Denver, Vail, Basalt, Aspen, Vail, A-Basin, Breckenridge

Monday Jan, 20

                In the morning I was back at it, drove into New Mexico for a bit then north to Colorado. I was hoping there would be some cool sights along the way but your still east of the mountains a ways. So drove straight through to Denver. Somehow, missed my exit by several miles, but I made it near Matt P place. I went to the grocery store and bought some real food to make, including 4 boxes of spaghetti to cook and freeze up. In the parking lot I went through the entire car and got out all the garbage, put everything in the right place, and got together all the dirty cloths. Soon after Matt P was done with work and I met up with him at his place. It’s always great to see him; he’s either snowboarding or hiking every single weekend, and usually has some good stories. We caught up for a bit, but I was in desperate need of a shower. After that we ordered up some pizzas and hung out for the night.

Tuesday Jan, 21

                This was a day to catch up on everything. All the laundry, cooked and packaged all the food for freezing (about 8 quart Ziploc bags full), watched some TV and relaxed a bit. When Matt P made it home we were deciding on what to eat, I was thinking Chinese food, he brought up all you can eat sushi. I was sold. It’s been awhile sense I had some really good food so I destroyed that sushi menu. Between the 2 of us we had 10 roll with 8 of them being specialty rolls. Needless to say after a meal like that the food coma kicked in hard.

Wednesday Jan, 22

                This day I did nothing! And I was pretty proud of it. Matt P and I went over to his girlfriends place and we all went out for dinner and a few beers.

Thursday Jan, 23

                I was up early and drove Matt P to work. Then it was off to the mountains. This year I bought an Epic Pass. This is unlimited skiing at 9 Vail resorts. I am incredibly happy about this purchase. Not only does it pay for itself in 5-6 days on the mountain, but also, I don’t feel obligated to board from open to close just to get my money’s worth. If it’s a crappy day on the mountain, just do a few runs and call it a day.  This was pretty much the case for today. Vail was first up. They haven’t had any new snow in over a week, so all the runs were icy moguls. There was nothing left untouched anywhere I could fine. After the day of boarding I wanted to drive to Aspen to watch the X-Games. Along the way there is the town of Basalt. This is as good as it gets in the world of fly fishing. I stopped in a fishing guide and asked if they had some line to use to for the leader on my rod. Of course they did, but we started talking. There was a guy dressed in waiters leaning off to the side. He asked what flys I was using. So I went and grabbed my fly box. I was all wrong, so he showed me the right ones to use. Then he asked what rod I had, so I went and grabbed it. He put it together and the line through. Basically every time he asked “do you have…” my answer was usually “what’s that?” or just no. turns out he’s a guide who just got back the day on the river. I caught him at the right time and he went through everything with me! I couldn’t have asked for a better situation. She showed me the knots to uses, the spacing, the amount a weight, the placement of the strike indicator, everything. He even told me the rock to stand on in the river. I was really excited to get at it. It was close to dark but I wanted to try for awhile with everything was still fresh in my head. I tried for a bit but it was too dark to see what was going on. I think I had a strike or 2. Then it was off to Aspen, here I parked in a shuttle lot and took the trolley bus over to the games. It was shocking to see everything that goes into the production of this. Such a cool thing to see in person. Seeing the whole snowmobile competition in person was crazy and invigorating. The guy who won was hands down the best, he just blew it away. I walked around for a bit after the show but everything pretty much comes to a stop. So back to the car. I drove around aspen, and wanted to check out a bar while here. After parking and walking around the main square, I ended up going to The Red Onion. This turns out to be pretty famous. It’s where the 2 people who founded Vail first talked about opening a ski resort. After 1 beer here I felt super awkward and not really into it. Finished my beer and headed out, finding a cozy spot in a country club parking lot.

Friday Jan, 24

                 Today I was excited about fishing! Straight to Basalt and that sweet rock. FINALLY!!  Caught a rainbow trout! Such a beautiful fish, I can tell why people get hooked. The colors are hypnotic and you just want to spend the every minute trying to catch one to see it again. Talking 2 pictures and watching it swim away was very satisfying. I caught one more after that with another on the line and a hand full of strikes. Doesn’t sound like much but I was ecstatic, this was also my first fish ever with a fly rod. I ended up running out of flies so I had to call it quits. Back to the store, one of the same guys was working and he asked me about it and we chatted for a bit. I told him a little about the road trip, and bought some more flies. Still some time before dark so back to the rock. A couple more hits but never landed any. I was meeting up with Matt P tomorrow in Vail so I drove up to Glenwood Springs for the night.

