Last getaway for a long, long time

Nearly an hour to get from Boulder to Golden after work. This is what I escape to.

I think it was worth the hours in the car. No traffic out there but the cows in the dark. I brought my bike back to CB to find some new trails and randomly picked Green Lake off the map - a lovely, Winter Park-like climb to a fairly chilly lake. There's a reason I don't bother to have pictures of me taken while in bike attire - I look even more like a dork off the bike than I do on it.

I got to crash with Chris and Eszter for a few days and they recommended heading up Brush Creek to one of the "classic" trails.

Hmm...go right to some panic-inducing "ridge" where off-camber skills are mandatory? Or left, to a rolling trail right out of a Disney cartoon where you are escorted by flocks of butterflies through fields of flowers?

Welcome to my new favorite trail! Actually, Deer Valley is also filled with welt-leaving vampire flies that are more at home in a Tim Burton movie, but the choice was still easy. Hard to believe I met only three other bikers, one hiker and three cows in ten miles of trail. This kind of ride is good for the soul.

Sad to see this trail end (this is not one of the three cows)

Guardians of the trailhead (Gothic side)

I noticed an annoying squeak developing a few weeks back and suspected a cleat/shoe problem. Wrong. I guess you can bash them into rocks one time too many. Time to switch gears and shoes and go for a walk.

Before heading out Monday, I decided to drive up Slate Creek to where I first camped years ago and hiked up towards Oh-Be-Joyful falls. If you ever get up this way, walk right by the falls on a narrow trail that parallels the water - no one else does. The Texans stick to the hot, exposed road, like the trail guide tells them to. Fine by me.


On my walk, I learned that butterflies are vicious. This innocent-looking guy at the water's edge darted out repeatedly to challenge a dragonfly who had trespassed on his territory. I'll never look at butterflies the same way. Also got hit in the face with one on my ride Sunday. They're tough.

Chris tried to show me how to use the manual functions on my little-used camera and I think I'm getting the hang of the aperture thing, sort of.

Picture challenge: Can you spot the fish?


Sometimes I see big rodents, sometimes I just see signs of big rodents.


That's it for escapes for a while. The next few weeks at work are going to be pretty trying - we're down to half a staff at the busiest time of the year with a new system that's testing everyone's patience. Instead of banging my head on my keyboard or chucking the mouse across the room, I'll try to take deep breaths and think of flowers, vanilla-scented pine woods, mountain bluebirds and lush, green-edged singletrack. That, and starting planning the next adventure...off to find wallabies and koalas.