1) Rode our bikes down to Almont and back.

2) Rode up to Schofield Pass

Gothic towering ahead.

Hello friend.

The store in the town of Gothic.

Baldy.

Emerald Lake.

Why it’s called Emerald Lake.

Dad, with Emerald Lake and Baldy behind.

Some snow on the road still.

3) Went for an 11.5 mile hike on Daisy Pass.

4) Saw Frank’s picture in the Crested Butte Museum.

Yep, he’s pretty much famous.

5) Got some ideas for our upcoming wedding.
No, we haven’t set a date yet….

6) Tried to hike up to the peak of Mount Crested Butte.
Well, my folks hiked, I rode my bike. Unfortunately, we were turned around by thunderstorms. But, it was still a good hike/bike with great views.

The lupine are magnificent this year.

Teocalli, with Castle peaking out behind on the left.

Snowmass in the distance.

Looking toward Schofield Pass.

The West Elk and Ruby Range.

White Rock towering behind White Mountain.

Rain approaching.

Hiking down.

It was good to have my folks here and I enjoyed showing them my piece of paradise.

We parked at the Oh-Be-Joyful campground and began the hike with a bang- Nothing like a nice scary log crossing over a raging river to start off your day.

From there, we continued along the trail through a dry wooded area near Schuykill Ridge. Susan, Frank and I.

Frank, and I.

Oh-Be-Joyful.

Falls coming down from Redwell Basin. We skied right over this waterfall back in December.

Then, the valley opened up, inspiring us with amazing views.

But, we still had many more stream crossings to contend with.

The valley leads its way up to a basin called Democrat Basin.

After 7 miles of hiking through amazing scenery, crossing several streams, and making our way through the boggy basin, we arrived at the top of Daisy Pass.

Frank and I, with Hancock behind, which we skied in March.

A look back at Democrat Basin.

View down the other side of Daisy Pass toward Baxter Basin.

The views from Daisy Pass are spectacular. Avery, the red diamond, with Castle towering behind.

South Maroon.

With the sky darkening and threatening us with rain and thunder, we didn’t rest long on Daisy Pass. Heading down.

There was more snow on the northern Baxter Basin, then Democrat Basin.

This one didn’t quite make it through the winter.

As we descended Baxter Basin I glanced at my watch and saw that it was after 5. Knowing we had a long ways to go, many of which were flat along the Slate Road from Pittsburg, I decided to send Frank ahead to go get the car. As he left, the rain set in.

The stream at the bottom of Baxter Basin was raging, and difficult to cross. But we found a snowbridge to aid our way.

Baxter Basin leads to Poverty Gulch where the rain continued for awhile. But, as soon as the rain left, and rainbows sprung out.

Shortly after, we reached Pittsburg, where there was yet another stream crossing. But, as we were half way across, Frank showed up with the car. He had been able to hitch a ride from Pittsburg to the Oh-Be-Joyful Campground.

11.5 miles, 7 hours, and 2600′ of vert was a pretty solid day, especially for my folks visiting from Ohio. But the views were worth it

We started her visit by visiting the beautiful town of Ouray. From there, we headed back to Crested Butte. Unfortunately, the weather was not very cooperative. Everyone in the town of Crested Butte was excited for and expecting their first real snowstorm of the season. But what came from the winter storm warning was mostly a bunch of rain.

When the sun did manage to come out on Sunday afternoon, however, we could see that we were surrounded by mountains covered in a blanket of snow.

And the fall leaves were looking particularly magnificent in the crisp light.

We took a little drive over Ohio pass were we enjoyed stunning the scenery.

Wish the weather had cooperated a bit more, but it was great to have my mom here for a long weekend!

Greenville

Greenville is a small city in South Carolina that has been wonderfully revitalized. Today, the city has been transformed to a “walking town”. Paths and gardens are everywhere, and if it weren’t for the dang summer heat, the walking here would be fantastic.

Mainstreet is full of shops and restaurants.

Read about the history of Greenville here:
http://www.greatergreenville.com/neighborhoods/historic_greenville.asp

Falls Park

The highlight of Greenville is Falls Park.

Falls Park is known for these falls which lie on the Reedy River. The Reedy is named as such because- well, it had a lot of reeds growning around it back in the day. Of course, these reeds have gone the way of the Cherokee that once inhabited the area- they are all gone!

The gardens at Falls park are spectacular. The land was purchased in 1967 for public use. However, the gardens didn’t start becoming realized until 1990.

Read more about Falls Park here:
http://www.fallspark.com/history.asp

Table Rock

Lots of interesting sights surround the Greenville area. One of them is the Table Rock State Park, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachians. We didn’t visit the park, but we passed by it. The rock that bears the parks name dominates the sky.

Read more:
http://www.southcarolinaparks.com/park-finder/state-park/350.aspx

Twin Falls

Twin Falls is also known as Reedy Cove Falls, Rock Falls, or Eastatoe Falls. There is about a 15 minute hike to get there through lush South Carolina forest.

Despite what it seems in the picture, the falls drop down over granite for more than 70 feet!

That concludes my South Carolina portion of my trip. Next, we headed up to North Carolina to visit the Cherokee Reservation, the Biltmore and Asheville.
More to come!

So, I’m in South Carolina for a family wedding, remember? Yeah, my cousin is getting married. So, I thought I’d post some pics of some of my family at this event.

Okay, so lets back up first. Some speculated whether my cousin would actually have the wedding or not. No, it wasn’t a matter of cold feet. My cousin got so sick with an intestinal virus that instead of going to the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding, she went to the hospital. Yeah. Okay, fast forward. She made it through the wedding. And here she is, still at the church, with her father, sister, and stepsister (bridesmaids) behind her.

She still looks pretty good even when dancing. No sign of her breaking down and puking all over the floor. This is a good thing

Me and my cousins- the bride and her sister.

My step cousin and my “baby” cousin, brothers of the bride. My baby cousin is not so baby anymore! Just home from the Army, having been stationed in Korea for over a year, he is happy to be back.

My cousin’s daughter is the cutest one in the family though!

She loves the camera! If I hold up the camera, she smiles and says “cheese!” Future model perhaps? If she’s like her mom, she has the genes!

So, my cousin is getting married. She now lives in Greenville, South Carolina. What this means? I’m spending the 4th of July with a family reunion of sorts in the South.

I began by flying to Ohio, where my mom lives. She and I drove down to South Carolina yesterday. It was a longer drive than we expected, but it was likely due to the fact that we took a slight detour to visit Cumberland Gap.

Cumberland Gap is a bit of a ways off the Interstates. But, it sounded like a fun thing to see (it involved Daniel Boone, and who doesn’t love Daniel Boone?)- so we went to see it! So, what the heck is Cumberland Gap you ask? Well, see it’s this valley that goes through the Appalachian mountains. What makes this valley particularly important, is that it breaks a stretch of the mountains that spans about miles and miles as a ridge without a gap in between, except for this one.

What does Daniel Boone have to do with Cumberland Gap? Well, he made it famous. Some people say that he discovered Cumberland Gap, but that’s incorrect. Cumberland Gap was discovered in 1750 by Dr. Thomas Walker, a Virginia physician who became an explorer. But, in reality, that is also a lie. Dr. Walker would never have found Cumberland Gap had the Cherokee and other tribes not had a trail running right through it already. They’d probably known about it for centuries.

Okay, now, back to the Daniel Boone part. Daniel Boone was famous for being an explorer. He explored Kentucky- one of the first areas to be explored beyond the original 13 colonies. His name is pretty much synonymous with the state. Boone helped bring settlers to Kentucky by making the territory more known and by leading a group through Cumberland Gap in 1775.

Anyway, this is what the Cumberland Gap looks like today.

Sometime in the 1930’s or something the white man got all egotistical and decided to build a road to what is today called the Pinnacle Overlook. This overlook provides spectacular views (duh!) over the Appalachia of 3 states- Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. I suppose this road is all well and good in the long run as it lead to the area becoming preserved as a National Historic Park. Today you can still drive that road and also enjoy the amazing views. Oh, and you can hike something like 50 miles of trails if you want to as well.

From the parking lot to the overlook you cross over the state line between Kentucky and Virginia.

And then the wonderful views.

Me with Tennessee behind me.

Anyway, that ends today’s history lesson folks! I hope you all learned a little something new In case you didn’t, here’s some reading material for ya.

Cumberland Gap
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/cuga/luckett/index.htm
http://www.nps.gov/cuga/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Gap

Daniel Boone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Boone
http://www.earlyamerica.com/lives/boone/

Stay tuned for more Southern adventures. Upcoming: Greenville, the wedding (yeah, remember, that’s why I’m here!), Asheville, the Biltmore, and hopefully the Smoky Mountains!

Winter Park
Sunday Jan 20, 2008

My dad and his wife Susan came to visit me in Colorado from Ohio for the holiday weekend. Sunday was a perfect ski day. Sunny, not too cold but not too warm, practically windless, and just one of those days you’d be silly to not enjoy.

I often ski at Winter Park, but rarely do I bother to bring a camera with me. I couldn’t resist bringing it with me on Sunday though, as I knew it was going to be one of those great days.

I knew it was going to be a great day when I got to the top of the Super Gauge chair that the chutes were open. I made sure to hit them for my first run of the day:

Hole-in-the-Wall is always my favorite. So, of course I headed there. Looking down the chute from part-way.

Looking back up the chute

Looking across the chute (pillows beckoning for someone!)

It was fantastic snow in Hole-in-the-Wall. Very few rocks were showing. It really doesn’t get much better than that!

We then headed to the Panoramic Express chair, the new 6-pack that takes you to the top of Parsenn’s Bowl. This chair replaces the old Timberline chair, which is now gone. Thoughts were that a 6-pack would eliminate the always-long-line of the dinky-double that was Timberline, but this is simply not the case. Everyone wanted to try the new chair and the line was at least a half an hour long! We didn’t want to deal with that line again so we headed over to the Eagle Wind chair. From the runs off Eagle Wind you can get a good view of the Cirque.

The side you can view is typically not open, but when it is, there’s some great lines.

While we were skiing the Eagle Wind, we could hear the ski patrollers bombing the Cirque. I was hoping it would open. I got lucky because while I was waiting for my dad at the bottom of the Eagle Wind, a ski patroller came out of the Cirque and announced it was open. To the Cirque we went.

I like the Cirque. I like it because it’s a nice pitch and because the snow is usually pretty good. Part of reason it stays good is due to the fact that the Cirque is hard to get to, and requires a 20 minute hike or skate-ski. Doing one lap requires AT LEAST two chair lift rides. This makes it difficult for people to do multiple laps.

You have to access the Cirque from the top of the new Panoramic Express. With views like this, it’s no wonder why the chair bears its name.

Couple of shots of me skiing the Cirque.

I wish I had remembered to buckle my boots before I actually skied it! Oh well, such is life

Susan

Dad on the way out of the Cirque.

Winter Park is a whole different ski area on a day like this day. It was a good day and I’m glad I brought my camera