Saturday Jan, 25

                Off to Vail; there is a park that has free parking. It’s just a short walk to the bus stop so it’s perfect. Getting there a little later than expected, I missed the bus by about 1 minute. But this gave me time to make some sandwiches for lunch. I made it over to the mountain and did a run before finding Matt P and Morgan. They were already on a hot coco break. The conditions were still really bad so we did the best we could to find some snow but it was rough. The weather was beautiful though, super sunny, no wind, warm. When we finished up for the day I decided to get some hot tub time. Last year my cousin Zak booked one hell of room in Vail Cascade. Of course I checked out the hot tub situation for future reference. So I took the bus back to my car, grabbed some things, and bussed over to Cascade. I changed cloths in the bathroom, grabbed a dark and stormy from the bar, and hit that tub! You need a room key to get in but there were plenty of people in there so you just have to ask. I was in there for a long time. There was a guy in there who X-country skied from the top of Vail pass all the way to the resort. Which I’m guessing is about 12 miles in some seriously rough terrain. I grabbed another drink and did some more tubbin. There was a guy from Florida I talked to for awhile. He was originally from Minnesota and was loving it out here. He seemed pretty cool so I told him all about the trip. He finally asked “so do you always stay in places like this?” I had to laugh; I told him my usual accommodations have 4 wheels. There were also some lovely ladies from New York that were very nice to talk to. One guy in the tub made the joke “I’m not even staying here; I just came for the hot tub.” He wasn’t serious, but I was. After all that they had a full shower in the locker room. I could defiantly get used to all this. After drying off and catching the bus back to the car, I drove to Frisco and watched some shows before bed.

Sunday Jan, 26

                In the morning I talked to Matt P and we decided to go to Arapaho Basin. I don’t think I have ever been here before. I caved in and got some taco bell, all my food was still frozen and there was no time to thaw anything out before getting there. We were pretty early and had to wait for the lifts to open. 2 runs on the lower front side and all the lifts were running. We went up top and did the back side a few times. Lots of steep areas which is nice but they were iced up. Some more runs down the front and it was bloody marry time. I’m a huge fan of bloodies and they did a good job. Just a little spice with a ton of tang and flavor, not to mention bacon. We finished those up and had another run or 2 and called it for the day. Matt P wanted to get back early and ice wasn’t worth sticking around for. From A-Basin I drove back to Vail and took the bus back to Cascade. Everyone was checking out so no luck on getting into the main pool area, I had to jump the fence on the side hot tub. After a soak I drove to Breckenridge, the Pro Bowl was on but Dexter was calling my name.

Monday Jan, 27

                I decided to board Breck today. finding a parking lot with 3 hour parking worked perfectly. Stuff like that really only applies on the weekend when the city is flooded with out of towners. So I figured It was fine. The furthest left lift was the closest one to walk to. Breck just opened a new part of the mountain, called Peak 6. This just happens to be the farthest right side. So slowly making my way to the other side was somewhat a drag, but I finally made it over there and o so worth it. The runs seem super fun, the only problem was still the conditions were horrible. So windy it would white out everything for several seconds, and still ice. So doing a few runs kicked my ass, then all they back over the left. I stopped mid way to grab a beer. It started snowing a bit towards the end. And it really made me realize, I need a snowboard jacket. Mine is still sitting at home and a brown leather coat won’t cut it. So getting back to the car, I looked up thrift stores nearby. Figuring there are plenty of people out here buying new gear all the time, they should have some good used stuff floating around. Sure enough an extra long, large North Face snowboard jacket for $45. It was very nice to finally have something long enough, I was getting really sick of snow back. Nothing else to really do so Dexter took up the rest of my night. That night, while sleeping I heard a strange noise outside the car. I woke up and through the frost on the windows I could see a shadow walking around the car. Taping on the window and he froze up, and I popped open the door asking him if he what he needed. I scared the crap out of him; he was the plow guy just telling me not to stay there. I think he was trying to get a VIN number or license plate to get the cops to toe me. But it was all fine, and pretty funny. I drove to different lot that was always plowed and crashed out.

