We got a crazy snow day in October in Boulder, and Calico enjoyed it :). He has been watching Snowy Day on Amazon and was prepared with his red snow suit.

I had a good ride out at Marshall Mesa (which is only about 20 min away from my house!). A dude over at Boulder Cycle Sport suggested it and it is a great one for newbies like me :). I plan to do it fairly often given how close it is and it has a lot of good practice points.

There are some rocky parts, some technical parts, and a lot of just fun gravel roads and single track. It was good practice to stay on a line, do a little rock climbing stuff, and get in better shape. It is pretty exposed so if there are high winds I would avoid it. If the sun is out I think it will be fairly warm even in the winter. so here are a few from around the net…

Total ride 16.7 miles with an average speed of 9.3mph and a high of 24.2 miles per hour. Ascent/descent of a little over 1000 feet.

My Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars.

So the Lair O’ The Bear trail was rated intermediate, but I decided to go for it and it was tough. Initially, it is just a lot of climbing on some pretty intense terrain for a newbie, and over the 6 miles out to the turn around point, I had to walk about 5 spots. Usually, because a drop was a little too big for my confidence levels, or a little too rocky next to a 10 to 15-foot fall/roll, or because it was just super super rocky with a very tight line or no line I could see. I think once I am in better shape it will be more fun, but I was so winded by the time I got to some flowy stuff I was just spent.

I also made a mistake and did not realize it was 6 miles out and back, I thought it was 12 miles out and back. Thus giving less elevation intense elevation gain. Oh well as it will help me get in better shape. I also went a bit slower and did some practice over the same spots that I struggled with. Going back was fun, but with my current bike, a lot of pogo stick action.

Total ride of 13.15 miles with an average speed of 5.9mph and a high of 19 miles per hour. Ascent/descent of a little over 1700 feet. Maybe more telling is that when I look at my heart rate stats I spent 50 minutes in very hard and 1 hour and 3 minutes in very hard (avg heart rate 139, max at 161). I think my watch told me I should take a 37-hour break to recover, lol :).

PS. I did wear some fox launch pro knee pads I bought so that when I fall it won’t jack my knee like last week. So far they are ok, but going to see after a few more rides.

Boulder has a sweet 42-acre bike park called the Valmont Bike Park! I wish I had found this earlier… it has a ton of practice area if you are learning to mountain bike as well as some insane jumps and other technical stuff. It is easy to get to via the bike trail system too. Check out some pictures here. Just keep in mind for all the insane ones you see there are some really easy ones that just help you learn.

After I finished biking I decided to do a forest road back to highway 287. So I turned off 126 onto Forest Road 550, then S Buffalo Creek Rd, then Wellington Lake Road until I hit 287. It was beautiful, a few ice patches but otherwise dry. Just nice dirt/gravel road in the middle of nowhere. I just got the truck so it was an extra fun drive :). I do not plan to do anything crazy with the truck beyond dirt/gravel roads, but I do enjoy that I can get further out on those to do some bike rides and feel confident knowing I can get back no matter the weather.

I am a newb when it comes to mountain biking on single track. I’ve done a lot of forest/logging roads but not much of anything else. I am trying to learn so I decided to do Coulson Gulch Trail. A local guide book rated it as “Technically easy to moderate with a few steep sections of rock and sand”. Unfortunately, I only made it 0.71 miles in before my back tire died :(… so I hiked the rest.

It was a BEAUTIFUL hike. There is an abandoned cabin 1.8 miles in, and the canyons are stunning. I also found several deer legs that were pretty fresh so watch out for animals. The trail did not seem like it was used very often, pretty overgrown. Some old wagon trail road for part of it too.

The book (referenced above) was written before the trail was washed away and a bridge (link goes to forest service details). I was able to leap from rock to rock to get across one area, but it is a mess. It made for some adventuring though. I walked along Button Rock Trail for about half a mile (which was amazing).

Hiking? Beautiful and fun! If you are feeling adventurous cross the stream and go up Button Rock Trail. Watch out for bears.

Biking? Good for about ~2 miles in max, and I am not sure it is really good for newbies. Pretty difficult with some of the washout, and a steam climb back which you are mostly walking.

It was a blast driving the new truck on some dirt roads, and some off roady type things. So much fun :)

A shorty beautiful hike on Saturday after Boulder got a dusting of snow (it was supposed to be a foot). We are both still loving it here, great town!

This weekend I went on a easy hike called Meyers Homstead Trail, or the Meyers Gulch Trail. It was a relatively flat hike with a wide path and the out and back added up to a total of 5.5 miles. Beautiful pine forest, old barn, etc. Highly recommend! Good one for kids too I think.

If you want something more challenging, Walker Ranch is right around the corner which is an 8 mile loop with some climbs and beautiful walks along the river. I see people fly fishing out there quite often.

We bought a house yesterday!!!! We were looking to rent for a year, but on a whim we decided to look at a few houses that were for sale in areas we liked in Boulder. We loved the very first one, and we made an offer the next day. The house is a 3 bedroom 2 bath in Boulder, built in 1935 and really solid, and a pretty easy walk to hiking and Pearl street.

It has been a really crazy couple months! I am hoping it settles down a bit by late April / early May. We are hoping to be able to move in after some work is done to the house in late May.

Lindsey and I made the drive up to Denver from Arkansas and are all settled in a temporary AirBNB place while we look for a long term place to stay. We got stuck for a few days due to the big snowstorm that blew through. In the spirit of life is a circle I am going to use the same image of Denver as I did when I moved here in October 2008 :) .

We are very excited to be settling down a bit! Last year was very fun, but moving every 2 to 3 months can get a bit old. I am personally very excited to have a separate office again :).

Over the last few weeks I’ve have had a blast, I played Fright Flight with Liquor and Cleats, went to the Rally To Restore Sanity, and then played Harvest with our college alumni team back in Fayetteville. Liquor and Cleats got second at Fright Flight and our Alumni team lost in semis at Harvest, but we did win the spirit disc (and both were costume tournaments with great people which are always fun). Fright Flight is one of the funniest tournaments I’ve played in and I’m really looking forward to playing Paga in Italy again this year.

Some pictures of the DC rally below:

The last few months have been crazy busy but I managed to find time to go camping the last two weekends.

I’m not sure where we camped last weekend but it was next to a stream and pretty, I spent most of the day building a dam to try to show up the beavers next door. And the next day we climbed Grays and Torres (two 14,000 foot mountains). Which only reinforced my belief that air at sea level deserves an award. And I also got to setup my new tent for the first time, super comfortable even for a tall person.

And this weekend Joel, Laura, and I drove up to Crested Butte for a one day hat tournament. Crested Butte and surrounding area is the most beautiful I’ve seen in Colorado and so much nicer then Frisco/Breck/Etc. I couldn’t play the tournament as my ankle is still swollen but I did go for a nice 14 mile run/hike. And the next day we did another short hike, relaxed, and hung out with Chappe and Liz in Aspen at their new place (which is awesome). Great weekend and had a great time!

And I spent tonight setting up my new desk, it moves up and down so I can work standing up and sitting down. Pretty excited as it is a lot easier for me to get things done when I’m standing up.

Just got back from trying the Bergen Peak trail run. It was really good although I’m not used to the elevation gain during the initial part of the run. The trail was low on rocks for the most part and pretty soft on the feet, the backside still had snow on it though but walked a good chunk of that. Ended up running the first three miles which was a ton of elevation gain, walking a mile, then running another 3, walking a mile, and running the last half mile. Good little run especially when it warms up, and there are some trails in the plains below it if I had wanted to extend the run by 3 to 4 miles.

Working on getting my runs back up to an hour as winter always drags me down to only 40 to 50 min. Running on a treadmill just sucks for any longer then that.

Some good info on this trail below:
– Map, Review, and pictures!
– Info and Driving Directions. It’s past lakewood after I70 and not too far from Denver.

Me and Joel went on a Hike a few weeks ago and here are some pictures, hopefully work calms down and can do this more and hopefully try out some cross country skiing!

Can’t wait to do more as I get time over the next months. I can’t fraking wait for some snow too! Haven’t seen any in a few years due to being in Egypt!

Well I’m in Denver and working like crazy! I’m slowly getting moved into our apartment, first here are some pictures of it as I love this place! Its one of the most origional spaces I’ve ever seen! That is right 3 exclamation points used in the last 3 sentences…

The place is inside this old church from the 1800s, it was actually the tallest building in Denver for a while and is like the 7th or 8th building on the Denver historic registry.