elk porn

I have been talking a lot about my old coaches lately. Quite frankly, I grew up around a lot of really freaking cool and inspiring people. None more so than my telemark coach and good friend, Ken. Ken has the hunting knack. Often we will be going along and he’ll wisper, "Do you see them?" Um, no. Well we don’t even need to be hiking to do that. He held a party at his house, so we came, exhaustion and all. On the way down from the car, I could have sworn I heard a bugle but I shook it off as a hallucination. The food and company were great, but right in the middle, I see Ken and a group of guys gathered facing the hill near my car. "You see them?" Ken was saying. For the next half hour we all stared at the elk heard, which were calling in full force. Finally threats of a rainstorm and a beautiful Colorado light show pulled us back onto the porch, but not before I took one last look.

Stairway to heaven

My dad started singing it as we came around the corner. After a week of freezing predawn hikes, this one was the opposite – mid day and hot! We were climbing sand mountain and there is definitely a reason for the name. After reaching the top and looking down, the cliffs were sand! I would say that it wouldn’t be very good climbing – slightly chaucy.

After the hike, we went back to the ranch to do one last check and go for a swim in the pond, which despite the warm weather was still seriously freezing!

Lazy afternoon... NOT!

After dancing with elk all morning, I thought about taking it easy, I really did. I promise! But instead I called another one of my old ski coaches, Aryea Copa and went downhill biking. I have never been lift service downhill biking on a real course designed for high speeds and air. I didn’t know what to expect. You know what? It was awesome!!! Whipping the bike side to side eyeing the berm, having my tires stick when I would have never thought they would. It was great. You can definitely sign me up for going again!

Wapiti

The indian name for elk. We have been chasing after Wapiti. The way the word sounds feels like a long journey. Not just finding an elk, but searching for Wapiti. If they hear you, good luck. If they are bedded down, they are like ghosts. Twenty of them can disappear into the landscape like leaves on the trees. Even if you stalk into a herd, if the wind is wrong and they get one whiff, they are gone.

Our morning hours of hunting have been getting earlier and earlier. This morning, we get up at 2:30am and prep for one of our favorite spots. The hike is a 3 mile uphill climb. The moon illuminates the night as my breath rattles, and I chug uphill. I have a strange feeling, an anticipation, and when I start to hear the bugles, my skin tingles. I feel alive, really alive when I hear an elk bugle. There is nothing that make me more alert, especially at 4am. We push on just below the summit where we plan to wait for legal shooting time, 30 minutes before sunrise when there is just enough light to see.

We stare at the top of a ridge, our destination with anticipation. At 6:00 we start moving. Slowly. Silently. Stopping every couple of steps to look and listen, we inch along. There is no sign of the Wapiti at the top of the ridge, so Ken and I start a traverse, following the sound of a bugle. Ten feet along the ridge, Ken freezes. Past him in the brambles I see what stops him – a giant antler rack, no wait two. The two bulls are in so thick in the brambles that all we can see are their antlers as they attempt to rub the velvet off. Ken motions for me to stalk. For the next five minutes I move down the trail to them, shaking a bit more than I want, but hey, I am twenty yards away from two giant Wapiti bulls! Before I can see more than their heads, the wind shifts and they catch me.

It isn't game over yet as we move further along the ridge and see some elk moving in our direction. We run a football buttonhook down through the trees to get into position with the wind in our faces and wait for the herd to cross on the game trail. Some of them go right where I want them to, but unfortunately none of the ones in my shooting range are legal. They are all spikes! Spikes are adolescent bulls that only have one antler point on each side. It is illegal and unethical to shoot them because they are, well, dumber than cows and bulls. The bulls head down the fenceline until they wind me and run. Such a Wapiti thing to do.

Skillz

After waking up from a nap this morning, we went to visit my ski coach, Matt. Matt is another unique Steamboat anomaly. A skilled ski jumper, alpine racer, telemarker, amazing carpenter and artist, a chef, and one of those guys that could probably run a marathon off the couch; Matt is Steamboat minus a frame. His wife, Sandy is an equally impressive climber, bronze sculptor and telemark skier. Together, their family is quite a group of prodigies. So we spent the afternoon sharing paddleboard designs, discussing elk and catching up. Right in the middle I look through the window and one of their sons, Sawyer, 3, is riding his bike over a teeter totter with some older friends who are UNICYCLING the plank. I did a double take, then remembered that, oh yeah, I’m back in the Boat!

No Sleep

Well that is generally the rule of hunting. You get up at the crack of dawn, hike up a mountain, stalk quietly all day, then descend and get ready for the next day before passing out. Last night we did a night hunt, and it started raining.  Cold rain. I thought that I was going to be miserable because I didn’t bring many layers. I know, smart. But, fortunately, I stayed pretty dry under my pine tree, and before I knew it, the sound of the rain had me falling asleep. About an hour later, I wake up to my dad telling me that it is past shooting time, and that we had to get ready for the morning. Good thing I was the only one who fell asleep.

