My Lincoln log home
A great tie-down job
Beautiful Crested Butte
Summer may have finally struck Aspen. After toughing out the coldest, snowiest May of my life, flowers and trees are finally blooming and it is only getting down to the 40s and 50s at night out here. Most of my days in May were spent training how to guide a raft down the river. I picked it up pretty quickly and my previous experience in reading water was helpful. Most of the folks I work with have never done much on the water, they are primarily skiing fanatics. I got in a few days of paddling on the Roaring Fork at the end of a day of training. I have also been going down to a man-made play feature on the Colorado River in Glenwood Springs, CO. At these higher levels it becomes an awesome surfable wave 6 to 10 feet tall. I have seen a number of people out surfing surfboards even.
I have had a number of vistors already stop by on their summer paddling tour. I paddled with my buddy from DC Johnny Haddock and his buddies Alex and Will. We had a great run on the upper Fryingpan one day and Castle Creek into the Slaughterhouse section of the Roaring Fork the next day.
Johnny Haddock, typical boulder garden on the Upper Fryingpan
A few days later I took a week off work to hang out with Billy, Brett, and Ian, the rest of my paddling crew from back in the DC area. I met them in Crested Butte and jumped right into it running some of the bigger and better waterfalls in the state, including a 25-footer, and a 20 and 18 footer. They pretty much drove 30 hours straight and got right on one of the hardest and steepest regularly run creek in Colorado, Oh Be Joyful creek. Its a great one. Your third stroke after putting on is off an 18 foot water fall. Then it keeps on going from there. We also paddled the Upper East, and Daisy Creek in the Crested Butte area.
The gang with Mt. Crested Butte in the background
Billy doing some last minute repairs
Scouting Avalanche, OBJ
Ian at Heart Attack, the warm-up drop on Oh Be Joyful
The lead-in to the 25 footer
The 25 footer on OBJ
Typical gradient on Oh Be Joyful
20 footer on Daisy Creek
One of the slides on the Upper East
I left for a day to go visit with Jeff in Salida and paddled the Clear Creek of the Arkansas and the Buena Vista playpark one day. We reunited and decided for something a little more mellow and get in some miles so on the way to Durango, we paddled the Lake Fork of the Gunnison. We then did some pretty wild offroading to get over Cinnamon Pass at 12,640 ft. We cruised into Durango, got some dinner and brews, then drove a little ways out of town and camped at the Colorado trailhead. The next day we paddled the upper Animas, an awesomely beautiful 26 mile run. We had good water and a full day of paddling.
Lake Fork, Gunnison
Upper Animas
Upper Animas scenery
We then headed back towards Aspen and hit the local classics: Upper Fryingpan, Castle Creek and Slaughterhouse on the Fork.
It was great paddling with my good buddies and showing them some cool new runs that are so different from anything back east.
With the recent warm weather the creeks and river around here are reaching their peak. The Roaring Fork has more water in it than it has in more than 10 years. This has provided soe awesome big water kayaking, but the Slaughterhouse section is too high for commercial rafting trips, so work has been slow the last week.
I have started to do some mountain biking the last couple of days now that the trails are open. It has been a very nice change of activities and a great chance to get in some good cardiovascular workouts. There are some really great trails that I can ride to from my house. There is a little bit of everything: steep climbs, clean singletrack, rocky singletrack, and great downhill. All this paddling is making my legs soft.
Johnny Haddock, typical boulder garden on the Upper Fryingpan
View of Aspen after a 40 minute bike climb up Smuggler Mountain
Iowa Shaft trail, great singletrack
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