yuppies commute from there. Judging from the ACE Hardware, KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, SUVs, and general strip-mall nature of the town, I've concluded that 'Cumbaya' translates roughly to 'Novato' (sorry Richard, no Nave Lanes or Shaky's Pizza with Tron upstairs in the arcade).
Through Cumbaya and continuing down to another river crossing, and things start to look more like the rest of Ecuador. No shoulder on the road, belching buses, full 500 pound pork carcass dangling and bleeding and feeding the masses, cinderblock everything that a 4.0 would topple, and did I say, buses? From the river crossing, I climbed a bit more to Tumbaco, another little town, and then down to the Rio San Pedro for a killer river crossing at the lowpoint of my ride (8000'). The bridge is built with steel overhead guirders, spanning about 300' and about 200' over the river. The canyon is steep and narrow, with luxuriant green patches where springs pop out along the flat-lying volcanic ash sediments that have piled up over the years. Its the second mini Grand Canyon I've seen here (when the proud locals admire the view and ask me if I've seen anything like it, I of course say no). From this point, 2 hours into the ride, begins 4 hours of nonstop billy goating up to the pass. Climbing out of the San Pedro Valley, there are a few major roads that run north-south that siphon traffic off my route, making it a much more pleasureable to ride. The locals in the outskirts are much friendlier, with big doses of applause, honking, cheering, smiling, and oh, buckets of water to the face from oncoming pickups. But those aren't just for me. It seems that the month of February, leading up to Carnival, is water fight month in all of Ecuador. At road cuts, it was common to see 10 kids with buckets and water balloons, waiting for cars or pedestrians to pelt, or for triple-word-score-double-bonus-round-physical-challenge, a gangly gringo wearing a neon target on his back.
Soon I was practically alone on the road, looking out over endless green pastures and wooded hills, with towering snow-capped volcanoes here and there on the horizon. The road, while paved, is a relentless high-altitude granny gear shuffle, with lots of stops for snickers and Tang and bagels and all things American. As I gained more and more altitude, the temperature dropped steadily and the clouds thickened, with sunny spots below heating and expanding the air and sending warm thermal currents at my back. At one point I spotted 3 condors, recognizable by their size and the white markings on top of their wings, soaring around at high velocity and eying me as a potential road-ready flat-snack for later in the day. I stopped for a break at the last establishment of any kind, still several miles from Papallacta Pass, where some rubber-booted rain-slickered roughnecks did expensive welding and repairs on injured big rigs trying to make the climb. Within moments, I was surrounded by yellow PVC clothing and stubby fingers delivering low-budget cigarettes to sun-tattered lips. They were super stoked on my rig, and one guy had some familiarity with bikers like me. He asked if I had the 'herramiento', the 'tool'. I quickly guessed that these guys, being a bunch of professional wrenchers, would be fired up about a bike 'multi-tool'. I produced it from my pack, in the palm of my hand, and they studied it carefully, pulling out all the various tools. 8 allen wrenches, a couple screwdrivers, a small crescent wrench, a spoke wrench, and a chain breaker. They even figured out what the chain breaker was on their own, within seconds. They demanded that I take a picture of them with my bike, which I did, and patted me on the back, commending me on my 'nivel de preparando', my level of preparedness. One young guy told me it was only a twenty minute ride to the pass....
An hour later, I had to get out my waterproof pants and Goretex shell and gloves, and a windy drizzle pelted me in the face, threatening to snow at any minute. At one point, I got a short tow from a Coca-Cola delivery truck, which just barely had the speed to surpass me. After a quarter mile, with my pants melted from exhaust and deaf in my left ear from the engine, I let go. The terrain was green-brown bunch grass, rolling hills, and an occasional glimpse of some rocky peaks. At the pass (13,500'), visibility was near zero, with thick fog, drizzle, wind, and fumes from backhoes working on an oil pipeline. I was laughing at my situation to be sure. I started the descent, passing slow moving trucks and slowly feeling my numb face and fingers thawing as the temperature rose and jungle foliage starting appearing. The road turned to a grey-white volcanic clay field, spitting slime all over everything. After an hour of tedious descent, I arrived in the town of Papallacta (10,500') and headed up a side valley that I knew of. I got a room at the Colombian run and owned Mamallactas hostel, for $7, and quickly changed into my swimtrunks and sandals. I continued up the valley another half-mile and paid my $5 to go to the Termas de Papallacta, a plush hot springs resort with a dozen pools of varying temperature, set in a deep, cool, steep, green valley. I got myself a beer and some chips and slid into a super-hot pool and floated around like an unflushable for hours. Anything to let my mind wander and forget about the return trip in two days...
Hope all is well, and more tales of joyful misery to follow.
Nate
