Colorado 14ers: Mount Shavano

The Deal

After a very successful climb of Mount Oxford, I decided it was time to try something ambitious: a whole week of climbing Fourteeners. As I knew, there are several clusters of them: the Front Range and Sawatch ones were easy to climb from Denver; the Elk Mountain ones were all too hard for me at this point; a cluster in the South comprised the Sangre de Cristo Range; and the final cluster were the San Juan Fourteeners, some of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth.

Colorado 14ers: Mount Oxford

The Great Annular Eclipse of 2023

I am still remembering the Great American Eclipse of 2017 with fondness and surprise. Even to a trained physicist like me, the sudden disappearance of the sun for a few minutes in the middle of the day was surprising, even startling. It’s probably my fondest memory of a natural event, together with the sight of lava falls on Hawai’i, the Big Island of the state.

But there was a much more convenient eclipse happening in 2023. It happened in October, in the middle of Colorado’s Mud Season, and on a Saturday. The weather was forecast to be absolutely perfect, warmish and sunny and with no clouds in sight. Still, was it not going to be a letdown after the Great Total Eclipse? I mean, we all had heard the song, Total Eclipse of My Heart. Had anyone written anything about the Annular Eclipse of the Heart?

Snowboarding Trips

The Great Canada Snowboarding Adventure

• The Great Canada Snowboarding Adventure
• GCSA Schweitzer
• GCSA RED Mountain
• GCSA Kicking Horse
• GCSA Lake Louise
• GCSA Revelstoke
• GCSA Sunshine Village
• GCSA The Long Drive Home
• GCSA Summary

The Grand Tour of the North

• The Grand Tour of the North: Seeking Fresh Powder Edition
• GTotN: Planning
• GTotN Day 1: San Diego to Sun Valley
• GTotN Day 2: Best Western Tyrolean Lodge and Ketchum, ID
• GTotN Day 2: Sun Valley Resort
• GTotN Day 3: Sun Valley to Jackson Hole
• GTotN Day 4: Lexington Inn and Jackson, WY
• GTotN Day 4/5: Jackson Hole
• GTotN Day 5: Jackson to Big Sky
• GTotN Day 6: River Rock Lodge and Big Sky, MT
• GTotN Day 6: Big Sky Resort
• GTotN Day 7: The long way home
• GTotN Day 6/7: Holiday Inn Boise Airport and flight home
• GTotN: Conclusion

Colorado 14ers: Mount Missouri

Steamboat During the Bomb Cyclone

It was (and still is) an amazing snow season, one of those you can tell tall stories about to your grandkids surrounding the fireplace. But the crown of the worst storm of the many definitely goes to the one that dropped a blanket of white from Aspen to Chicago. It marked the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in Colorado, with some of the worst winter winds recorded.

What a better day to do a road trip? I collected my friends in Vail Valley, from which you can drive directly to Steamboat without going over the famously finicky Rabbit’s Ear’s Pass, and we decided to have a good time in the blizzard. To be fair to us, it wasn’t exactly that we planned to be in a blizzard: we simply had heard there was a storm system coming, the season was ending, and we wanted to all go to Steamboat. Changing the day invariably meant the trip was going to fall apart, so Bomb Cyclone it was.

My Private Keystone

The previous post I spent dissing the EPIC Pass, but praising its mountains. Vail will always be one of my favorite places on Earth, despite being sick of high prices and breaking-down lifts. Breckenridge will always be my go-to place for a party (waiting for the Plunge!), but I’ll never reveal my secret stashes there, not even if you tortured me with a ski stick (yes, that’s what they were originally called!).

Crested Butte Weekend

It’s been a tough year for travel. I had to deal with a lot of work, and if I found the time to snowboard, I rather shot up I-70 to my favorite haunts than drive for hours and days just to slide down a mountain I didn’t know. I mean, I am some 75 minutes from some of the finest resorts in the world, do I really have to fly to marginally better or really just different mountains?

GTotN: Conclusion

It is Presidents’ Day 2016 as I write this. The sun has come out and it’s going to be a warm day in San Diego. The yellow jacket is staring at me on a chair opposite this computer, while the board and gear are still firmly lodged on the living room floor. It’s a mess, a glorious mess.

This adventure was amazing. I saw places I would remember forever, had more fun than I thought I could have, was less stressed out than I thought I would by the constant need to move, move, move.

GTotN Day 6/7: Holiday Inn Boise Airport and flight home

To the West, the airport, to the right the Holiday Inn. I was happy about that, because I really didn’t want to deal with any kind of traffic in the morning.

Location for the Holiday Inn is perfect, and the rooms are really nice. In fact, this was probably the nicest room I’ve stayed at during the entire trip. The only downside: I got a Hotwire room. Some hotels have the nasty habit of giving guests the crappiest rooms just because you ordered it with a discount.