Daylight Shortage Time...An Endorphin Fueled Christmas Muse

I was inspired by a recent blog post entitled, "Slowing Time," where friend Juliet addresses how she deals with life's anxieties and pressures. Her thoughts are especially relevant this time of year.

"Recollections and Refueling" Part II

Bobbie and I paused to take in the above view after having conquered what we thought was all, or at least most, of the day's elevation gain. The mountain skyline was both stunning and familiar. On the far right a sliver of 13,208 foot Hayden Mountain; not enough fingers to count how many times we've summited that beast...from both the Yankee Boy and Clear Lake side.

Recollections and "Refueling" On The Mountain

Only in silence can we hear the one true voice that really matters...

A Seven-ish Mile Snow-hike With Caleb and Kelli

Son, Caleb, and dotter-in-law, Kelli, wanted to squeeze in one more snow-hike before they left to spend Christmas with her parents in Osage Beach, Missouri.

Friendly Skies

With repairs/closures on the Million Dollar Highway between Lovely Ouray and Red Mountain Pass, we were forced to seek alternative snowshoe playgrounds...preferably some "new dots."

Thanksgiving: Going At The Speed Of A Thousand Smiles An Hour

In a speed-of-light world that oft seems to be racing toward demise, we all need a constant...something steadfast to hold on to as the years race by. For me it is our far flung Family.  

"Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world"

Lord Almighty. What is today, Wednesday...Thursday? And what timezone? Finally, we get to settle down on Lovely Ouray's home turf...

Transitions and Reverse Migrations: Confessions Of A Half-Time Rv'er

It would take too long and too much of your precious time to button up all our boondocking/biking/hiking/exploring experiences in Southwest Utah over the past month. Thus I've dealt the preponderance of drivel and photographic minutiae the same fate as poor Anne Boleyn's head. You're welcome. 

Break On Through Conclusion: Plus a digression on "How we are loving our favorite National Park to Death"

Last you read, a foursome of bewildered over-the-hill Geezers were four hours invested in a farcical attempt to orienteer a wilderness back-country loop-route around "the mountain."  Why? Because two of us knew it had been done before, and because it was there...like, defiant and thus oh so tempting.

"Break on through to the other side," or, How To Lose Brand New Hiking Buddies

You know the day destroys the night

Night divides the day

Tried to run

Tried to hide

Break on through to the other side

Break on through to the other side

Break on through to the other side, yeah

Break on through to the other side...The Doors

Reflections on 68

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.” George Orwell, 1984

Riding the JEM from Camp V

When its All Been Said and Done: Escaping repetitive Rv travel-blog treadmills

I never tire of meandering Zion's red pavement. Somehow, the park wouldn't be so divine without it...

A Random Canyon Hike After The Rain

The Rain, The Park and Other Things...

New Non-Zion "Dots" Beyond Yankee Doodle Gorge

Carpe Diem

On Rage

"Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself...as if they are showing you the way. Donald Miller

The Inhuman Race

"A dream which comes true leads to other dreams." Alpinist Gaston Rebuffat, Starlight and Storm

With Apologies To Lennon and McCartney

Never overlook an opportunity to overlook Lovely Ouray...

Looking Back With Gratitude; Looking Forward With Anticipation —

Gratitude: An attitude of appreciation and reverence for all things past — the munificence of downhill glides as well as the lessons of uphill ascents. 
Anticipation: Looking forward to Gratitude.

Above the Fray on a Beautiful Fall Day

Fall came mid-September this year, early by a couple weeks. But aspen and oak brush colors have been in a brilliant and beautiful holding pattern. I wish I could say the same for the forecast, as today is the first of 10 to 12 days of rain, then snow, followed by more rain and dismal grey clouds that tend to suffocate needy outdoor types. Could be the time has come to bail Goldie out of jail.

Another "Colorado Boy" Autumn Hike

"Every leaf a flower..."

Shagging Dat Twin Peak Monkey: Exorcisims On The Trail

Wilderness: An escape in which the vexed inner self dissolves into a serene outer reality. 

Head Over Heels Part II...The Fun Begins Where The Trail Ends

"Remind me to get my depth perception checked," I said to Bobbie, who either couldn't hear me over her grunts and groans and heavy breathing, or couldn't care less about anything I had to say while battling a ridiculous slope of slip-slide talus. 

Head Over Heels, Literally and Metaphorically

We are taken by surprise on Tuesday's drive over Red Mountain Pass, looking for some new "dots" to add to our grid. Autumn colors are about to peak, earlier than usual by a week or more. Even though it happens every year, the kid in me can't help feeling it's brand new.

Blind Faith

There was no turning back. Gasping for breath, lost in a surreal swirl of clouds that spawned flashes of lightning and chest-rattling thunder, we'd come too far, worked too hard, and suffered the worst in an attempt to claim El Diente's summit.

Woods Lake to Navajo Lake

Stretching both my legs and the limits of a senescent memory on a lonely Woods Lake trail, I recalled how, even as a child, it never took long to outgrow my front yard and neighborhood. I must have been four or five when we moved to an almost new tract-home on La Mirada street in south Phoenix. Only a few blocks distant, South Mountain filled the frame of our living room's "picture window," as did the flash-boom summer monsoon lightning storms that discharged on its rocky ridge-lines.

