D.J. Photo

2010-01-29T16:32:00.000-08:00

PHASE 3,
DENVER, CO TO ACME, WA
7/25/9
I got Kriss to the airport several hours early and headed west. I was hoping to hit a few attractions and maybe another brewpub or two on the way home, but after loosing my wallet I was just ready to be home. Not only that but with only $200.00 to my name I had to be frugal. This was when I decided to break one of my only rules for the trip. I went to a McDonalds and ate fast food for the first time in a month. Sure enough, it was just as bad as I remembered.

It was colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra most of the morning and when it did finally warm up I took off my rain gear just in time to ride into two storms back to back. I followed I-70 west out of Denver to hwy 40 which I followed into Utah

all the way to Heber City where I paid $20.00 to pitch a tent in Wasatch Mt. State Park. Am I just a cheap ass, or does $20.00 seem like a lot of money to pitch a tent?
Somewhere along hwy 40 the sky was full of hot air balloons.

7/26/9
At about 6:30 in the morning I headed north on 40/189 until I had to ride Interstates 80 and 84 for about 50 miles. In Ogden I located hwy 39 and headed east. I absolutely loved this road, it's a twisted mountain pass with nary a cage in sight.
Eventually I worked my way into Idaho via hwy 16 and 30

It was my intention to ride north on 34, cross into armpit, I'm sorry, I mean Wyoming, back into ID via hwy 26, then west on 31. Despite my intentions, I made my first real navigational error of the trip when I missed my turn in Soda Springs and didn't realize my mistake until I nearly reached Lava Hot Springs 22 miles away. This left me with the choice of turning around and backtracking 20 miles so I can take a longer route, or continue on a route that is shorter to begin with, but I was avoiding due to an interstate. I chose to break another of my rules and ride about 100 miles north on I-15.

As I rode the last 25 or so miles of I-15 before my exit I was staring directly at some very ominous looking clouds over the mountains. Turning west onto hwy 33 looked better, but I was still unsure of what was ahead. I was originally hoping to camp somewhere in the Lemhi Valley on hwy 28 but I was feeling great and it was early so as long as the weather didn't do me in I was going to keep riding and try to make Montana.

As I rode through the Lemhi Valley I had a rather eerie experience. The highway would follow along one side of the valley for a few miles, then switch to the other side for a few miles, then repeat. That in itself wasn't so strange as the fact that every time the road switched from one side of the valley to the other it would be weaving around a thunder storm. I rode past at least five storms, alternating from my left to right, watching lightning from each one hit the valley floor, and barely got wet. I don't know how the engineers figured that one out, but I will always know it as the "valley of the road that avoids storms."

As I entered Salmon ID a very nice dude in a pickup flashed me a couple times, so I took appropriate measures. Sure enough, just around the corner was the town welcome wagon. I just smiled and waved at the nice officer as I turned north on hwy 93 and headed over Lost Trail Pass into Montana.

By this time I had ridden somewhere around 550 miles for the day, it was still kinda early, and I was still feeling great. I last fueled up in Salmon and knew I could make it to Missoula on a tank so I figured I would ride out one more tank and then fuel up again and camp just outside Missoula.
Once I made it to Missoula I refueled, ate another slime burger from whatever forgettable fast food joint it was I stopped at and continued north on hwy 93 looking for a good place to pitch my tent. This part I didn't plan too well. The road construction on hwy 93 and the lack of camping on Indian reservations both conspired against me and next thing I know it's getting late and another thunderstorm is right over head.
Looking at my map, the nearest campsite is a short way out of the way on hwy 135, so I turn south with my fingers crossed as the first couple drops of rain start to fall. About a mile down the road the rain stops, and about 5 later I get to a campsite which is, thankfully, nearly empty.

The whole time I was setting up my tent I could hear the clap of thunder. About five minutes after I put all my gear in the tent I went to get water and I felt the first drop of rain. I knew the storm had followed me so I hurried back to the tent and within 5 minutes of the first drop there was an absolute deluge going on outside. I was immediately concerned about the "junior" tent I was using. I have never been in this kind of rain with it. Next thing I know it starts to drip. It's only been a few minutes of really hard rain and I'm already getting wet!!! I gathered my sleeping bag, electronics, and anything I didn't want wet and put it in the middle of the tent with my rain jacket over it. I then put on my riding gear to try to keep myself dry. Since this was to be my last night on the road I collected any absorbent cloth that I didn't need the next day and used most of it to make a dam on the uphill side of the tent between the wall and my pile of "dry" gear. I then used the rest to wipe as much water off the walls as I could.
After about a half hour of this I realized that the trees were protecting me from the wind so it would probably be more effective to lay my raincoat over the tent. This worked well enough that about an hour later, when the storm calmed a bit more I was able to fall asleep.
While kneeling in the tent trying to stay dry it occurred to me that I had just ridden nearly 750 miles in 13 hours. This is the longest time I've spent on the Fizzy and if it weren't for the storm and the dark I felt I could have ridden all the way home.

7/27/9
I woke early in the morning thankful that it was summer and warm because my sleeping bag was totally soaked. Along with just about everything else except for the few clothes I would need for the day and my electronic devices. Lucky that. I packed up my gear and headed back to hwy 200 west.

In Thompson Falls I saw a little cafe and after a couple of days of fast food I decided to stop for a decent breakfast. When I walked in I saw tables to the left and on the right was a counter where several old men sat telling fishing stories and what not. I of course chose a stool at the counter in the hopes of striking a conversation with one of the locals. When I sat down you could hear a pin drop. The old man sitting next to me immediately turned his back to me and went on with his conversation as if I wasn't there. Well not so much as if I wasn't there, because he was making a point of showing that he wished I wasn't there. I have never felt like more of an outsider than I did in that little cafe. The up side was that this experience helped me realize just how hospitable everyone else I met on this trip was.

Before long I found myself entering back into Idaho.

This far north Idaho is only a little over 60 miles across, so it didn't take long and I was back in my home state. (Unfortunately no picture, the welcome sign is high above the road over a busy intersection.)
As soon as I got into Washington I turned onto hwy 20 and shortly after was climbing up the first of six mountain passes I would have to cross before getting home. I've not seen a name for this pass, but it is between Tiger and Park Rapids. The next passes are Sherman Pass, Wauconda Summit, Loup Loup Summit, Washington Pass, and Rainy Pass.
As I was riding down the west side of Rainy Pass I saw a full bagger Harley on the side of the road and I waved as always. I was pleased to see him wave back but I could see in his face that something wasn't right, so I flipped a, I mean turned around and went back. Turns out the guy had just T-boned a "Bambi." Not only did he manage to keep it up, but I could hardly see the dent in the fender that he was complaining about. He was shaken, but otherwise fine and told me he was just waiting around for the return of a ranger he spoke to so he could help locate the deer. So I wished him luck and continued on my way.

Almost home now and I can't wait to see my lovely wife. With less than 50 miles left to go I enter Rockport St. Park and think to myself, while rolling at 85, that I've seen a lot of cops through here, maybe I should slow down. The second I did a WSP came around the corner. That was a great bit of luck to cap off one of the best trips I've ever taken.

Rhetorical question....How exactly does a bug get smashed on a gauge face?

DISCLAIMER: While I realize it sounds like I was riding around Colorado in a drunken stupor. I would like to say that I don't in any way condone drinking and driving, much less riding. Rarely did we travel more than about 100 miles on a day that included a brewery, and there was always ample time between having a beer and getting on the bike. One of the beautiful things about taking 4 weeks for a trip like this was that we could spend 3 or 4 hours in a restaurant BS'ing with the locals and not feel like we had to be anywhere.

