making the most of the rainy season, part III

Wow, it has been a long time since I have updated here... If I remember correctly, there is still much to tell about the rainy season, so here goes.

In late May I took an Intermediate Snow course through CMC Boulder, which was a continuation of last year's Beginner Snow course. In Intermediate we learned how to use snow pro, roped travel, setup anchors, and self arrest with crampons. It built on Basic Snow and the Basic Rock School from earlier in the spring, and was a nice culmination to likely end my classes for a while. I now feel well equipped to safely travel up couloirs (for ski descents, of course). I really like the idea of snow travel as a means of ascent (avoiding the crowds and extending the climbing season), especially when combined with a ski descent (hence the Avy 1 class also). The next class I take will probably be Avy 2 and then eventually leading trad rock. After that, I think I am schooled out.

In early June I bouldered a bit on Mt. Sanitas right outside of Boulder. It was the first time I had really spent much time on Sanitas, and I have to say it surprised me. Maybe I wasn't in the beginner area, but I definitely thought the climbing would be easier. I've heard about tons of V0/V1 problems but didn't find too many when I was there. It was really busy but the rock was much kinder on my hands than Flagstaff is though, so it's a nice little outing in its own right.

A few weeks after Sanitas, I took a spur of the moment long weekend to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. I went with the same friend I took up to Sanitas. We left Boulder on Wednesday after work and had what basically equates to 5 days of ridiculous debauchery in one of the most incredible settings on the planet. Let's just say that if there ever was a weekend where I put on a good Hunter S. Thompson impersonation, this, dear friends, was one of a select few, hence the leaving out of several details here. Before leaving Boulder we stopped at Liquor Mart for provisions, leaving town with a handful of bottles of beer, a 1.75L bottle of wine, a bottle of vodka, and two 12 packs of canned beer. Wednesday night we drove as far as we could before I started to get spooked of driving with all the deer on the side of the road. We got to Monarch Pass, where it was still very cold and snow was in our campsight. (Nothing like a little alcohol to take the chill out of the air...) We took our time getting going and got into Telluride around noon on Thursday. I hadn't been back to Telluride since I was a boy (middle school?) so this was a very nice reunion. The San Juans were simply stunning, with tons (tons!) of snow still on them. Most of the first day was spent drinking and unloading the Jeep while we set up our camp, finally seeing a few shows, and then head back to camp only to fall asleep and ultimately miss David Byrne's headline of the night. We made friends anyways, and ultimately did not go back to bed until the sun was coming up over the mountains. We slept under the dawn/stars and woke up to begin drinking again. We had a few beers for breakfast (which became the norm of the weekend) before we headed into town for the shows. We danced all day and I got a pretty good sunburn on my feet. That night Béla Fleck & Toumani Diabaté were definitely the highlight show of the weekend for me.

Every act we saw was fantastic though... it got to the point where I would stop checking the schedule, because it simply did not matter who was playing. Every band I knew put on a great show, and every band I didn't know encouraged me to check them out when I got home.

Saturday we woke to a completely different cold and rainy setting, so we headed into town for shelter... not to mention we had run out of beer. We reloaded at a nearby gas station and then headed to the bars. Most of the bars in town were packed, but we managed to find a corner where we watched an incredible dance-off by two of the drunkest people I've seen in recent memory. Ex:

We made our way back to the stage for Yonder Mountain, who were terrific as always, and during which I ran into another Boulderite... small world. The rest of the lineup that night was incredible, with Gaelic Storm capping roughly 10 hours of dancing. My legs were tired, and I was bummed going to bed because Sunday meant a long drive home back to responsibility. The 3am quesadillas helped ease the pain though :) Sunday we caught the first two shows, packed up our tent and headed back to Boulder. I was bummed we had to leave before Emmylou Harris played, but I knew we had to. We went home via I-70 instead of 285, and that made a truly wonderful Tour de Colorado. Photos of the weekend can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/brett_burch/sets/72157620431813195.

The weekend after Telluride Ryan, Allison, Brian and I hiked up La Plata via the Southwest Ridge. Ryan and I got our revenge after last year's Jeep-sinking 4th of July incident. It was our first new 14er of the year, and a lot of fun, although (this is the rainy season, after all) we did get rained on and had some nearby lightning. We actually ended up removing our packs to run quickly to the summit and claim our prize before a quick descent. I was happy to have made it down fairly dry, but will try to not cut it so close with the weather in the future. Photos of the outing are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/brett_burch/sets/72157620702598064/.

Lastly, Ryan and I tried to climb on 4th of July weekend in Boulder Canyon and got rained out. As soon as we reached the crag after some trailhead-finding troubles the clouds let rip with rain and lightning nearby. It looked something like:

I was happy just to head into town for some time at The Spot. The 4th of July truly seems cursed for us.

Thus concludes the rainy season. Bring on the snow season!!