Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Colorado: the grand tour

We’ve been in Colorado for the last three weeks and loved (almost) every minute of it! We stayed with our friend Colin in Boulder for two weeks and spent the middle week touring around the state. Except for the 2 ½ days of rain in Rifle (aaaugh!!) we had perfect weather….blue skies, warm and sunny. We managed to get a taste of 10 different climbing areas! Boulder Canyon, Flagstaff, Clear Creek Canyon, Rifle, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Shelf Road, Eldorado Canyon, Lumpy Ridge, N. Table Mountain, and the Flatirons. There’s an unbelievable amount of stuff just around Boulder, 6 of those spots are within half an hour of where we’ve been staying. Climbing paradise! We did several days of long multi-pitch routes, a good amount of sport climbing and a little bouldering as well….pretty well rounded jaunt overall! Boulder is a fantastic place; very easy to walk or bike just about anywhere you want to go, lots of parks and open spaces, good food, great farmer’s market, and the scenery is pretty darn fabulous! I love it here! Staying with Colin was a lot of fun; his friend Rudy was here for a week so that was great, we also got to hang out with Cristin (who we met in Kentucky and was on her way to California), my friend Becky (another interpreter), and visited my brother Roddy and Mike’s aunt, uncle and cousins from Denver. We also visited Great Sand Dunes National Park, and Rocky Mountain National Park and managed to throw in some hiking and exploring while we were at it. Kind of a whirlwind!

This morning we’re back on the road, our eventual destination is Squamish, in British Columbia, but we’ll be stopping along the way to do a little climbing in Utah, and Idaho and maybe Washington. July 1st should see us camped out at the next great climbing mecca and ready for more exploring and adventuring!

I hope this finds everyone enjoying the beginnings of summer!

Colorado

No comments: