Pike's Peak

Donuts on Pike's Peak
Originally uploaded by SethTri

After spending a day in Boulder, we had a few days before we were supposed to head over to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). So, we went down to Colorado Springs and knocked off Pike's Peak (14,115 ft). It was Meg's first time hiking up to 14,000+ ft. Pike's Peak is a very popular, fairly easy fourteener, so it was a good confidence booster before we hit up the more challenging Long's Peak later this week.

We already had plans to meet up with our buddy Stephen at 5pm in Boulder on Saturday, so we started our ascent of Pike's Peak at 6am. The plan was summit by 12:30, pick up the 12:40 train down so we can hit the road by 2:30 and be up in Boulder by 4:30pm. The plan worked, but the timeframe required pushing the pace a bit. It wasn't terribly fast, but it was definitely higher than a comfortable pace.

The weather was very good until the very end. The last 5-10 minutes we had a few flurries and a little cloud-to-cloud lightning but generally sunny skies through the hike. Meg got her donut at the top.




I should add the previous afternoon, we hiked a bit in the Garden of the God's. It's a beautiful place, and I played around with the camera on different settings. You can see all of our photos from there, here.

Random Locations, Random Photos

Devil's Tower
Originally uploaded by SethTri

So some of this is out of order, but I wanted to get some photos up.

After Badlands National Park, we went to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Apparently the tower was made when magma was pushed up into a cavity of rock and cooled. The surrounding rock was eventually eroded leaving the harder basalt to remain. It was the first National Monument and has a lot of history with Native Americans throughout the region. We managed to run most of the trails in the area during the one night we were there and pulled out.





After Devil's Tower we went down to Nebraska and checked off a bunch of other parks. Agate Fossil Beds was a little dull, but we were surprised that Scott's Bluff was interesting. It was a major crossroads during the Oregon Trail and pony express years. One hundred years later you can still see the imprints of where the wagons went through.

Boulder, CO

On Thursday afternoon we pulled into Boulder, CO to begin the extended Colorado portion of our cross country adventure. We also used this day to take care of errands and pick up supplies...namely new running shoes.

As we drove through town on our way to check in at the Boulder International Hostel where we crashed for the night we were both scanning the local businesses for a running store. Being in the Mecca of trail running, mountain biking and outdoor activity we knew one couldn't be far away.

At Boulder Running Company we monopolized the time of a very knowledgeable salesman as we tried on 4-5 different pairs of trail running shoes each. Seth was also in the market for a new road shoe so he took extra time. After test driving a plethora of pairs we made our picks (Seth really wasted the poor guy's time because he ended up buying the same shoes he always wears in a newer model.)

We then took our new kicks out for a trail test with the Boulder Trail Running Club. Seth was a great co-pilot on the drive to Boulder and was feverishly searching on his iPhone for all sorts of cool stuff for us to do in Boulder. He found this trail running club that has Happy Hour runs on Thursdays. We joined the group for a 45 minute run on local trails followed by dinner and $2 beers at a local Nepali restaurant called Sherpa's. We met great folks and ate delicious food.

Years ago when I was in grad school at AU I attended a workshop out here with the Colorado School Mediation Project and had been recommended to try the Boulder-Dushanbe Teahouse. After dinner Seth and I walked to the teahouse for dessert and tea.

Dushanbe, Tajikistan is Boulder's sister city. To celebrate the establishment the sister city ties more than 40 artisans in several cities of Tajikistan created the decorative elements of the Teahouse from 1987 -1990, including its hand-carved and hand-painted ceiling, tables, stools, columns, and exterior ceramic panels. The entire teahouse was constructed in Dushanbe, then disassembled, crated and shipped to Boulder where it was reassembled. We sat outside last night along a gurgling stream and sipped vanilla nut rooibos herbal tea and tangerine ginger bread. Seth, not being much for tea,
had a glass of wine instead.

On our walk back to the Hostel we passed what can only be described as an impromptu bicycle rave at the band shell of a town park. 30-50 bicyclists had gathered after dark with glow sticks stuck in their spokes and jammed to 70's style tunes. Seth even spotted a couple unicycles.

Boulder is the quintessential college town and we stayed right in the heart of it. Coffee shops and tattoo parlors abound in this haven for people watching. We were passed on the road by an old BMW convertible packed with 19 year-old guys whose license plate read "OOHYEAH". The windows of our hostel room faced Sigma Pi's fraternity house. I had forgotten what a party night Thursdays were in college.

I must admit that we are reveling in the excellent coffee this morning, after weeks of the signature gas station blend, as we prepare to head south to The Garden of the Gods and Pike's Peak, which we will climb tomorrow. I, for one, am snickering at the young students sipping their morning lattes over a calculus text book. It is good to be done with that...wait a second...

They weren't kidding when they named this park

Badlands National Park. We pulled into Badlands National Park (BNP) on a day when temps were pushing for 100F. The next morning we would find out that they set a record for never dropping below 80F at night. Couple that heat with a high wind and it felt like a constant hairdryer. 3 days here?Really? Maybe we'll leave this place tomorrow morning. (We wound up staying for 2 days.)