Tranquility In Paradise Basin

Well, it's not far down to paradise, at least it's not for me

And if the wind is right you can sail away and find tranquility

Oh the canvas can do miracles, just you wait and see

Believe me...

A song by Christoper Cross

When the cure is worse than the disease...

A couple days after our Camp Bird Road exploit, Leon wants us to ride our bikes over to Log Hill and race each other to the top. Oh how he loves to beat me up on that ascent.

Macho-Geezers Tackle Camp Bird Road

"There are no limits, only plateaus. And you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." Bruce Lee

Martha drops by, and Leon swims two lakes on one hike...

Last week a longtime friend, Martha, came up from Albuquerque to spend a week with her daughter in Montrose. It had been a while since Martha had hiked a mountain, let alone above timberline. So she called Bobbie. Who better to call for an alpine "fix?"

Minnie Gulch

Imagine skimming along at 13,000 feet, an undulating path underfoot. You're alone, above timberline, above the urban fray of political bullshitters, tedious Face-bookers and mass murdering psychopaths...above all the sordid megalomanic news of corporate greed and corruption. I tell ya, folks, now more than ever, depleted spirits cry out in desperate need of a wilderness recharge. Nothing—not drugs, alcohol or money—fills empty vessels with peace and contentment quite like a lonely alpine trail.

A Tale of Two Hikes: Conclusion...

This planet is becoming too populated. Just as birds have wings to fly a crowded nest, man has legs to seek out solitude and wilderness.

Lost and Found on Shaky Ground: A Tale of Two Hikes...

Maybe it's time for a hearing test, or maybe a listening test. Whatever. Who am I to point a finger... 

A Routine Courthouse Climb

"If you never test your limits, how will you know what they are?"  Lene Gammelgaard, A Woman's Account Of Surviving The Everest Tragedy.

Climbing Duco: An Exercise in Mental and Physical Maintenance

"I discovered a passion to live my days fully, a conviction that will sustain me like sweet water on the periodically barren plain of our short lives.”  Jonathan Waterman

Red Mountain 3 to Red Mountain 2: A Gobsmacked Ridge-Run

We had all day to play above timberline. No threat of thunder and lightning, just deep blue sky overlaid with a smattering of vaporous white clouds, and a carpet of endless rolling tundra to hike on... now all greened up from recent monsoons. Perfect time to dig something out of the ole bucket of lists and get 'er done...

"Soberly Astonished" on The Ridge to Gilpin

“Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?” ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

The Missing Peace; and Stellar Light, Shadow and Color on Gilpin Ridge...

"What we want from art is whatever is missing from the lives we are already living... Something is always missing. Jane Hirshfield

One Hike, Two Lakes and Four Tired Legs...Oh, and one pair of Ptarmigan, but not in a Pear Tree

I sent out invitations to a few friends to join us for a hike to Bullion King Lake and beyond. Bobbie and I have been itching to try the "beyond" part—up and over the saddle/pass above Bullion King basin—a cross-county search for Columbine Lake. In the ineffable words of Gomer Pyle, "sir-prize, sir-prize, sir-prize;"  Nobody responded to my invitation. Maybe it was the vague wording...or the distinct possibility of an endless, high altitude traipse across tundra and scree and boulders that ends with a 911 call...

A Gem of an Idea

"Time itself is our tragedy and most of us are fighting some kind of war with it."  The Faraway Nearby, Rebecca Solnit

When Words Fail...A pictorial essay from an extraordinary rove Into new territory

Perspective is such a relative construct. When in a room indoors we sense the boundaries and fill it to the brim with self. Only when outdoors, on top of a mountain, can we realize that we are not the story. Just a ripple from a pebble tossed into the sea.

Chasing The Muse On Bear Creek Trail

"You can't always get what you want...but if you try sometimes, well you just might find, you get what you need." Rolling Stones

A Soaring Ascent Up Mount Abram...because it's there and because we still can and because we still remember the way

"Stories are compasses...we navigate by them, build our sanctuaries and prisons out of them. To be without a story is to be lost in the vastness of a world that spreads in all directions like arctic tundra..." The Faraway Nearby, by Rebecca Solnit

Silence Is Golden

My story-garden oft goes untended during summertime. The hoe becomes rusty lying in untended dirt. Long days beckon. Priorities shift to play. Time slips into the future. Weeds overtake produce.  

The price of admission

“I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect.”  Sophocles

Bad News/Good News: Senator Beck Trail to Ptarmigan Lake

As with Life, there are no shortcuts to where we're headed.

Part II of Red Mountain 1...

There is no better place to reunite with who we are, what we're made of and to better understand our limits than mountains and wilderness. 

"Jesus Loves Me This I know;" Gray-Copper Gulch to Red Mountain #1 Summit

Bobbie had to work yesterday so I would be flying solo. I was in desperate need of a summit and not just any summit would do. No, I needed a mind-blowing, Land of Oz, come to sweet Jesus and weep kind of summit.