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The day before Kristen left she and i went on a hike around Lilly Lake and played around with the camera.

I was sitting in my truck with Kristen waiting for her bus to come and pick her up. Suddenly my phone begins to ring. I look, it’s Tom, I pick the phone up, the first words out of his mouth are “wanna go skiing?” I say “yes” with out skipping a beat. Only then do I realize the consequences of my response. First its 3 pm and I am in Loveland, we had numerous hail storms through out the day, and there were 7 tornadoes that touched down earlier that day less then 5 miles away from where I was. But tom was in need of some good hard fun after being stuck in an office all day, so I agreed that we would evaluate the weather when I got back into town. So after I sent Kristen on her way, I drove back to the house, where I was to meet Tom. I arrived back at the house, waited about 10 min and I see the truck that Tom is in rolling down the drive.

 If you have never met Tom he is quite the character;  he is a very jumpy guy and loves anything that involves the great outdoors. When he gets out of the truck the first thing he says “ARE YOU READY”. The weather at that time had cleared enough for my comfort. When I say that, it was not raining at the time and it was pretty warm. There was still some very threatening looking clouds above us but being the ambitious characters we headed into the mountains. We planed on going to a bowl that was below Tombstone Ridge. It is located in Rocky Mountain National Park along Trail Ridge Road. It was about a 25 min drive from the house. When we arrived the clouds has lightened up a little bit and we ran into a local ski bum that had just skid the bowl himself. Tom got out and talked to the guy to find out the best way to get to top of the bowel. He said walk right up the bowl and you will be good. Walk is a generous term for the effort that Tom and I put in for this “walk”.

 The start of this walk was not so bad, it was just steep, but as we progressed further up the hill the wind picked up and it started snowing. So we walked and walked, with the wind in our face driving us back down the mountain. This hike was a true slog, at 11,500 feet above sea level our lungs were burning with the lack of oxygen. We continued to hike in these conditions for 35-50 minuets. When we reached the top it was cold, windy and still snowing on us. We took some time to truly enjoy where we were and what we were about to do.

 As we prepped to go on the run, I hear Tom start to swear his head off. Apparently his ski bindings were set to his other ski boots and they were not fitting into his boots properly. He looked at me desperately and asked if I had a ski tool. I regrettably do not. We start to think that we just busted our balls so tom could walk down. He then remembered that he had a knife in his bag, and  this provided enough of an edge so he could turn the screw and adjust the binding. We took a few quick pics and were finally ready to enjoy this spring snow. Before I know it Tom took off down the slope, I chased after him. There are no real words to describe the feeling of what it feels like to drop into a bowl that you just hiked up. Basically it is just the best snowboard run of your life. There is no greater high than what I was feeling as I linked turns back to back in the fresh spring snow. This is living, this is life.

Kristen and i Took an adventure to Boulder, super cool city, ill be going again soon.

Heres a good quote that i saw on a button while we were there

“Until a person is rated successful by there spirituality, morality and compassion and not material wealth, mankind will evolve no further.”

 I

f you follow the arrows, this was the route that tom and i did this past sunday

 

Video  

Here’s a funny Video, from somewhere in the midwest.

 

Photos

Today tom had to start work, but not i. Kristen has been feeling a bit sick with some bug and the altitude, so we decided to go for a hike.  We knew about this place to hike that is near the popular climbing area Twin Owls. Those cliffs are the pedestal rocks that are shown in the gallery. We had tried to climb there yesterday but they are closed for the birds till mid-summer. There is a very nice trail that leads to a lake called Gem Lake. It was so peaceful up there and we played around there for an hour or so and explored. The cliffs that you see me climbing up would be sick for cliff jumping if the lake was more then 3 feet deep. Also the chipmunks there are very bold and they will come right up to you and sniff your hand –  silly little animals.

 

Photos

Ok this post is going to be random, but its all the explanations of all the pics that are being posted with this.  The first few pics are of the cabin that we are sleeping in and the surrounding area. It’s what i wake up to in the morning. The others are all the animals that just walk around, they do not care about people at all, ranging from Elk to Deer, to wild Goats. It’s all so cool you could just walk up and pet them, if they did not stand in the middle of the road and block your vehicle. The last few pics of the large cliff is what Tom and i climbed today, it was so amazing but a little windy. Ill write more about it at a later date.

 Photos

So the adventure has begun. We left my house on Friday the 16th around one o clock. We just drove,  setting our course into the sunset.  I have been on many road trips out to Ohio before this, but after reaching Ohio at about 12 midnight I came to the realization that this was really going to be a haul. I drove off and on from about 6 pm to 5 am. Tom and Kristen had the two night shifts. At 5 am I awoke feeling the truck slowing down, I looked over to see Tom tired and ready to get some good sleep. We had made a plan to switch drivers every time we need to get gas, which is about every 6 hours. As we pulled into the gas station it was just starting to get light out and people were just starting to awake.

We had packed the car in a way that would allow someone to sleep in the back if he or she so desired. After the long night Tom chose to sleep in the back and get some good quality rest. We filled the gas tank, repacked a few things, grabbed something small to eat and with me behind the wheel, we were on our way. It was just kristen and me in the cab and tom was sleeping in the bed of the truck, as we pulled onto the highway the sun was just starting to rise. I could not see it that well but Kristen has a good view point. Using her keen eye she snatched up my camera and snapped off some very good photos of the sun rise.

I don’t think she slept much during that night because after she took the photos she passed out in the passenger seat like she was in her bed at home. Now it was just me listening to my headphones rocking out while the rest of my party was off dreaming. Last night before I fell asleep I got a chance to finish the book that mike had lent me “Deep survival” by Laurence Gonzales. This was a really good read for me, this book is about how people get unlucky and still manage to make the right choices and why they did and how they came out alive. It is about how the mind is the most important part of survival. As I sat in my truck getting ready to embark into the wild of the rockies I knew that I was ready for it. So here we go….. And with that I leave you with a quote from “Deep Survival”

“[Survivors] know safety is an illusion and being obsessed with safety is a sickness. They have a frank relationship with risk, which is the essence of life”.

Time to experience life……..

and with that i say, goodbye to acton for the summer…..

Colorado here we come

Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, ’cause “the West is the best.” And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild. – Alexander Supertramp May 1992