This morning, though, it was beautiful. I woke at 4am and we headed out to another special hunting spot. And fell asleep. I woke up, hiked to the spot where we wait to hear elk bugles. And fell asleep. I woke up and decided that we should try a stalk. We stalked into a mud wallow, didn’t see anything, so we retreated to a different spot. Nothing. The next spot. All quiet. The sky was blue, the sun was out, and the mountains were beautiful. I fell asleep. I would say that it was a good morning.

Day off?

Sore and tired, we decided to sleep in, you know, until 6:00. Once awake, seeing the beautiful blue sky (do I really get to come back home to this?!), we decided it was no use to rest, so we headed up to the ranch to work on a few things At least we thought that it was going to be a few things. Wood needed to be stacked, mousetraps set and some beaver dams taken apart. The bridge that my dad and I built two summers ago was almost under water. The beaver dams needed to go, nuff said.

We set off taking out sticks and quickly realized that this dam was much more serious than the one we took down the summer before. There were rocks, mud and twigs going every which way and the only thing we could do was keep digging and pulling.

And digging. And digging. We finally opened a flow and lowered the creek. With my knee and back aching and my dad’s back injury, there was nothing left to do at the cabin but play a few rounds of ping pong and darts. I lost both. Hmph… 

An early walk

Finally back in Steamboat, my dad and I woke up at 4:00am for some sunriking with bows, AKA hunting. We packed and headed out to one of our favorite spots. Unfortunately the weather and lunar cycle for my planned week of epic bow hunting isn't the greatest. It is hot – really hot, meaning the elk aren't gathering into their herds, but are spread out in ones and twos. The moon is full, meaning that the elk are up partying all night and sleeping all day, and we aren’t quite into the rut (mating) yet, so the elk aren’t bugling a ton. Other than that, the timing was perfect, so my dad and I set off hiking, sniffing the air and looking for any deep tan or brown colors amongst the trees. Hiking is one thing. Bushwhacking is another. Bushwhacking while trying to keep the wind in your face, flexing every micro muscle to make as little noise as possible, and wondering all the while “if I were an elk…” is downright exhausting. Within the first twenty minutes, I was sweating through my shirt. By the thirtieth, crunched leaves made me cringe, and every broken stick felt like a stab. A bird flew and I jumped; a squirrel cackled and I barely stayed on my feet. After four hours or so of tiptoeing, I started looking at my feet, just following my dad. The next thing I knew, I saw the only catch of the day – a moose shed (moose shed their antlers before winter). No bugles or fresh elk poop, but a nice shed for the buffet table my dad and I built and a good workout before one in the afternoon. My peanutbutter and jelly never tasted so good.

A golden visit

After the bike trip and seeing Hannah off to Nepal :(, I headed to Steamboat via Golden where my brother is going to school for engineering. I made almost all of the furniture for the pebble, my off campus house back at school, but after seeing Ben’s place I realize that I have a long way to go. 

Some Colorado rock

After waking up the next morning to the same amazing view, we made our descent back to the cars. By the time we reached the cars and drove back to Frisco, a serious altitude headache had set in along with some wonderful nausea. Since sitting and moping over my altitude hangover wasn’t going to do me any good, we went to a local crag to get some climbing. Even with a pounding head, this crag has been my favorite so far. There was a bit of everything and even some sunshine!

Altitude... Psh!

After staying up past 1AM, giving my house a last scrub down, mowing the lawn and hopping on a bus to Boston, I was en route to Denver for a week and a half of fun. I passed out for the entire flight, was picked up at the airport by Hannah and slept the hour and a half to Frisco. After dinking around a bit and getting more shuteye, it was time.

After leaving Boston at about 100 ft elevation, flying, arriving sleep deprived, the smartest thing to do is definitely to bike seven miles uphill at 8,000 ft elevation. I thought so at the beginning of the ride at least. By the time we got to our destination, the Peter Estin 10th Mountain Hut, the metallic taste of lactic acid was the only thing that I could think about, then the view hit me. Everything was so crisp – the light, air, view and even the smell. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the big C-O until that point. From where I was lying slightly comatose, I was glad that I could spend it staring at such a breathtaking sight.

Sleep?

The midnight fun saga

Once again it amazes me how college has changes my sleeping habits. I always want to sleep, but for some reason, things like midnight bouldering trump shuteye. So there I was, hiking with Tim, Abby, Andrew, and David to one of our favorite local crags with Joby spotlights in tow. After traversing a bit and setting up the lights, we started a nice game of add on that culminated with Andrew realizing that he was going to be late for work. We packed up, ran to the car and sped off. I think I almost swallowed my stomach on one of the rubber screeching turns, but he made it to work on time, and we got a nice rush of adrenaline. I hope it wears off soon, because I’m tired!

