I went snowboarding at Winter Park on Saturday with a friend, here are pictures from the top of one of the runs:
Besides the awful traffic getting there the trip was largely uneventful – the primary reason for the trip was for Evan to teach a friend of his to snowboard and I tried to mostly stick with them to help out so I didn’t get a ton of runs in. That said, I had a good time and taking it slow was not a bad idea considering I hadn’t been on a snowboard in over two years.
Last week I went to Yellowstone National Park with my family. Besides a few souvenir magnets I came back with 2443 pictures/videos from the trip (only 399 were ones I took) to sort through. I’ll start with the best of the wildlife pictures.
We started our trip with a night spent in Jackson and a day trip through Grand Teton National Park. It was raining on and off (and the clouds mostly hid the mountains the entire time we were there), but there was a traffic jam due to a black bear eating something from the bushes off the side of the road. I walked forward to see why traffic was stopped and got a couple pictures and a short video of the bear just as the park ranger showed up to tell us that we were way too close to that bear and should get back in our cars and get moving.
We stopped at the entrance to Yellowstone to take a picture with the sign. The parking area overlooked a stream that contained several ducks and a trumpeter swan. I think this was the only swan we saw:
On the way into Yellowstone we had our first elk sighting across a meadow. We stopped the car at the first pullout and walked back at least a quarter of a mile to a good viewing point. We got to listen to the elk bugle and saw an elk with an impressive set of antlers, but the sun had gone down and the lighting wasn’t great for taking pictures. When we gave up on the lighting and walked back to the car we got there just in time to see an elk munching on the grass maybe twenty feet from the car. While we watched it looked down the road then strolled out in front of a tour bus, watched all traffic stop, then went on its way.
On the way from where we sighted the elk through the park to the west exit (we spent three nights outside the west side of the park) we were stopped suddenly due to a solitary bison crossing the road (based on barely-visible dark lumps it was rejoining the herd). Unfortunately no pictures were taken at that time. The next bison sighting was on the way into the park the next morning. Traffic was backed up for quite a ways due to this single bison in the field by the road:
That afternoon we headed up to the town of Mammoth for food and to stop at the visitor center and found out they have a whole herd of elk that have discovered just how tasty the grass that they mow is. The rangers were out to keep people back to prevent direct interaction with the wild creatures but we got a bunch of pictures:
After wandering the town and nearby hot springs it had started to snow but was still light enough we detoured to see Old Faithful before leaving the park for the night. On the way south to get there we saw another lone bison, this one out in the cold getting snowed on, and a small herd of bison obstructing the road. Bison make grunting noises: we got to listen to them while we took pictures and waited for a chance to drive past.
The next day was again rainy, so we cheated a bit to check off a few more animals from our list: we visited the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone. Naturally, they have a number of grizzly bears and wolves to watch. Highlights of the visit included:
We spent the afternoon in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone area and didn’t see any more notable animals. The next morning, however, we had a couple pronghorn wander through the yard of the cabin we were staying at.
We spent the day wandering through the geyser basins on the way to the Old Faithful area. One stretch of road had a whole herd of bison clustered around it, but otherwise we didn’t take much time for the animals that day.
Since I have a bunch of good pictures of some of the animals here are collections by animal:
This last Monday (Labor Day) I hiked Pike’s Peak with a couple of my coworkers.
We met at the incline shuttle parking a little before 6:00 AM (when the shuttle is supposed to start, but it was about ten minutes late). The alternative was trying to find parking up Ruxton Avenue, but it was a holiday weekend and we expected the mountain to be crowded. It wasn’t that bad on Barr Trail, but there wasn’t any parking by the time the shuttle dropped us off. We hit the trail at about 6:20 just before the sun came up:
Also, Labor Day is when the hot air balloon festival is, so we had a distant view of the balloons as we ascended the first part of the trail:
Barr Trail is about 13 miles total distance and a bit under 8000 ft of elevation gain. The first half ascends steeply for about 3.5 miles then somewhat levels off, rising again just before Barr Camp (at ~6.5 miles, 10,000 ft elevation). Besides the sunrise and balloons we saw a deer (I didn’t get a picture), but it was otherwise an uneventful couple of hours of hiking. We paused briefly at Barr Camp (which was well populated) to eat a snack and dig out warmer clothes before continuing on up to A-Frame:
A-Frame is an open structure just below timberline. It’s about 9 miles up the trail and near 12,000 ft elevation. We reached it at 11:00 AM, about 4.5 hours into our hike, and took the opportunity for another snack break.
The last 3 miles took the longest: another 3 hours, putting us at the top at just before 2:00 PM for a total ascent time of 8.5 hours.
The top of Pike’s Peak is a somewhat unique experience among 14ers: there’s a gift shop and you can buy donuts. We pretty quickly got inside out of the cold, ate a couple donuts, used the facilities, and discussed getting back down. I was the only one inclined to hike back down: my coworkers hitchhiked thanks to the fact that there’s a road that goes up to the summit house (there’s also the cog railway, but you have to buy a ticket for that).
I was feeling pretty good when I started back down: my only concern was getting below timberline before the forecast rain (and potential lightning). I started down at about 2:30 PM, jogged a bit when the trail was open and smooth, and made timberline at about 3:30 PM. I was still doing well there, though I was getting lower on water than I wanted (I started with 3.5 liters, only had a liter left at this point). Unfortunately, jogging down large stretches of the three miles from there to Barr Camp wearing hiking boots left the bottom of my feet hurting and tired me out. I finally got back to the trailhead at about 6:45 PM, having spent about 12.5 hours on the mountain.
I had my fitbit on for the hike. I racked up a bit over 56,000 steps for the day (it registered that as 27 miles, though I never calibrated my stride length) and 811 floors worth of altitude gain. That got me all the daily floors badges (the highest one is 700 floors for the “Rainbow” badge but there are apparently daily step badges for 60,000 steps and maybe more. I at least got the “Platform Shoe” badge for 55,000 steps in a day.
I didn’t get pictures of the deer early in the hike (didn’t think of it in time) or the softball-sized hornet nest by the trail a short distance above Barr Camp (wasps came out when I stopped to look at it, I decided to jog for a bit), but I did get a few decent wildlife pictures:
