08.06.11
Colorado Road Tripping
Frogs and Dinos
Every year Bela and i try to take a trip that’s just for us, not always climbing but something we both enjoy. This year we decided to head west to my favorite state for some climbing, hiking, and exploring. It just so happens that many of our friends happen to think it’s a great state as well so we have a few friends out here that we’re going to visit and hopefully meet up with to climb with… so as the weather in Chicago finally cools down from its ungodly humidity and heat and becomes bearable again, we decide to leave…. luckily i don’t feel so bad about that knowing we’ll be in the foothills and mountains soon enough.
Thursday afternoon arrives and after a few quick errands we’re finally on the road. We missed most of the traffic, but as always there’s construction everywhere… luckily we timed it well and didn’t get too delayed. As we got into Nebraska rain started coming down pretty strong as we hit a pretty big storm. The visibility got worse and worse and it got to the point where we were going at least 20-30 under the speed limit just to see the lines on the road. i may be conservative when it comes to driving in the rain, but i just dont think its worth the risk and since we weren’t under a real time constraint we ended up pulling off into a rest stop to take a break and let the storm pass.
On the way into the parking area i noticed something hopping on the road – a frog. On the way into the parking area i noticed something hopping on the road – a frog. then i noticed it wasnt just 1, they were every where! Big ones, little ones… crossing the road, hanging in the grass. They were loving the rain, we didn’t. Since it was 2am we decided to take a nap.
We woke up to dawn and got back on the road. after a few miles and just shy of colorado our stomachs reminded us that we needed some sustenance…. After a quick breakie and top off to the tank we could have gotten on our way…. but as most folks know a great road trip just isnt complete until someone rides/pets/accosts some plastic/metal animal or sculpture (mythical or extinct ones just get you extra points). So this is when we realized that the sinclair station does in fact have a miniture dinosour that is just the right height to attempt to ride 
So bela does a great impression of an old time cowboy and leaps right on up onto his back, proving that if cars magically disappeared that he’d likely be able to function and ride off into the sunset and make it look good.
After a quick ride, it was my turn and let’s just say that it wasn’t pretty. Lucky for you all bela was snapping off pics of my wonderuflly not graceful mounting of betty the brontosaur. we had a great laugh at my awkwardness as well as the few folks who drove by and saw the mid 30 year olds riding a fake dinosaur…. It was awesome.
Front Range Tempatations
The rest of the drive went quickly as we entered colorado and then had the big debate – where to go and what to do? we figured our friends ben and karleen were likely busy on a friday morning so we decided to head to my old stomping grounds… I had lived with my sister tiff back in the summer of 1997 at her apartment south of denver. so we drove by my old jobs – performance bikes and the movie theater that had the 3 story high screen… It all slowly started coming back, things looked very familair and it was fun to see if my memory worked at all. it did!! ok well most of it, i was able to get us back to the general area of the apartment but didn’t quite find it. i decided that it didn’t matter and we had to make a decision on what to do with our day.
Now bela isn’t that familiar with the area so i started explaining to him that i would start driving west toward a bouldering area just in the foothills and a mere 15 minutes away and if we didn’t like that we could head north another 15-30 minutes and hit Golden – another spot for climbing and a cool little town, or we could head north yet again another 20-30 mins and hit eldorado canyon for some more climbing and so and so on… There’s climbing in just bout every canyon/valley here and you really have your pick on where you want to go.
So we deciced to start with Golden since it was so close. I mentioned that we probably didn’t have a good guidebook seeing as how we left it at home since it was from 1995 and things had likely changed a bit since then. the Bent Gate (an awesome climbing gear shop) just so happens to be based out of golden so with a new guidebook in hand we had a plan – grab a quick lunch and check in on the kids to see if anyone could join us for some afternoon fun on the rock.
Karleen had to work, but ben was available but had some errands to run so we had an hour or so to fill. i had vaguely remembered my friend steve mentioning a whitewater park in the foothills and thought maybe it was in golden so i convinced bela tthat we should explore the area in town. There are some nice parks and great walkways along the river right in town and we parked when i saw some whitewater boats and got a bit excited.
We’d found the clear creek whitewater park!! While the park is manmade, it is quite natural and has some nice features. Including some nice surf waves and play spots with some really great places to hang out and watch. i noticed 2 gals just socializing along the river and ended up asking them about renting boats becuase i may just be able to convince bela to let me go out for a few hours to play in the water – its just too tempting! luckily there is an outfitter in town and i should be able to rent when the time comes (we’ll see!)
So by that point it was time to meet up with ben and we headed off toward golden cliff’s north table. Both bela and i had been there before and remembered the hike up being horrible, not to mention the late afternoon sun on a nice warm day… It didn’t seem the best choice but we really didn’t care at that point, we just wanted to get on some rock. So we prepped our gear and in no time ben pulled in and we were off up the steep climb to the rocks.
Despite the heat the hike wasn’t nearly as bad as we expected, and we found the area we were looking for fairly quickly. there were 2 nice 5.7s in a small alcove that was almost in shade so we decided to do both of those and then see what else looked good.
The first two climbs went really well with bela leading them both and they both ended up completely in the shade so we didn’t have to sweat the whole day. The rock was great – fun holds, ledges and moves. ben even pulled off a superb chaco toe crack move in addition to climbing the 2nd one totally barefoot (he brought his super tight shoes that no longer fit…) We finished the day with bela leading a beautiful 10c that had some tricky moves. I made an attempt (halfway wasn’t too shabby!) and then Ben finished cleaning up.
We worked our way back to Superior where B&K live where we got some dinner and waited for K to get off of work. After catching up with everyone we realized that we were all exhausted and that it was time for bed….
We declared our first day in Colorado to be quite a success… tempation at its finest. Tomorrow’s plan – tennis, relaxation and maybe some bouldering 