Despite the weather (not uncommon for this time of year) the scenery was quite impressive. Rivers and rain have eroded the landscape to the way it is today. The wall of sedimentary rock is very soft and it has fared better than the lower lands simply by luck of being farther away from historic rivers. There are many "badlands" in the United States (TRNP, Death Valley to name a few).






We were surprised to find all the trails to be in one part of the park and most were very short. Most National Parks have large regulations about staying on trails, even for the backcountry hikers. Not the BNP. It is one of the last parks to allow visitors free reign to hike/climb wherever they want to. Land navigation is certainly a challenge and there are no water sources in the park, but for those who want freedom of movement and adventure BNP has it.

Badlands continues to be a huge source of fossils and many are found by visitors. The "Big Pig Dig" started by a visitor spotting one bone sticking out of the landscape. They reported it to the Park Service as they are supposed to and the palentologists expected it to take 5-7 days to extract the bone for study. Fifteen years and over 10,000 bones later the "Big Pig Dig" will keep scientists busy for another decade identifying all the fossils.





It's an interesting place and I thought it was beautiful on it's own rights, even though we did find it at it's most inhospitable.

Wizz bang tour of southwest SD

After our fun time in TRNP we drove due south and punched out 3 National Park Service sites in 24 hours. Mount Rushmore, Jewel Cave and Wind Cave sites were all interesting in their own rights.

As soon as we left TRNP we went back to the flat plains of North Dakota. It was interesting to watch the landscape change as we transitioned to the hillier and relatively more forested South Dakota.



We went to Mount Rushmore and learned that Jefferson was supposed to be on the far left but the granite had a crack that couldn't be designed around so the artist had to move him to the right of Washington.



We (I) made a wrong turn out of the park. While the drive through Custer State park was pretty the detour probably cost us a tour of Jewel Cave NP. In addition, I think the South Dakota Dept of Natural Resources is running a racket by charging cars for driving through the park as they leave. (18 bucks for driving on a road I didn't even know was in a park!!)


We spent the night at Hot Springs which turned out to be a really nice little town with a few nice restaurants in town. The Long Horse Ultra marathon was finishing up in town. We ran the last few miles and I confirmed I was glad I didn't sign up for it. (Most is apparently on asphalt or gravel roads. No thanks. )


Sunday morning we took a tour of Wind Cave which is the 4th longest cave system in the world. It is the most complex cave system by cramming in 132 miles of cave in one square mile. It also holds 95% of the world's boxwork. (Boxwork is made of the same stuff as stalagtites just formed in a different manner. Stalagtites are formed by deposits of drips, boxwork is formed when the deposits fill cracks in rock then the rock is eroded away. )

Neat stuff. Still having a good time on the trip.

-- Post From My iPhone on our way to the Badlands of South Dakota.

Buffalo = Bison

After leaving the exciting town of Fargo, we headed across the prairies of North Dakota towards Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP). Along the way we stopped at Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Point where we learned about how native Americans from the region used their resources of flint to trade with other tribes throughout the entire west.

Teddy Roosevelt National Park is the location of North Dakota’s bad lands. While beautiful on its own right, the sudden contrast with the rest of the environment makes it that much more interesting. We drove through miles and miles of rolling hills of wheat and sunflowers then all of a sudden this spectacular landscape explodes before you.

After pulling in and setting up camp, we were told that a bison was down at the other end of the campground.





No kidding. He was that close. Buffalo (AKA bison) used to roam the prairies in the herds of millions, but they were driven very close to extinction in the 19th century. We managed to see a herd of about 20 or so, but with all the fences put up throughout the country, the days of the roaming buffalo herds are long gone.



On Friday morning, we talked to a ranger to confirm that trail running in the park was not that risky. As long as we gave the bison a wide berth and kept an eye out for rattlesnakes we would probably be ok. After parting ways with Meg, I saw some wild horses and a bunch of prairie dogs. It was great to enjoy this awesome landscape away from the crowds of tourists and the roads.

On our own in the wild

On Monday we bade farewell to the folks and started heading West on our own. Our first stop was Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan. I haven't been there since I was 10 and even then it was only from the shore. We made a few wrong turns then flew down the highway going way too fast to make the 1pm boat cruise. It was worth it. A beautiful sunny day made for some nice shots. If we had more time we would probably rent kayaks and spend a day paddling the shoreline. If you were up for a long hike/unsupported run the 40 mile trail along the coast would be nice too.






After a few hours on the boat we hit the road for Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota. We didn't make it in 1 shot but leaving Pictured Rocks at 4 gave us 3-4 hours down the road.