CORRECTIONS AND FORGOTTEN STORIES: The worst part of me losing my wallet was the fact that I also lost a week’s worth of trip notes. Those notes would have allowed me a lot more detail in this story. For the beer connoisseurs out there, I would have had detailed descriptions of the beers I tried including IBU's, ABV, OG, etc. I also had some good notes concerning the food we found in various places. Some of those micro breweries were more notable for their food than their beer.
One thing I got wrong that Kriss was kind enough to point out was Breckenridge Brewery. I had tried their IPA in a bottle somewhere else and it was one of my favorites. What I didn't remember was that when we went to their brewery the beers we had were horrible. They tasted like vanilla, and the food left a bit to be desired as well.
One story I forgot all together took place in Florrisant. It was Friday night after the bar that sponsored the blue grass festival was closed and we were sitting around a camp fire with the Florrisant Fossils and a bunch of locals. One of the guys there was named Lee and he was a biker from way back. As a matter of fact, he was a 1%, the type that intimidated the hell out of me about 20 years ago when I was just starting to ride. This guy had so many riding stories to tell that by the end of the night I realized that it wasn't a series of stories so much as a recounting of a lifetime. I have spent so much of the last 20 years avoiding this type of biker that it was almost a shock to be talking to one who was pushing 80 and was so very kind and polite. It made me feel silly to think that someone like this gentle old man ever intimidated me. But then, I'm sure he has changed a lot over the years.
A lesson learned is to ensure I have some sort of back up funds available for future trips. For years I’ve been using one of those plastic packing slip envelopes that shipping companies stick to packages to hold paperwork. I would place my registration in the envelope and stick it to the bottom of my seat. In the future I will also be putting a credit card in this envelope just in case.

2010-01-19T15:50:00.000-08:00

PHASE 2,
COLORADO

WOO HOO!! This is the day I get to see my wife! But alas, her flight doesn't arrive until early evening.

So I guess more riding is in order. The plan was to meet with a couple local members of the FZ1OA and a friend of theirs at Starbucks at some forgotten time around 8:00. Since I seem to wake up with the sun like it or not I arrived a little early. When I got there Tony was already there so we introduced ourselves and soon after Tina and Mike showed up and the four of us were headed north on hwy 287. You can drive from Denver to Fort Collins, about 50 miles away, and never realize you left Denver. Once we got to Fort Collins though we turned west on hwy 14 and had a great ride through the Poudre Canyon. I wish I had taken some pictures here, but we were having too much fun on that twisty road to stop for pics. In Walden we turned south on 125, rode to 40, then north on hwy 34 and into Rocky Mt. N.P. In the park there was some road construction, but not too bad. I also saw a campground that I didn't remember seeing the last time I came through the park about 7 years ago. Then I realized that the entire campground had been clear-cut because the pine beetle that the guy in Twin Lakes told me about had killed them. Somewhere around the top we saw a Big Horn Sheep that made me do a double take. I've seen these animals before in South Dakota, but they were not much bigger than a domestic sheep. This one stood as tall, if not taller, than a deer! After the park we followed hwy 36 back to Longmont where we said our goodbyes and I hit I-25 south to get to the airport in time to greet my wife. Thanks Tina and Mike for your hospitality and a great ride.

I have to digress for a moment. If you've never been to the Denver airport this will mean nothing to you, but I have a question for any of the locals who may read this. What the hell is up with the giant, blue horse with red lights for eyes? That has got to be one of the most paganistic statues I've ever seen.

At any rate, I pulled into the pick up area and my wife had been standing there waiting for all of 10 minutes, great timing. We left the airport, went to our room, and the rest of that story doesn't really belong here.

We were both feeling rather lazy and didn't check out of our room until 11:00. Eventually we were packed up and headed to Mt. Evans, the highest paved road in the country. Or so they claim, I've heard of at least one other road in Colorado that makes the same claim. At 14,264 feet it was definitely the highest my fizzy has ever been and the second highest I've ever been without an aircraft involved. As we neared the top we saw a large black thunder cloud closing in on us so we decided to hurry to the top, take a few pics, and get the hell off the mountain.

Our departure from the summit was a little delayed when I realized there were other pics to take as well.

Finally off the mountain and back in Idaho Springs we decided to stop at the Tommyknocker Brewery for lunch.

At this point we still were not sure if we wanted to go north or south, so we decided to find someplace around Frisco to spend the night. That way in the morning we could head either direction on hwy 9. When we got to Frisco we went to the visitor’s center and asked about camp grounds. They told us of a couple places and based on their advice we chose a campsite on Dillon reservoir. After setting up camp
Kriss got to talking to our neighbors Tom and Steve. By the time I joined them they had fed Kriss and were shoving a plate in my hand. It was incredible; they managed to cook a meal in a campsite better than anything I could dream of at home. These guys were both social workers from the Colorado Springs area and had been friends for years. Of even more interest to me as a mountaineer, was that they had climbed over thirty fourteeners together. So we talked well into the night, and they told us to be sure and look them up when we get to Colorado Springs.
Here's another pic from the campsite.

7/13/9
Today we decided we would head south, so we packed up, said good by to our new friends, and were off. We stopped in the beautiful town to Breckenridge for breakfast and then were chased by T-storms over Hoosier Pass.
Our first intended stop was Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. Unfortunately the T-storms that had been chasing us all day caught up with us as we were getting fuel in Florissant, so we hauled azz to Manitou Springs. As it turns out there is no tent camping near town and with a storm fast on our tail we decided to get a room for a couple nights. Moments after unpacking the bike the storm unleashed its fury and all hell broke loose. Lightning bolts all around and rain literally pouring out of the sky.

About half an hour later the sky cleared and it was a beautiful sunny day again. So Kriss and I walked around town window shopping.

Manitou Springs turned out to be a pretty cool little town. Walking around town we saw little round brick buildings here and there on the sidewalk and were curious, so we found a window and looked inside. Inside you could see that it was a spring. There was a walkway around the outer edge of the room and a pool in the middle. It was too dark to get a picture of the inside, but here's one of the outside.

Here's Kriss playing in another random spring in town.

They also have a video arcade that spans several small buildings and the outdoor walkways between them. There weren't a whole lot of real modern games, but there were quite a few of the games I remember as a kid and many that were long before my time.

We played video games and walked around until the town was sleeping then decided to do the same.

7/14/9
We started the day by gearing up and riding to the Garden of the Gods. When we got there we realized it was so close to our room that it would have taken less time to walk than it did to put on all the gear. This park reminded me of Utah quite a bit.

Here's one of Kriss modeling an interesting formation.

I like the contrast between the orange of one rock and the powdery white of the other.

This scrub jay tried to elude me, but I managed to get a half way decent shot.

Doing a little bouldering.

After sweating all over the Garden of the Gods we put all our gear back on and headed over to Manitou Cliff Dwellings. This was the first example of cliff dwelling I had seen and at first I was surprised to see the small scale of the place. It almost seemed like a model of cliff dwellings since the rooms were only about 4' high.

Looking closely at the wall you can see shards of pottery that were added as they built.

In this picture you can see two rooms one on top of the other with the horizontal log representing where the floor/ceiling used to be.

A couple close ups.

This was a rather difficult picture to take. Looking down into what used to be an oven. They would build a fire in the small circle in the center of the oven. The square hole in the wall near the center of the picture is where air would enter from outside, and the rock standing between them was to prevent direct gusts from effecting the fire. In use, the entire oven was covered with a dome to hold in the heat.

There was a narrow hallway behind the rooms that connected most of them.

I thought this was an interesting window.

We went to the Stagecoach Inn for lunch simply because they advertised that they had over 20 local brews. Sounds like my kinda place. They also had the largest ravioli I've ever seen, tasty too.

Later in the evening we walked all over downtown and the residential hillside. Along the way we stumbled upon Miramont Castle.

Built almost entirely of stone in the 1800's and recently saved from demolition by the Manitou Historic Society. Unfortunately they were just closing as we walked in so we would have to wait until morning to visit.

7/15/9
We went to the castle first thing in the morning and were completely disappointed. As interesting as the outside was, the inside wasn't much more than a collection of porcelain dolls. Needless to say, we didn't stay long.

At this point I had been concerned for several days about the impending demise of my rear tire. A member of the FZ1OA who lives in Denver had made the generous offer of using his address to ship a tire. He even offered to let me use his parking lot to remove the tire and his truck to take it to the shop. I on the other hand dropped the ball and waited until I was desperate and many miles away. So priority #1 for the day was to find a decent shop and get an appointment to get it fixed. After asking the locals for suggestions I ended up at Apex Sports. I explained my problem to the maintenance manager and was surprised to find that they could get me in first thing in the morning. My next step was to bend over the parts counter for the tire. Once again I was quite pleased, their prices were very reasonable for a stealership. The PR2 was about $20.00 more than I found it for online, and about $80.00 less than my local shop sells it for. I opted for the BT 021 for $153.00.

With that squared away I decided that a ride to Royal Gorge wouldn't be too much for the tire. Boy was I wrong. After getting down there and realizing that they wanted $24.00 each just to walk across a friggin bridge, we returned to Colorado Springs and hooked up with Rachel, a friend of Kriss' that offered to let us set up our tent in their back yard. Here's a shot of my tire when we got to their house.

That may well be the second dumbest thing I've ever done on a bike. The dumbest being when I was 16 riding an FJ600 with a perpetual oil leak that kept the rear tire nice and lubed.

Later that evening we went for a walk to a local pub called Bennies. Turns out they had an open mic that night and amazingly enough, everyone who got on stage was pretty damn good. While there we met Santa Clause in the off season. He was a very talented Bluegrass singer/guitarist who goes by the name of "More or" Less. This man not only looks just like Santa, but has the jovial personality to go with it. He told us of a Bluegrass festival in Florissant and invited us to camp with him, which we gladly accepted and told him we would see him there.

We saw this little guy on the overpass while walking back to Rachel's house. I think he's a gopher snake.

7/16/9
I got to the shop at 9:00 sharp and the mechanic directed me to the break room where I sat waiting with a magazine and some coffee. I ended up sitting there until 10:45, but the wait was bearable thanks to the "geriatric day care." That's what the service tech called the group of 70+ year old men with nothing better to do than spend their mornings sitting around the local bike shop seeing who can tell the biggest lie. It was quite entertaining.

With the stress of the dead tire gone and me once again able to relax and enjoy the fact that I was on vacation, we decided to track down the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum. I learned real quick that Colorado Springs is really spread out. By the time we got as far north as the museum it felt like we were half way back to Denver. The museum is housed in a tiny little building that at first looked like a part of the Harley Shop right behind it. For such a small building it had a fair number of bikes. I even learned that Bridgestone used to make motorcycles but they gave it up to concentrate on tires. Unfortunately it was shoe-horned in so tight behind other bikes I couldn't get a picture. Here's a few I did get.

It was fun, but in the end it took longer to find the museum than it did to walk through it.

After the museum Kriss and I called Tom, one of the guys we met camping, and agreed to meet him at Phantom Canyon brewery at 7:30. Since it was only 3:30 at the time we decided to see if we could find Bristol Brewery. We started out by walking about a mile in the wrong direction before realizing our mistake, turning around, and walking 2.5 miles the right way.
Along the way we saw an interesting, even if a bit morbid, piece of art.

We also came across this spinning fountain at one point.

By the time we got there we had about enough time for one beer before we had to head back out the door to meet Tom and his girlfriend. While I found Bristol's IPA to be ok, I really liked what Phantom Canyon had. Their food was even better, I had the Sea Bass. After dinner I nearly had to do battle with Tom just to be able to leave the tip. He was a really good guy, thanks again for dinner.

7/17/9
On our last morning in Colorado Springs we took our hosts to breakfast and then rode the short distance to Florissant. Since we were several hours early for the music festival to start we decided to go see Florissant Fossil Beds.

Just outside of the Fossil beds there is an old homestead that looked interesting so we stopped and took a few pics.

The root cellar.

When we got to the fossil beds we realized that there were 14 miles of trails to hike but as much as I love hiking it was just too damn hot to do more than half a mile. The good news is that the best fossils (huge sequoia stumps) are in that first half mile.

The Florissant Fossils is the name of "more or" Less' band and also the opening act for the bluegrass festival. These guys were a lot of fun, and very talented. I also noticed a picture on the wall of the bar hosting the event of a guy in a Santa Clause suit and a couple kids on his lap. Sure enough it was our new friend "more or" Less and the caption at the bottom of the picture said "Price Less". Yeah, it may seem kinda cheesy, but they where some really good people and my musician wife always loves the opportunity to hang with others of her kind.
Here's a pic of the Florissant Fossils. Can you guess which one is Less?

Somewhere along our travels Kriss and I heard about an eclectic little town that once elected a cat for mayor. To say Guffy was odd would be a bit of an understatement. These two pics are pretty indicative of the entire town.

After taking pictures of Guffy we went south on hwy 9 to 50 and then west to Salida where we stopped at Amicas for lunch.

While there we met a guy riding a TDM 850. When we told him we were headed to Crested Butte he couldn't say enough good things about Cottonwood Pass. He even assured me that the gravel portion is not too bad. So I figured why not?

Once we got to Almont we set up our tent

and headed out to find Crested Butte Brewing. Alas, it was not to be, turns out they had been out of business for years. On the other hand, we did manage to find a great little pizzaria with a great selection of beers, my favorite being the Dogfish Head 90 minute. I recently found this beer in a local grocery store selling for $15.00 for a four pack!!!, and it's worth every penny.
After dinner we walked around town for a couple hours doing a little window shopping, then got on the bike to head back to camp. Just as we were leaving town I noticed out of the corner of my eye a large dark figure turn into an alley. As dangerous as it was, I knew Kriss had never seen a wild bear before, so I looped around the building and found an angle where she could see it without getting any closer than about a block away. It was the first time I'd seen a wild bear wandering around the middle of a town. It made me wonder if the locals would freak out, or if this sort of thing is commonplace?

7/19/9
On our way to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison we stopped in Curecanti National Rec Area.

I was reading the touristy little info boards that they had there and one of them mentioned that the rock in the canyon is some of the oldest in the world at a billion years. Well, me being the geology nerd...I mean student... that I am, I just had to take a piece of it home. It's now the oldest rock in my collection.

There was also this old train on display in the parking lot.

When we finally got to the Black Canyon we started out riding the South Rim. As you can see, the scenery is stunning.

After seeing what the South Rim had to offer we decided to take the East Portal Road. This road runs for 5 or 6 miles, has a 16% grade and one hairpin turn after another. Going down is hell on the wrists, but coming back up is well worth it.

7/20/9
On Monday morning we headed east on hwy 50, then turned north on hwy 24 and rode to Edwards where we stopped at the Gore Range Brewery for lunch. It was our intention to spend the night in Vail, but the town was so crowded with people that we couldn't find a place to stay. Not only that, but it turns out that Lakota Chops and Hops Brewpub had been closed, and with no brewpub, how would we get dinner? So we continued on to Dillon. This was one of the few times I was on a freeway during this trip. We rode from Vail to Dillon on I-70 and thanks to construction that 35 miles only took about 1.5 hours. Hotter than hell on a freeway at < 5 miles an hour sucks balls and is one of the many reasons I avoid freeways.
After finally arriving in Dillon we checked into a Super 8 and walked into town to see if we could find the two brewpubs reportedly there. We had no problem finding Pug Ryan's Brewery and Steakhouse.

But Dillon Dam Brewery was a bit more elusive. The brewery is located at 100 Little Dam Road and we walked quite a ways on Dam Road before realizing our mistake. We finally asked a local where the damn Dillon Dam Brewery is and found that it's about a block from our hotel.

We finished a late dinner and a few brews then walked back to the hotel to call it a night.

In the morning we decided to go to Breckenridge. Kriss and I are both very frugal people, her more so than I, and hence the reason for camping. But since this is our second anniversary we wanted to treat ourselves to a nice room in a town with plenty to do. We were hoping to do that in Vail, but it just wasn't what we were looking for. Breckenridge turned out to be perfect for the occasion. One thing I learned on this trip is that when you arrive in a new town the easiest and quickest way to get acquainted with it is the visitors center. Breckenridge was no exception. The very nice lady at the visitor’s center hooked us up with a B&B just 3 blocks from down town for only $88.00 a night.

After staying here I will definitely be considering bed and breakfasts more often. It was the first time in two weeks that I had internet access from a real computer, and one of the best breakfasts I had on the entire trip.

Once we were unpacked and settled into our room we headed out to explore the town. Kriss is such an extroverted person she makes new friends everywhere she goes.

I think she liked this one a little too much though.

Kriss modeling the latest in stone wear

Eventually we made our way up to a hiking trail that leads up the side of the hill next to town for a better view.

After a refreshing hike we made our way back into town to find a refreshing beverage and dinner. Breckenridge Brewery was just what I was looking for.

7/22/9
Since Kriss had never seen Rocky Mountain N.P. we decided to head in that direction. We rode hwy 9 north to Kremmling and then turned east on 40 to 34 east. Once we reached Grand Lake we stopped for an early Lunch at Grand Lake Brewing Co.

I think Kriss was a little freaked out by all the beetle killed trees, she took plenty pictures of them.

And then the road construction begins.

Actually since I had just ridden through here about a week and a half ago I was expecting construction, but it was a lot worse this time.

Kriss is getting better all the time at taking pictures from the back of the bike.

I've never been through this park without seeing elk.

Unfortunately we didn't see the bighorn sheep this time.

Yet another local FZ1OA member had told me of a place in Lyons called Oskar Blues. As it turns out this place is also a brewpub, so me being a lover of beer and my wife being a blues musician, we had to check it out. But first we stopped at Estes Park Brewery so I could get a sample of their IPA and a coaster for my collection.

When we got to Lyons we found out that there was a big bluegrass festival that weekend and even though it was only Wednesday the entire town was full. No lodging and no where to pitch a tent. Since it was getting late and we weren't sure how much further we would have to ride we decided not to visit Oskar Blues.
Continuing on we ended up in Longmont in the sleaziest hotel I've seen in years. It was cheap, but still way more than it was worth. Unfortunately it was the only thing we could find. The upside was that the Pump House Brewery was just down the road and it had a nice atmosphere with good food and beer.

On Thursday morning we rode the short distance from Lyons south to Boulder. I had spent a couple days in Boulder once years ago and was excited to show Kriss the Pearl St. Mall and its street performers. So we got a room at the Boulder University Inn and walked the three blocks to Pearl St.

Here video would be nice, this guy flipped his hat off his foot while riding a unicycle and caught it on his head, not bad.

Pearl St. also has some interesting artwork

One thing I didn't notice on my last visit, whether because I wasn't interested or it wasn't the case in 02 I don't know, was the abundance of microbreweries in Boulder. I found a flyer in a visitor’s center somewhere along the way titled CO Front Range Breweries and it lists 9 in the Boulder area. At least four of these places are either on Pearl St. or within a block, so as we staggered from one to the other I took the last several pics and we finally made it Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery for lunch.

We figured since we didn't have to go anywhere we might as well get one of those sampler trays and try all their beers. After all, I prefer IPA's and Kriss prefers porters and stouts. I don't think either of us figured it would come with schooner size glasses.

Not only did they have good beer, but damn that was a good burrito.

We had started this whole Boulder beer tour at about noon and by the time we had finished lunch and visited the four breweries within walking distance we could barely walk anymore. So we went back to the hotel room to take a short nap before going back out on the town. Eventually we went back out and walked around Pearl St. some more. We saw the same shops selling the same goods, and the same street performers performing the same acts, but I simply couldn't drink another beer whether it was the same or not. I actually hit overload and couldn't look a beer in the face. So we went back to the Walnut Brewery for dinner and a tall glass of water.

Friday 7/24/9
This was to be Kriss's last day in Colorado. Her flight was scheduled to leave Denver airport at 8:00AM Saturday morning so we are hoping to make the most of it. After checking out of the hotel the first thing on the agenda was to ride up into the Flatirons. I drove up here the last time I was here in 02' and thought it would be another cool place to take Kriss. The view was great.

Sorry, I meant the view of Boulder.

After the Flatirons we rode back into town and went to the Boulder Beer Co for lunch. We each had a modest lunch and still being a little burnt out on beer we just had a sampler of our favorite types, me the IPA and Kriss the stout, and I got another coaster for my collection.

On our way out I noticed a flyer on the wall that said there was a brew fest going on in Denver on that very day, and since we had to go there anyway we decided to check it out. We rode into Denver and went to the visitor’s center downtown. I asked Kriss to wait by the bike while I go in to find out how to get to the brew fest and other info. When I came back out a taxi was double parked and had me blocked in, so I put my wallet on my tank bag and proceeded to put on all my gear and get on the bike in a manner that is completely different than my normal routine. I think that is the reason I ended up riding away without ever putting my wallet in my jacket pocket. We got to our hotel to check in about 45 minutes later and that was when I realized it was gone. I called the visitors center with no luck and for some silly reason I ended up riding back downtown to see if I could find it. Yeah, right, I'm going to find a lost wallet in downtown Denver, that's logical. Finally I gave up and went back to the hotel. I was so upset with my idiotic move that it was making me sick to my stomach. I called my bank and credit card companies to cancel cards and found that in the first hour after loosing it someone had charged $300.00 to my credit card and over $200.00 to my debit card. The good news was that Kriss hadn't left yet so I could use her debit card to access some money for the trip home. The bad news was I only had about $400.00 left in my checking account, $200.00 of which some asshat had just spent leaving me with only $200.00, and no backup. If this had happened after Kriss went home with her debit card I don't know what I would have done. I guess I would have been asking local FZ1OA members to let me pitch a tent in their yard while I wait to have money sent to their address? You can't wire money to someone with no ID after all.
After all this neither of us was up to a brew fest and with the way my luck was going they probably would have carded me anyway. So we just went out for a nice quiet dinner and went to bed.

Stay tuned for Part 3: my ride home.

2010-01-14T16:01:00.000-08:00

It's been a long cold winter already and I'm really missing riding, so I decided to relive my trip to Colorado here for the enjoyment of all.

My wife and I decided to celebrate our second anniversary with a trip to the Rocky Mountains. I had four weeks of vacation saved up but she only had two. She also has never been on a bike for more than about 300 miles in a day and since I haven’t taken a long ride in many years I was very anxious to put down some serious miles, so we decided it would be best for me to ride to Denver myself and pick her up at the airport. Once there we would have two weeks to explore Colorado before she flies home leaving me another week to get home myself. I made three rules for myself for this trip. First was to avoid freeways whenever possible, second was no fast food, and third was to avoid riding after dark. I ended up breaking all three rules for various reasons, but was able to stick to it for the most part.

I don’t know about anyone else, but by my standards this definitely qualifies as an “epic” trip.
6,278 miles, 31 mountain passes, 6 National Parks, more than 750 pictures, and around 20 brewpubs all in 24 days.

Although I’m no author, I hope to convey the plethora of stories I accumulated along the way in such a way that a few readers might enjoy a small fraction of what I experienced.

PHASE 1,
ACME WA TO DENVER CO
July 4th, 2009

It’s 7:30 in the morning and I’ve not slept most of the night. The bike is packed and all I can think of is riding. This first day is going to be a bit of a tease since I’m only going about 300 miles on roads I’ve ridden many times before. My destination is Portland to check out the fireworks and spend the night with my buddy Kevin.

Not more than 20 minutes on the road I come up behind a Harley bagger following a few cars and wait for a chance to pass. When we finally came to a safe place to pass I hesitated momentarily so as not to cut off the Harley if he decided to pass. Well, sure enough he did, and quite slowly. So here I am just waiting for him to get his pass over with and get out of the way, but he then realizes that I intend to pass him as well so he speeds up to about 80. I figure OK, that’s good enough for me, so I pull in behind him. Here we are, toolin’ down the road at about 80 mph and up ahead, in the rather near distance, is a left hand corner with a 35 mph sign. Naturally I figure this guy is going to slow waaaay down for the corners,as Harley riders are prone to do, thus annoying the hell out of me, but to my dismay I end up seeing my first fireworks display of the year when his highway pegs send a shower of sparks into the air and he runs wide off the road. I think it was probably about that time that he realized a Harley low rider doesn’t corner as well as an FZ1. Even a fully loaded one.

Portland is a great city. Kevin and I went to a few pubs to kill some time before the fireworks started. I had, for the first time, an Ocho Negro by Deschutes brewery. As the name says, it is the eighth in their black IPA series. Kinda messes with the mind to drink what by taste is very obviously an IPA, but it’s as dark as a stout.

For such a large city I was a little disappointed in the fireworks display. I guess the economy is taking its toll.

July 5th
The ride across Oregon was pretty uneventful. It took for ever to get out of Portland, but once I did the ride over Blue Box Pass on hwy 26 was beautiful with many great views of Mt. Hood.