Tuesday Jan, 28

                After the few inches of fresh snow I was excited to get some real boarding in. Doing the same thing as yesterday I and walked over to the farthest left lift. This time I spent the whole day on one of my favorite parts out here, chair 6 in Breck. This has always been one of my favorites, several different types of runs. This made me remember why people love this snowboarding so much. With the snow on the ground I felt back in control on the board. With a full day of powder behind me I walked back to the car. I had a little time to kill so I walked around the international snow sculpture championships. This was pretty cool to see but just a quick walk through kind of thing. From there it was back to Denver, Matt was able to borrow a tuning kit for our snowboards and Morgan's skis. So we sharpened the edges, took off the wax, and put some new stuff on. This ended up taking awhile so off to bed after that.

 X-Games

 Finally!!! i caught one

 From the top of A-Basin

 Very cold and windy at the top of Breck

 Snow sculptures

View up at Breck

Fishing Cumberland Lake, KY, Hot Springs, AR, Hiking around the Ozarks, AR

Wednesday Jan, 15

                In the morning I drove to a fishing store and asked for a few good tips. The guy’s first question was “how far are you willing to drive?” my answer surprised him “indefinitely.” He told me people have some good luck near the Cumberland dam. I drove over and it was not at all what I expected, this thing was huge. They also happen to have a fish hatchery right here. So I figured this would be my best shot at catching something. I went with the fly rod to at least get a little more practice with it. I geared up and hiked a ways down river until I came to the intersection of a creek. I fished the mouth of creek, seeing fish strike the top of the water. No luck so I continued moving up the creek. Soon after, the trees were so close and that they seemed to be the only thing I could catch. I gave up on that idea and headed for the main river. Near the base of the dam the river was about 80 yards across. I tried the fly rod for about 30 more minutes then switched to spinning rod. I tried 5 different lures with no luck at all. With fishing being a fail I went into the fish hatchery and desperately asked what I was doing wrong. The woman behind the counter didn’t know too much about the fishing situation but I decided to come back and try one more day. So I bought a license and grabbed some info. From here I drove up to Jamestown, and bought some worms and corn for bait. The town was very small with not even a McDonalds and I needed some internet time. I had to drive around to find phone reception just to look up the nearest one. It was in Columbia, so I drove through some serious farm land back roads to get there. This turned out to be quite the drive! I talked to my friend Vince; we were hoping to hang out on the weekend. But his roommate, the person whose owns the house he’s living at, wasn’t cool with me staying. Apparently he said something about me scratching the hardwood floors? So we would try to grab a beer on Friday. I stayed at a Wal-Mart and cooked up some couscous in the parking lot.

Thursday Jan, 16

                I woke up before the sun rise to get down to the dam early. Here I found the area where the fish hatchery dumps trout into the river. I was there for hours! I tried every type on bait I could think of! And I didn’t so much as see a fish. I stopped for lunch and went at it again, nothing. But this time there was another person down there. I talked to him for a bit, and he said the key is to use rooster tails and let them spin just in front of the rapids. Still nothing. Then an old timer came down and talked with me. He said the trick is a small piece of worm and sure enough he caught 2 in about 10 minutes. I was pretty disappointed; I was expecting some big fish here. But even the ones he got were like 8 inches. After seeing that I was done. I went back to the car and made some food. I started thinking about it and I spent 3 days fishing with nothing at all to show for it, I couldn’t stick around for one more. Not to mention I really want to be out west, so I told Vince I would have to take a reign check on that beer and I drove to Hot Springs AR.

Friday Jan, 17

                I drove around town to get a feel for what’s going on here. Not what I expected, very much a tourist town. Lots of shops and goofy museums. So I drove to Hot Springs National Park, pretty much all this turned out to be was an overlook of the city. I cooked up some eggs for breakfast and drove back down. I parked on the main strip several blocks away from the visitor center; I wanted to walk a bit after that long drive. One side of the street was lined with bath houses. Turns out the visitor center is a bath house that’s no longer in use. My first question was “are there any natural hot springs?” My thought was that there would be tons of them all over the place with several hikes going to the different ones. Turns out, there’s not a single one! The only option is to go to a bath house, which is not free. So I was done here, I looked some cool places in the Ozarks and drove north toward it. But I still didn’t believe there was no hot springs in Hot Springs, so I stopped in the village and asked them. Same answer, apparently someone uncovered one on their own property but then turned it into a bath house. From here I drove north through some really cool mountains with tight switch backs. Lots of fun in the new car and very scenic. I stopped in a sporting goods store and asked a guy in the fishing section for some tips in the area, he told me a few and I checked them out. Nothing looked promising. I didn’t have much to do and I was pretty filthy, it was over a week sense my last shower. So I was in need of a hot tub, I found a lovely hotel. I did a solid 45 minute soak and I really think I personally made the hot tub filthy. There was an older couple in the pool area with their granddaughter. They came in the tub for a bit and the little kid was so funny. I think she was like 4-6? They were from the south and the little girl kept calling her grandpa a “bossy heifer”. I was pretty much dyeing laughing. After getting all cleaned up in the bathroom, I asked the front desk where a decent bar would be. I had some time to kill so I watched some Dexter on my computer. At about 10 I drove around to check out the bars. There didn’t seem to be anything going on. I looked up another bar that was a little ways away and headed there. This one turned out to be the winner. They had a live band, which turned out be good. I sipped on 2 beers and called it a night.  

Saturday Jan, 18

                This morning the first thing I had planned was a water fall you could drive right up to. So I started north into the Ozarks. On the way to the falls I passed a parking lot full of jeeps, I know what their up to! A good part of the drive to the falls was on a dirt/mud/ice road, But well worth the drive. The landscape is brown and grey, but the water was crystal blue running through the woods. Really a beautiful sight in the middle of nowhere. The falls were about a 10 foot drop that leads into a small pool, with about a 30 yard stretch of boulders leading the runoff from there. Of course I had to try my luck fishing, which turned out to be none. At least I’m consistent. From here I drove down the road following the river. There is a camp ground towards the end that works as a parking lot and trail head for the next falls. So I parked it and talked to some guys in the camp site next to me, seeing if they knew about the falls. They weren’t sure if I would have enough time to get there and back so I headed out right away. I didn’t really see much of a trail so I just followed the river. I figured the water fall would have to be on the river. Turns out you are supposed to cross the river and branch off on a fork leading up a different way. So I hiked several miles along the wrong river, only to look above me and see the road I drove in on! I walked back along the road in shame. Just to make it worse the very guys I talked to happen to be leaving the camp. So they stopped and talked to me, we shared a laugh about it. He said he’s been coming up here for years and never heard of anybody who hiked that side. On the walk back to the campsite the whole train of jeeps came rolling by and I had to smile. When I made it back to the car I hopped in and headed the third falls in the list. I knew I wouldn’t have time to hike it but at least I could get there and check it out. This one was in Lost Valley State Park, which is neither lost or a valley. The parked closes at sun set so I headed to town, made some food, and watched some Dexter.

Sunday Jan, 19

                First thing in the morning I drove to the State park and started the hike. This takes you through the woods a ways until you get to a small flowing stream. You walk up stream through a cave that you can walk through, so I guess that would be a tunnel? And the stream disappears right on the other side flowing strait out of the stone, flowing right at you. There are lots of boulder to climb over and its fun to just follow the stream instead of taking the trail. The stream ends at Eden Falls, which is flowing out of a cave about 60 feet up. I hiked up to the cave entrance and marched in. the cave goes back 200 or so yards. Inside the ceiling tapers down until I had to belly crawl for about 30 yards. Suddenly you come to a completely open room with another waterfall flowing from the ceiling from 30 feet up. This was a very exciting sight to see, and the most interesting thing I’ve seen so far on the trip. As you leave the room there is a side tunnel that walks you most of the way back to where you can fully stand up, then you drop down from above. When I was leaving the cave, 3 more people were at the entrance looking in. I would have loved to wait hidden in the room and scare the shit out of someone. But, I must move on. Once back to the car I decided to start the long drive to Colorado. I wanted to take a different way than usual so I drove hwy 412 all the way across Oklahoma. When I’m driving in the middle of nowhere with no one around I tend to not pay complete attention to the road, I’m usually on the phone, eating, finding crap in my car, or something else. So I was eating a yogurt and drifted across the center line. Sure enough I get pulled over. The cop was looking for drunk drivers and knew right away I was fine. He asked about all the stuff in the car and I gave him the run down on the trip. He let me go with a warning and I was off. I made it Boise City, OK before sleep kicked in.

 My attempt at cat fish fishing

 Fishing buddies for the day

 Beautiful waterfall in the Ozarks

 Hiking down river

 River flowing through tunnel

Eden Falls, this is the one flowing out of the cave