When we arrived at Voyageurs NP on Tuesday we were a litte dissapointed. We knew going into it that Voyageurs is one of the least visited NP's out there and that it was a huge water park and a boat would be helpful in getting around. What we didn't expect was the scarcity of resources available locally. We walked into the NP visitors center and found 2 "rangers" on their first day alone. The reading material we already had was more useful. When asked how far one can reasonably expect to paddle in an hour one asked the other "how fast do you row? 4? 6 miles per hour?" To which the older gentleman said "I dunno I only row downstream. "

We drove down the road to Ash River State Park to rent kayaks for the trip. The entire town had 2 small kayaks that certainly weren't going to handle packs for a backcountry trip. Even fewer people here had any idea how long it would take to paddle a canoe out to a site. So we got a trail run in and crashed at a small state campground.




Thursday we went out in a canoe for a few hours and found the park to be very nice. It only took us 1.5 hours to paddle from Ash River to Kabetogama lake and another hour would have easily landed us a camp site. But with thunderstorms forecasted and not knowing how long it would take us, we turned around and hit the road around noon.

On our way to our planned stopping point in Fargo, ND Meg discovered this gem of a country store.




Here we discovered we were only a short distance to the headwaters of the Mississippi, so we pulled over and took a shot.




We stopped for the night in Fargo, ND. We were quite dissappointed to find out that Fargo is quite a busy town and not the quiet little backwoods town as portrayed in the movies. It's so big that it would have required some research to figure out where the statue they raised for the DVD release of the movie was located.

Moving Westward

On tuesday after a great time with friends we pulled out of Maine and drove about 8 hours to Rochester to have dinner with Meg's mom and crashed at Sarah and Colin's house. We had a nice time but left early in the morning to have breakfast with Meg's grandparents. We got a track workout at Meg's old high school (it has been significanty ugraded since Adam ran track on it). Finally after a quick shower we pulled out of Rochester to head towards Michigan.

We made it through Canada without incident. (Good, because we didn't exactly tell the rental company that the car was going to leave the country.) My folks left for Paradise on Wednesday so we pulled off in beautiful *cough* Flint, MI for dinner and some sleep. We hit the road fairly early and made it to Tahquamenon Falls State Park in the mid afternoon of Thursday.



We checked out the second tallest falls east of the Mississippi and had a good time catching up with the fam. On Saturday, Meg & I got up early for a race. I did the 25k while Meg's knee held her back to the 10k. The first 10 miles were pretty and over rolling hills but the last 10k had tons of stairs and it was very obvious that I went out way too fast. Still, it was a nice day on a nice course.

On Sunday we checked out the shipwreck museum and had a good time reading about the hundreds of wrecks on Lake Superior.




-- Post From My iPhone

Maine Mosquito Madness

After a slight delay in NYC, we eventually pulled into Cape Elizabeth, Maine at 11:30 pm. It was hard to tell then, but we woke up the next morning across the street from the "beach." The beaches in this part of Maine appear to be some form of shale and the rock forms slabs that go all the way to the water. It's beautiful, but not exactly friendly to sand castles.




Saturday was spent walking around the shoreline and the state parks. Eric and I lost our respective wives and spent over an hour looking for them only to discover they had gone home earlier. I got a 40 minute bike ride in while hunting for a farmers market that apparently closed 3 years ago. After returning with some veggies, Meg & I got a 40 minute jog in. (Her knee is still bothering her from an overuse problem, it appears. )



Sunday we went to downtown Portland where we caught up with my friend Derek who I did Ironman Lake Placid with. He now has a 1 year old and lives in Kansas City so it was nice to spend some time with him and Kelley catching up. We will try to stop by his neck of the woods on the return trip.

Monday, I got a very humbling 10 mile run in. For the first time on that much asphalt in nearly 2 years it went ok, but I'm a long way from my old form.

We had been saving our stereotypical Maine lobster meal for Monday night. With 11 people and only 1 pot we would have to eat in shifts -- no problem we said. Since lobsters are pretty messy and the ring burner had to be outdoors we decided to eat outside on a nice evening. Batch one of the lobsters were done at 7:45. As soon as we started eating the crustaceans the mosquitoes started swarming and eating us. I've seen dome nasty mosquitoes in Michigan while camping but this was the worst I've ever seen. Round one scarfed their lobsters down as fast as possible. While round two were boiling we moved the table away from the burner -- mosquitoes are allegedly attracted to propane. That provided some limited relief but those eating in round two had to inhale their lobsters or risk bring carried away from the table. It was kind of comical, but also dissappointing that we couldn't savor the lobster a bit more.



Tuesday morning arrived far too quickly and we said good bye to our good friends and hosts Jen and Eric along with everyone else. We'll hopefully see many of them again in September at the Big Schloss.




-- Posted From My iPhone on I-90 in upstate New York headed towards Rochester.

The Road Trip Begins

We managed to hit the road today by 11 to start our road trip to Maine. We got through Phily without too much trouble, but hitting the George Washington Bridge in NYC @ 5pm may not have been the best idea. Either way, the adventure has begun and we're moving.




-- Posted From My iPhone while moving 0.5 mph in line for the GW bridge.