From hwy 26 I followed 97 south to hwy 31 to 395 into California were I spent my second night.

July 6th
Shortly after entering California I came across a derailed train. I know nothing of the story behind this, but I thought it was an interesting picture.

I crossed over to hwy 50 in Nevada which I discovered along the way is known as the “loneliest road.” Well, in the 110 miles between Fallon and Austin I learned why. There are 2 stretches of road, straight as an arrow, that went on for 40 or 50 miles each with nothing more than a looooong sweeper so shallow that the only indication that you are turning is the fact that the road no longer disappears directly in front of you, but off to the right somewhere. It was all I could do to keep from falling asleep through this section. Then, after monotony that could bore the socks off a corpse, comes the beautiful little town of Austin. I found the local town park and took a short nap before leaving town and continuing on what I assumed would be more of the same.

Imagine my surprise when immediately outside of Austin I was greeted by a real mountain pass, complete with steep grades and tight windy roads. Then there were more 30 plus mile stretches of totally straight road, but it never got as bad as the stretch west of Austin.

On one of the last straight stretches I came up behind a group of 4 cruisers riding staggered, split into 2’s. I passed the first two and the guy in the #3 position nailed it to hang with me. He then pulls up along side with his flip face helmet up, huge grin on his face, and challenges me to a top gear roll on contest. Now, granted this guy is on a big full dress Harley, but at 80 mph in 6th gear I’m only running about 5k rpm and the fizzy doesn’t even begin to produce power until 7k. Needless to say, he walked away from me. That is until about the time his rear tire was even with my front and the tack hit 7k. At that point I left him standing there wondering where his new friend had gone. At about 137 my tank bag tried to jump ship so I decided to bring it back down to more sane speeds.

About 20 miles down the road I finally pull into Ely for gas. My new racer friend and his buddies happen to stop at the same place so we strike up a conversation. This old dude looks at me and says “That’s the first time I’ve been beaten by a BMW, at least it wasn’t a Gold Wing.” I told him he could relax, it’s not a BMW it’s a Yamaha. He say’s “Well no wonder you beat me.” Then goes on to tell me about how he used to sell Yamaha’s. While in the store his son-in-law informed me that he was also a hell of a flat track racer back in the day. I guess he still has a bit of the racer still in him. BTW, this dude had to have been pushing 80.

July 6th
In Nevada I also stopped at Grimes Pt. Archaeological Area were I got some pics of petroglyphs.

While checking out the petroglyphs I was also greeted by this little guy.

July 6th
I spent the night at Cave Lake state park in eastern Nevada.
While in camp I met a guy from Montreal named Greg riding a BMW GS. This was his first bike and he had never ridden dirt before. Despite this, he was on his fifth week of a DS ride cross country, had gone over 7000 miles and had about 2000 more before getting home. I sat and BS’d with him for a couple of hours and just as I was returning to camp a 750 Magna pulls in with a trailer in tow. So I went over to his camp and introduced myself.

Mike was a retired metal worker and had fabricated his trailer and hitch in his garage. This guy had everything. As a matter of fact, he invited me the next morning to join him for coffee and bacon. It sure must be nice having the ability to carry everything you could possibly need, but somehow I just don’t think the riding would be as much fun with a trailer back there.

Here are some pics of my campsite.

July 7th
My original plan put me in Denver on Wednesday, but Kriss’ plane wasn’t to arrive until Saturday. So I decided it would be a good idea to kill a little time in Utah along the way. My first stop was Kolob Canyon in Zion N.P.

Kolob Canyon is the western most part of the park, and I’m told it doesn’t get nearly the amount of visitors as the main area. When I went through I only saw maybe a dozen other people. I decided to hike the short trail to Timber Cr. Overlook and didn’t see another person the whole way.

Next I decided to do battle with a bunch of mindless automatons in rented motor homes. Zion was absolutely beautiful, but it can be nerve racking trying to ride, enjoy the scenery, and watch out for idiots who shouldn’t drive cars much less mansions on wheels.

I spent the night in a small campground just outside Bryce Canyon N.P. and since I’d seen Bryce before I decided to skip it on this trip and just head up hwy 12 and on to Capitol Reef N.P. I suspected that as I headed north east away from Bryce that the scenery would become more mundane, but I was surprised to see that IMHO all of hwy 12 is deserving of National Park status. The view is absolutely stunning, and what a fun road to ride. Just make damn sure you don’t make any mistakes on this road. As fun as it was, one mistake here may well be your last. Sheer drops of hundreds, if not thousands, of feet just inches from the road with no guard rail and more tar snakes than I‘ve seen in my life (I think this may be where they come to breed). It was certainly enough to peak the attention and calm the racer-boy within.

The pics don’t completely do it justice, but this section of hwy 12 has you riding across the top of a ridge with sheer drops on both sides.

As if on cue, just as I was getting hungry, I came across a little coffee house. It was easy to miss since it is an earth sheltered building that is basically under the parking lot, but the signs led me to the right place.

This was the view while I drank my coffee and ate my raspberry scone. You can’t see it as well in the picture, but the contrast between the bright red and orange of the rock and the green trees was very dramatic.

After hwy 12 I headed east on 24 and rode through Capitol Reef NP. I'm at a loss for words to describe the scenery to be found in this state, so I'll just post pics.

Some petroglyphs in Capitol Reef NP.

Years ago my friend Kevin told me about Goblin Valley State Park in Utah and by his description I instantly felt I had to visit. Fortunately it's on the way to Moab, which was my next intended stop.

The geologist in me was instantly amazed at huge boulders balanced on a bed of lightly lithified mud.

The kid in me instantly thought of an army of goblins amassing to take over the world.

After seeing all the goblins gathered in the valley I walked to the north and found where the valley opens up into a larger plain. I saw this formation which is nearly twice the size of the others and I think to myself that this must be the guardian of the valley looking out onto the plain.

Then I was kinda wierded out when I walked around to the other side and saw this.

Here's the wizard of the valley

After walking around in a parched valley in what had to have been over 100 degree temperatures all I could think of was some good food and a cold beer, so my next plan was to find the Moab brewery.

An Ortega Chile burger was the perfect compliment to their Scorpion Pale Ale.

By the time I finished drinking a beer and waiting around for any effects to wear off it was getting pretty late. I figured I would find the first campsite I could and call it a day. I turned into Arches N.P. and the first thing I noticed was a long line of cars. The second was about ten minutes later when I saw the "campground full" sign.
Then I remembered in the brewpub I met a couple riding from Wisconsin who had told me that Dead Horse Point S.P. was a great place. So I rode about 25 miles down a dead end road only to find that they too were full. My last chance is Willow Flat campground in Canyonlands N.P. at the end of the dead end road, another 12 miles.
It's about 8:00 PM, I've been on the road since 5:00 AM, it's getting dark, and I want to sleep. I look at the map for other options but they are few, so I decide to continue on and I promise myself that if it's full I'll go back to Moab and get a room...no matter the price.
I'm ecstatic when I pull into the campground and find it nearly deserted. Quickly I throw a few things on the table to claim my spot and then ride to the lookout at the end of the road for a few pics.

I managed to make it back to camp just in time to set my tent up in the dark.

July 9th
Canyonlands N.P., what a great place to wake up.

I like this angle a little better.

I was hoping to see Arches N.P. today, but there were a lot of ominous looking clouds in the sky and it was still early enough in the trip that thunder storms had not yet become common place to me. As a matter of fact, it was freakin my $#!t out! So I ran to the lookout again to get some morning pics,

and then hauled ass to get out'a the heat, out'a the storms, and out'a Utah. (Yeah, I guess that's a little redundant.)
COLORADO, HERE I COME!!!

As per the advice of an FZ1 owners association member I head south out of Moab until I hit UT 46. As I'm going through one of the small towns on 46 I'm doing about 55, in a 40, when I come up behind a pickup. You may be thinking, just as I was, no big deal right? It's just a truck. Then as I get right up behind him I see "Utah Highway Patrol" painted on the tailgate. So as he's pulling over, letting me by, and then pulling back out, naturally the only thought in my head is “awe fudge sticks” or something to that effect. Amazingly he didn't give me a ticket, as a matter of fact; he didn't even pull me over. I guess he figured scaring the crap out of me was enough.
After waiting for about half an hour for construction I finally made it to Colorado!

I wanted to get to Denver without using I 70, which in itself isn't all that hard to do, but with the help of another FZ1OA member who lives in CO I found a way that optimized the riding experience. In other words the roads were awesome. Somewhere I heard someone describe hwy 141 as the best motorcycle road in Colorado that no one knows about. From what I've seen I concur, totally twisty and very little traffic.

I found a plaque on the side of the road that told me there is somewhere on the order of 500 abandoned uranium mines in this particular valley. I also learned a little about the history of the mines, but one topic I found conspicuously absent was any mention of the effects of uranium ore on the miners or their families? A little further along I came across a part of the gorge where one mining operation had built a "hanging flume." This was a wood aqueduct attached to the canyon wall to carry water to the mine. I was able to shoot a few shots of the ruins still on the wall.

I stopped in a tiny little town called Gateway to get some gas and food. While sitting in what, if I remember correctly, I described at the time as a "pretentious little cafe'" I was reading a ride report about a cool auto museum in the town of Gateway. Wow, what a coincidence. I asked the waitress, and sure enough, it's right behind the restaurant. So I went over to check it out.

This is one cruiser I wouldn't mind owning.

This place also had a one of a kind Oldsmobile F-88. This is a 250 HP, fiberglass bodied 324 V8 with a 4 speed "hydromatic" transmition. I'm not sure what hydromatic means, but it sounded impressive to me. This was also one of the first cars with automatic door latches and windows.

I continued north on 141 until I came to hwy 65, then turned south and rode over Grand Mesa, the first of many passes in Colorado. Actually, Grand Mesa is the town. I'm not sure what the name of the pass is. What I do know is that it was absolutely beautiful. I think the single sentence I wrote in my notes at the time sums it up pretty well. "What a hoot."

As I was coming down the east side of the pass I noticed a couple of sport bikes in my mirrors and since I had a lot of gear on the bike I figured I would pull over and wave them by. Once they were past me I twisted it back up a bit and hung behind them for a while. There was a Gixxer leading and a CBR600 following. They were both wearing t-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes, and (surprisingly enough) a helmet. From a distance both of them looked like they were hauling azz by the way they were working the bikes, leaning off etc. The funny part was that I was able to hang right behind them, with a bike that I must admit was not only fully loaded, but a bit over loaded, and it didn't even take any effort. Meanwhile these guys were both blowing lines and running wide in nearly every corner.
Now, I'd be lying if I claimed to be totally ATGATT. I once rode my fizzy 3/4 of a mile to the corner store, wearing no jacket or riding pants. But to see a couple kids riding powerful machines with no gear and readily demonstrating that they had little skills started to make my skin crawl so I backed off a bit and let them go.

I rode west on hwy 92 to hwy 133 and stopped in Paonia for dinner, then spent the night in Paonia S.P.

Immediately after packing up camp and hitting the road I was climbing another pass. McClure pass to be precise, then back down the other side and east on hwy 82. As I was riding through Aspen I saw a fizzy parked on the side of the road and realized that it was the third I had seen on the entire trip from Washington and the other two were in the last two days. Apparently Coloradans like their fizzies.

East of Aspen I came to Independence Ghost Town. Prospectors first discovered gold on Independence pass on July 4th 1879 and by 1880 there were 300 people living there. By 1882 there were 40 businesses, 3 post offices and an estimated 1500 people with over $190,000 worth of gold being produced between 1881 and 1882. In 1883 production dropped to $2,000 and by 1888 only 100 people still lived there. The town also managed to go through six different names in those eight or nine years.

My next photo op was Independence Pass which at 12,095' is the highest point my fizzy had yet seen.

Here's a shot of the road going down the east side of the pass.

After Independence Pass I stopped in a restaurant in Twin Lakes where I was side tracked by a local who loved to talk. He filled me in on pine beetles, altitude sickness, and just about everything else he could shoe-horn into a 45 minute conversation. It was really quite entertaining, but before long I had a serious need to roll so I turned north and passed through Leadville and over Fremont Pass before stopping again at Backcountry Brewery in Frisco.

I tried their IPA and sat in the bar with nothing better to do than annoy the bartender who I'm sure had plenty of better things to do. Then after a while I continued east to ride over Loveland pass, the forth for the day, and past Denver to Aurora where I got my first comfortable bed in six days.

Cheap tailbag for the FZ1

2009-03-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

As you can see, It's not quite a pretty as some of the newer GIVI bags, but for less than $60.00, delivered to my door, mounting plate included it is a great deal. It is fully water proof, lockable, and mounts solidly to its mount and the bike.

JC Whitney offers this bag in two sizes, this one being the large. It's a tight fit, but I can fit two Shoei full face helmets, med and small, in and close the lid.

I have only two complaints. One was a decal on the lid that was an iron cross. Very easy to peal off. The second complaint is the ugly orange stripe in the front half of the bag. The reflector portion seen from the back doesn't look bad at all, but that orange stripe has to be painted black.

Tongariro Crossing

2008-01-09T12:51:00.000-08:00

Tongariro National Park became New Zealand's first National Park on Sep. 23rd 1887 when a Maori chief donated the land to the people of New Zealand with the agreement that it would remain public property for all time. In 1990 it was listed as a World Heritage Site. The crossing is 10.5 miles with about 3000' of climbing. As it is a through hike, you have to arrange for transportation. We opted to take a bus from Taupo that dropped us off at the Mangatepopo trail head and picked us up 8 hours later at the Ketetahi trail head. At first I was a little stressed due to the fact that we had to go 17 kilometers (at that time I was still trying to remember the conversion so I wasn't sure how far that was), we weren't moving all that fast, and I was not too sure how well Kriss would do on the hike. It didn't take long though to realize that Kriss was doing fine and we would be OK with time. In the end we slowed down to kill time so that we wouldn't have to wait too long in the parking lot and we still finished in 7 hours.

Here you can almost see Mt. Ngauruhoe, the youngest of the three volcanoes in the park which formed a mere 2500 y.a. If you could see it better you may recognize it as Mt Doom from the Lord of the Rings movie. Mt. Ngauruhoe last erupted in 1975.

Red Crater was in my opinion the most aesthetically interesting feature of the hike. It is a scoria cone replete with iron ore, hence the color, that was formed 3000 y.a. The most recent activity in this crater was between 1855 & 1890.

This feature is a dike that formed underground and was then exposed as the crater eroded away.

These are know as the Emerald Lakes.

This is a basaltic lava flow.

In this photo you can see just how much traffic this trail gets. Although not immediately obvious, the ground behind Kriss is vertical. This was a trench dug by many years of hikers using the same trail.

This is one of several mountain valleys that the Track crosses.

Lichen growing on rocks.

Nearly every stream originated at a hot spring and often you would know of its presence in advance due to the steam.

For about the last mile the trail dips below the tree line for the first time and you get to experience a natural New Zealand forest with all of its exotic flora.

White Island

2008-01-04T09:38:00.000-08:00

White Island is an active volcanic island that is located in the Bay of Plenty approx. 30 miles from the town of Whakatane (the fun part of the Maori language is that wh makes an f sound, therefore Whakatane is pronounced fuck-a-tonny). It takes about an hour and a half for the boat pictured below to get to the island.

Once we reached the island we all took turns piling into this inflatable that ferried us to the landing area.

After clambering onto the jumble of concrete blocks that is the landing dock we all meet up in small groups and the guide, surprisingly knowledgeable of the geology for a girl in her early twenties, proceeds to walk us around the island. White Island is shaped like a horseshoe with a crater rim that drops to sea level where the boat lands and there is only a slight elevation gain from there to the crater lake. The photo below was taken from the landing area looking toward the crater lake.

Because of the geological hazards of White Island the New Zealand government has restricted access to only four different guiding companies. Part of the agreement was not only to have limited group sizes, but they also insist that everyone wear a hard hat and at least carry a gas mask. They also pass out "lollies" (hard candy) because sucking on them helps to ease the scratchy throat caused by the sulfuric gas that pours out of fumaroles scattered throughout the island.

Where the sulfuric gas hits rock the sulfur precipitates out and crystals form.

One thing I learned on this trip is that ph levels can drop into negetive numbers. The ph level of the water in this lake is said to be -.5, pure acid.

Kriss is the one with the black tank top.

Here's some group shots to give scale.

The colors here are from minerals precipitating out of the water that periodically flows through here. Mostly sulfer and iron ore.

This is the remains of an old sulfer mining operation.

Sulpher mining on White Island began in 1885 and was finished a year later when the Tarawera eruption covered the island in a blanket of ash. It was feared that the elevated activity may mean that White Island was next. In 1898 mining resumed for four years producing about 1500 tons per year, then was closed down again until 1913.

In 1913 the island was purchased by a Canadian company and mining operations were once again started up. In September 1914 a section of the southern rim of the crater wall slumped, causing a massive lahar that wiped out all the buildings on the island as well as the men who were living there. This disaster halted production again until 1923 when the miners came up with the brilliant idea of making camp on the coast side of the crater rim thus affording themselves some protection from landslides/eruptions. 10 years later the company went bankrupt due to the depression and the island was declared a private scenic reserve in 1953.

New Zealand

2008-01-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

Kriss and I had a great time in New Zealand. We were busy just about every waking moment. We did a few of the typical touristy things such as a "Maori cultural experience" and the Waitomo Caves, but for a geology student like myself, the best part was the fact that New Zealand is one of the most vocanicaly active areas of the world. What this means is that my wonderful wife and I spent a lot of time checking out volcanoes and their related formations. It is times like this that I really know I found the right woman for me. Not only did she not mind spending her vacation looking at stinky (sulpher) rocks, but she claims to have enjoyed it as much as I. Kriss has done an excellent job of covering our day to day activities on her blog http://krissjohnson.blogspot.com/. So instead of going over everything again, I am going to pick a few of our highlights and cover them in a little more datail. The first post will cover our trip to White Island which is one of the most active volcanic islands in the world. Then I will cover Tongoriro Crossing which is a 17km hike through a UNESCO World Heritage site that is the most volcanicaly active area in New Zealand. I also encountered more than 30 species of birds that I have never seen before and shot pictures of most of them. All together I took over 1100 pictures while in NZ and while I obviously can't post them all here, I will over time cover most of the best.

My summer project

2007-09-17T16:31:00.002-07:00

For many years I have wanted to build a garden pond but being a renter it just wasn't feasible. Last year Kriss and I bought our first home and for the first time I can create some great features, pond, sauna, climbing wall, etc., and if and when I move again I will get some benefit instead of an ungrateful landlord. I have the climbing wall well under way and I am currently planning the sauna. The pond on the other hand has been my summer project, or as some have said, my summer obsession. For the site I chose a preexisting depression in the yard.

On the first day I used a level and spray paint to mark out the perimeter of the pond, then it was time to remove sod.

After quite a bit of digging, the liner was placed and filled with water.

This is the beginning of the first waterfall which was later torn down and rebuilt.

At this point you can see what was initially going to be the finished product.

Within weeks the pond was teeming with wildlife. Frogs, dragonflies, quite a variety of birds, and a couple of garter snakes moved into the waterfall and hatched their young.

This is the point where obsession starts to take hold. Just when I thought I was finished I came up with the brilliant idea of a second pond with a stream. Of coarse that also means a bridge to get to the other side.

This stream originally flowed into a sump that I built by burying a garbage can in the ground. The problem with the design was that if both ponds and the sump were full I would turn on the pump and the sump would be pumped dry before the water started to flow sufficiently. In other words the sump was too small. Rather than making a larger sump, it was much easier and more cost effective to build a third pond.

For about three weeks we had literally thousands of these little toads everywhere on our property.

This is the pond as it stands today. You can see the new waterfall that is being constructed in the background.

The addition of plants brings the whole project to life. I also have several goldfish and there were two Hypostomus Plecostomus until a Great Blue Heron decided he liked one of them more than I.

My thoughts for anyone who wants to build a pond: It is a lot of fun, creates a very relaxing environment, and can be done very economically if you do your own labor and collect your own materials. I have spent about $600.00 for the entire project and that was all for pumps, filters, and liner. I saved well over $1000.00 by collecting my own rock as opposed to buying it. I also saved a fortune in labor. To have this pond commercially constructed would cost nearly $20,000.00. The biggest warning I would give is that it can be addictive. I spent more of my summer working on this pond than climbing mountains. Anyone who knows me understands the implication of that statement. Another warning, part of the cost savings was due to the fact that I did nearly all this work by myself without any kind of machinery. This can be very back breaking work. Many of the rocks in the waterfall are in excess of 300 pounds and I placed every one of them by hand. It took a lot of time and planning, but if you use your head more than your back it is amazing what one person can accomplish.

OBSIDIAN (nature's glass)

2007-08-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

Kriss and I decided to take a little extra time coming home from our trip to California, so I did a little searching and found a couple places that as a new geology student where very interesting to me, and I even managed to get Kriss a little excited about it. The first place is a rather geologically active area known as Newberry Caldera.
Here you can see a relatively young lava flow made up of obsidian grading to rhyolite. This lava flow was mostly homogenous so the obsidian and rhyolite have a nearly identical mineral composition. Actualy, the only difference between these two rocks is that the cooling was so rapid closer to the surface that the minerals had no time to crystalize and the end result is obsidian. Deeper within the flow the lava cooled much slower allowing time for crystylization which created the rhyolite.

Here you see the lava flow, the obsidian is the black and the grey is mostly pummice.

In this shot you can see the black obsidian layered with grey pummice.

This is the trail that winds across the lava flow with Paulina Lake in the background.

Here Kriss kneels next to a wall of obsidian along the trail.

It's amazing where life can sometimes crop up. This tree is growing out of about an inch of soil.

After leaving Newberry Caldera ,where it is illegal to pick up rock much less take it home, we dicided to go to Glass Buttes. This is probably the most aptly named mountain I have ever seen since it is actualy two buttes about two thousand feet tall, from the base, and made entirely of obsidian. There are two things that set it apart from Newberry, first there are many different types not just black, and secondly, it is perfectly leagal to collect. Unfortunately I was so busy collecting obsidian that I didn't take time to shoot many shots.

A scree field of Mahogany obsidian.

Wedding

2007-07-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

On Friday, July 13 Kriss, myself, and several of our friends and family met at Lassen Volcanic National Park for our wedding on the summit.
Kriss at the trailhead.

Gabe was kind enough to pack a couple folding chairs up the mountain for Kriss' aunt and mother.

After two and a half miles and nearly 2000' of elevation gain everyone made it to the top.

This is Gabe surveilling the area for the elusive mountain goblin which is know to attack large groups on the summits of south Cascadian mountains.

This is my idea of a church.

Kriss' little sister performed her first wedding. Thaks Jess.

In the far background you can see Mt. Shasta and in the near background is Mt. Lassen's crater rim.

The ceremony was actually held on level ground about 40' below the summit. After the ceremony several of us climbed the remainder of the way to the top. In this photo we see Kevin on the summit looking down at the area where we held the ceremony.

Kriss nearing the summit.

Jessica on the summit

Gabe...need I say more?

MT. ST. HELENS

2007-05-28T08:48:00.000-07:00

Cynthia preparing for the hike. mmm...yogurt!

We were greeted by a Hairy woodpecker at the trailhead.

If you look closely you can see that this waterfall has cut down through first one layer of glacial till then an Andesite lava flow, and is now cutting into another till deposit.

Oregon's Mt. Hood in the distance

Mt. Adams

Kevin

This was our first decent view of the crater rim, we were dealing with white-out conditions a good portion of the time on the summit.

Kevin discovered that if we walk slightly down from the summit we could see into the crater if only the clouds would clear. This is looking back at the summit from the area he found.

Just as we were about to give up on the weather there was a sudden clearing and Cynthia convinced us to move a little further yet down slope but still on the crater rim. This position proved be the sweet spot, from here we could see nearly the entire crater. This photo is of Gabe with the summit in the background.

Being the most active volcanoe in the Cascade range, and also a reletively easy hike, St. Helens draws many seasoned climbers and neophytes alike. We can see in this picture that the climber on the summit is reletively safe, but from were he is standing he has no way of knowing if he is on a cornice or not.

In these photos you can see the volcanic dome. After the eruption in 1980 this dome started to slowly grow until 1986 when it fell quiet for 18 years. Then in 2004 there was increased seismic activity and a new dome began to form. Since that time the growth rate has been as high as the equivalent of one dumptruck load per second. Currently it is closer to one dumptruck every six seconds and, if continued, the mountain will reach its' pre-1980 altitude in less than 100 years.

This is the eastern side of the crater rim.

This was some of the most colorful igneous rock that I have seen.

This panaramic didn't stitch together very well, but you get the idea.

Geology fieldtrip

2007-05-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

In this photo you can see the fine-grained sediment of an outwash plain that was burried when the glacier advanced and deposited till on top.

This photo and the next two are very twisted examples of orthogneiss in the Skagit metamorphic suite.

The polished spot on this rock is known as slick-n-side, it is a result of rocks sliding past one another in a fault.

In this photo you can see the Columbia River Basalts. Basalt is a mafic rock and as such its' lava is particularly hot and fluid. This fact causes it to flow like water. Each layer in the rock represents a seperate flow. These flows covered most of south east Washington and the Columbia Gorge all the way to the Puget Sound in addition to parts of Oregon and Idaho.

This photo and the next are of Dry Falls. This is the largest waterfall on earth, albiet dry. When Glacial lake Missoula let loose the force of the water here was greater than the force of all the earth's rivers combined.

This is possibly the largest erratic I have ever seen. Unlike most erratics that are moved by glaciers, this one was rafted to its current possition on an ice raft during the Missoula floods.

This cave, and many others like it, were carved into the Columbia River Basalt by the Missoula floods.

These columnar joints are near Vantage. I can't wait to go back and climb.

These next three shots are petrified wood in the Ginko Petrified Forest.

Of course rocks weren't the only photographic subjects of the trip. This is a Northern Pacific Rattlesnake

Update and more birds

2007-05-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

Climbing season is coming up quick. In two or three weeks Kevin, Gabe, Cynthia, and myself will be climbing Mt. St. Helens and I will be sure to post photos of the climb as early as possible. In addition to St. Helens we are planning on climbing Mt. Raineer this summer and there has been talk of one of the twins as well. Also, as some of you may already know, Kriss and I are planning on getting married this summer. As of right now the plan is to climb to the top of Mt. Lassen in Northern California on Friday, July 13 where Kriss' sister Jessica will be conducting the ceremony. This will be an incredibly informal event and all are welcome. The climb is merely 2000' of elevation gain over approximately 2.5 miles. To those of you who are unfamiliar with climbing, what that means, in a nutshell, is that this is the easiest climb of all the cascade volcanoes. For more information, check out climbing Mt. Lassen

In the mean time, I have decided to share some more bird pics, these where taken over the past week at my home.

This female Brown-Headed Cowbird will invade the nest of other species, eat it's eggs, and replace them with her own. The young will then be raised by their foster parents. Talk about lazy parenting.

As with most species of birds, the more colorful of these Evening Grossbeaks are the males.

American Goldfinch

Can't we all just get along?

White-Crowned Sparrow

Rufous Hummingbird

House Finch

Tribute to our avian friends

2007-04-01T15:38:00.000-07:00

Little Blue Heron

Female Little Blue Heron

White Pelican

Brown Pelican

Ring-billed Gull

Double-Crested Cormorant

Black-Necked Stilt

Pied-billed Grebe

Dickcissel

Killdeer

Muscovy Duck

Roadrunner

Scrub Jay

Steller's Jay

Pink-sided Oregon Junco

Black-Capped Chickadee

This Scissor-Tailed Fly Catcher is one of only two North American birds whose tail is longer than his body.

On Christmas day this year I received a gift from this Red Breasted Sapsucker, he hung out on this tree for about two hours while I took close to 200 pictures of him. These are a few of my favorites.

Golden Fronted Woodpecker

Ring Necked Pheasant

Raven in Bryce Canyon

Black Vulture

Turkey Vulture

This Turkey Vulture was in a wild bird preserve in Austin Texas. The overall haze in the shot is due to the chain link fence that I was shooting through.

This picture of an immature Bald Eagle was taken from the helicopter while I was running Whirlybird photo.

Red Tailed Hawk

Cascadian Adventures

2007-03-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

At Carrie and Addie's dinner party last night it was brought to my attention just how lazy I am with my blog. It occurred to me to defend myself by pointing out that I am a mountaineer who specializes in nature photograpy and it is the middle of the winter. Then it also occurred to me that since I have gone to digital I have taken over 15,000 pictures, so I guess that excuse is kinda week. In an attempt to redeem myself I have decided to post some of my favorite shots from various climbs I have done in the past few years...enjoy.

Mt. Shuksan

July 29,2003

This is one of my all time favorite shots. It was taken from the summit looking east into the Cascades. For anyone interested in photography, this is an excelent example of why we should learn the rules so that we can know how to successfully break them. This is what happens when backlighting goes right.

After ascending a moderately crevassed glacier Mt. Schuksan finishes with a 600' 4th class rock climb. Here we see Gabe and Kevin climbing the final portion of that 600'.

What better base camp could a man ask for?

Baker Lake in the background.

Ruth Mt.

September 2, 2003

"For novice climbers, Ruth Mountain makes a good outing; for all climbers, the route is a good conditioning hike, and an outstanding introduction to and inspiration for the more difficult climbs into the peaks in the adjacent area." This line taken from Selected Climbs in the Cascades has proven to be profoundly true for me. In 1996 I had become frustrated by not being able to find anyone interested in climbing with me. Apparently there are some people who don't get the whole idea of mountaineering? At any rate, I came to the conclusion that the only way I was ever going to get to the summit of a mountain was to do it solo, so in early June of that year I headed off on a solo attempt of Mt. Ruth. That was to be the first of three visits to the summit, in addition to three or four failed attempts. These photos are all from the third successful climb when Kevin, Gabe and myself spent the night in our bivy sacks on the summit.

Base camp on the summit.

This view is to the southwest from the summit, looking at Mt. Schuksan with the Nooksack Cirque on the left, and Mt. Baker in the background on the right.

This fire-red sunset was caused by smoke from an abnormally large amount of forest fires. The bright stripes under the sun is light reflected off the Puget Sound

Gabe

Looking down into Nooksack Cirque.

Ruth from the Hannegan Pass trail.

Picket Range

Tatoosh Range

August 4th & 5th, 2006

Mt. Rainier

Unicorn Peak in the setting sun.

Gabe on the descent of Unicorn Peak.

Kevin nearing the summit of Pinnacle Peak.

Rainier from the summit of Pinnacle Peak with Kevin and Gabe.

El Vulcan de Fuego

2007-01-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

This is the most active volcano in Mexico and one of the most active in North America. The Fire Volcano, as it is known in English, is over 13,000' in elevation and last erupted in 1975 sending lava down it's North and Southeast slopes. Unfortunately, when I was there, there was no fire, death, or destruction to witness. Only some steam and a few clouds.

Pyramids of Colima

2007-01-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

These pyramids are nearly 3,000 years old. Together they cover 125 acres of land and so far less that 1% of the area has undergone scientific exploration. One unusual common link in all of these structures is their stairs. They are about 50% taller than what we are used to and the lowest couple of steps on each building are at least two feet high.

This first building was used for worship and many human remains have been found in and under it.

This one is a little more like what most would think of as a pyramid.

This next structure is in the center of the compound and it is believed to have had a thatched building on top of it originally.

This next part is attached to the right (south) side of the previous structure. Notice the sun dial in the left portion of the shot, and again in the next photo.

Mexico

2007-01-03T14:48:00.000-08:00

Welcom to my new blog. Here I hope to be able to keep all of my friends and family informed of my recent exploites and finaly will have a forum for displaying my many photos. Most recently, I spent two weeks in Jalisco and Colima States in Mexico. The weather was absolutely perfect, 80-90 degrees the whole time, making it hard to remember that it was Christmas time. While there Kriss and I saw many sights, my favorite being, naturaly, El Vulcan de Fuego. Known to the english speaking world as The Fire Volcano. We also enjoyed Kriss' little sisters wedding. These first photos were taken in Puerto Vallarta. The torso of the obsidian man is made from the largest solid piece of obsidian that I personaly have seen.