The gang is back!

Guess who is back, back, back? Back again, again, again? Tim and Abby are back, back, back. Tell a friend, friend friend.

At least warn your friends because the gang is back together getting into shenanigans, being loud and livin’ it up! Today, we went to Rumney, and had a great time fooling around. The plan was to come back by 3:00 PM, but by the time we got back it was well near 6:00. Oh well, I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

Introducing... lead climbing!

Andrew was tired from writing some paper (what’s that?), and all I wanted to do was climb. A lot. For the past week it rained, and it was finally nice out; so I was ready to crush. All right, maybe not crush, but climb a bunch of routes at least. To be honest, I was craving some serious pump. So when I had my harness on, shoes on and the rope flaked in front of metamorphosis, a pretty long 8 at one of our favorite crags, Andrew gave a sly remark that maybe I should lead it. Up until today, I have been only following climbs that Andrew and Hannah have done, which means that I have been on toprope. Leading is essentially a much scarier version; especially if you afraid of heights, but what the heck, I was going to have to suck it up eventually. I grabbed the quickdraws, gave Andrew his belay device and told him fine, so thus began my day of lead climbing. It wasn’t pretty, but so far I have gone as far as sending a 10a and am working on a 10c, which I’m pretty sure I can do if my fear of heights is having a good day.

YOLO my style

Peer pressure and I have a love hate relationship. Since my friend group is pretty awesome, whatever I am getting pressured into usually isn’t in any way harmful. Usually though, it is at an hour that I would rather be sleeping, which to be fair is almost any hour of the day. So when I was convinced to go to The Dark Knight Rises Again, I knew that I was going to have to get payback. The next day I had my opportunity. After climbing all morning, Andrew was ready to laze around for the afternoon, but the wind was perfect, and I knew that it would probably be the last chance to sail for the summer. “You know,” I told Andrew, “College is a chance to do things that you wouldn’t have otherwise done at the spur of the moment,” which was basically a satirical version of what he had told me about going to the movies. Guess what? It worked, and I don’t think either of us regretted it one bit. 

New climbing getup

I got tired of tucking my shirt into my harness to climb. It is just a hassle – it gets in the way of clipping, and I was ready for something simpler. What I landed on, pretty much sums up my climbing lifestyle. I now climb in a pair of Carhartt jumpers, that is a pair of overall-shorts. Styling, don’t you think?

Rodeo clipping, sending, and pumping out

There is a lot of climbing lingo that I have been throwing around lately, so I will give an attempt to clarify it all.

Climbing: the act of scaling something (including on-campus churches)

Climbing shoes: Elf shoes that have magic rubber to let you stick to the wall. They are two sizes smaller than your feet and make you climb better because all you want to do is get down so that you can take them off.

Bouldering: the act of climbing something pretty short without ropes

Problem: many meanings, but the only one you want to hear when climbing is a bouldering problem as in a route up a boulder

Chalk: The amazing stuff that keeps your hands from getting greasy – blow it off your fingertips in the middle of a climb to feel extra badass.

Belay: If you don’t know that this is the person who makes sure that you don’t hit the ground when rope climbing, please go to a climbing class.

Sport: the act of climbing something that already has bolts and anchors – you clip quickdraws into the bolt then the rope

Quickdraw: a piece of webbing with two carabiners

Crag: a cliff wall with many routes – usually has an entertaining name

Flake: not a climbing partner who bailed, but setting up the rope in a way so that it doesn’t tangle

Lead: to put the draws in as you go = scary!

5.8: a warm-up difficulty rating – goes up to 5.15, which is nuts.

Project: a route or bouldering problem that you are working on

PUMP: the feeling of lactic acid solidifying in your forearms – yummy!

Take: to have your belayer bring in the slack and hold you so that you can rest, scream, cry a little, and give your belayer a wedgie.

To derp: what it sounds like – the guttural version of I just made a fool of myself on a climb

Stickclip: to put the first quickdraw in with a stick – entertainment at its finest

Rodeo clip: what Andrew is demonstrating below on his project. He is swinging the rope so that it will force the beaner to open and he will have protection of the first four moves.

Send: He goes on, not only to casually rodeo clip the bolt, which is mostly impossible, but to send the problem, meaning that he doesn’t take at all and works through the pump.

SUP shenanigans

There is a reason that I love SUPing that I haven’t told you yet. It makes me feel like a little kid, and who doesn’t want to feel like a little kid? After getting a little paddling in on my new Boardworks downriver board, Andrew and I couldn’t help but start to test the fact that you can stand really close to the edge and not dump thanks to the stabilizers. What is a reasonable thing to do? Backflips, of course! I felt like a little kid, but after an hour of jumping and scrambling back onto the board, I would say that my knees felt my age again.