Four U.S. States Down, Four to Go

By Katie

I know. I know. We are long overdue for a post. So, to start this one off, here are a few statistics from the trip so far:

States Covered: 4 (Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana)
Next State: Idaho
Miles Ridden: 2,704
Friends & Family we've Seen or Stayed with: 17
Nights in a Tent: 16
Nights in a house: 24
Money Spent on Gas: $270
Tip-Overs on the Bikes: Mark- 2, Katie- 1
Best advice received from a random stranger: Ride fast and dangerously!

Since our last post we have covered a lot of ground. We finally made our way north, not to return south again until the end of the summer. We drove through Boulder, Colorado and stayed wtih Mark's old climbing buddy Brandon Walton on our way to Estes Park. We arrived in Estes on a Friday. I pushed for climbing the Petit Grepon in Rocky Mountain National Park even though it meant braving a crowded classic on a Sunday. We decided to do the climb in a day rather than camp at the base. This freed us up to spend Mark's birthday relaxing in Estes where a bit of Facebook magic happened. We took advantage of the free public library to check Facebook. I noticed that my friend Tracy had posted that she and her husband BJ were on their way to Estes. We met up with them for Mark's birthday dinner and Tracy treated Mark to birthday cake and ice cream.


Happy Birthday Mark!

The next day we woke up at 3:00 am to start the 30 minute (COLD) moto ride to the trailhead for our climb. We started hiking at 4:30 am and were at the base of the climb by 6:30. We made it one pitch shy of the summit and bailed. We were off route and the weather was rolling in. A summit photo is just not worth the risk.
P.S. For being a crowded classic, we only saw three other parties the whole time.


Hiking up to the base of the climb.


Mark showing how much he loves rappelling.


The bull elk that we saw on the hike out.

The Regier Family Reunion started in Estes the day after our climb. We spent the whole week enjoying time with family, hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park, roasting marshmallows, and making zip-lock bag ice cream. Mark played guide and we took Jacob, Ashley, and Tyler (niece and nephews) climbing for their first time!


Mark and his mama.


My favorite little monkey.


Mark using his muscles.


The whole family.

After the reunion we made our last stop in Colorado- Jeff and Kelly Cook and their brilliant boys Augie and Becket. They all took good care of us with good food, good conversation, and good times playing the Arthur game. I got to experience Greeley (Mark's college town) in all its glory thanks to the Cooks and Curtis (who was determined to have an Old School Will Ferrell experience..uh..Frasier Hall).


Augie and Becket on the way home from the water park.


Mark's college crew.


Curtis leading the way.


Do I look unsure about this? It's because I am.


Somewhere in the basement of Frasier Hall.

Our experience in Wyoming was quite the opposite from our leisurely stroll through Colorado. We blasted through the state in three days, staying just one night in Jackson with Jessica Baker. We were both pleasantly surprised by Wyoming though and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery, the wild horses, and the antelope (who outnumber the people in Wyoming by the way).


Sacajawea's grave outside of Lander, Wyoming.


Highway 130 in southern Wyoming. I highly recommend it.


PJ, Lydia, and Candace got up at 6:45 to come have breakfast with us in Jackson!


This is our newest traveling companion- Bernard. He was a gift from Mikey Schneiter, who we got to see on the roadside in Wyoming.

And now here we are in Helena staying with bro and my cousin Levi. We are getting ready to go to a pig roast at the fire house. Mark is enjoying the garage installing a fuel filter, changing the oil, and putting a new tire on my bike. Life on the road has been good to us. Much love until next time.

The Tamer Side of Travel

By Katie

Here we are almost four weeks into our journey. We have been experiencing a much more mellow mode of travel after our last two adventures.

We left Cal and Linda's house and made our way north to Parker where we stayed with Ryan and Heather Callahan. We stayed in Parker two days and were treated to pizza, movies, a pool party and the company of two small people: Naomi and Ben. Ben is only two months old so he was pretty quiet company, but Naomi is a bright, fun little two year old and we looked for bugs in the backyard, read some books, and watched Sesame Street music videos.



You will start to recognize this parting shot..

From Parker we drove the short distance into downtown Denver to stay with my cousin Abby. She made up the honeymoon suite (the apartment of a friend who just happened to be out of town) with satin sheets and all. We spent more time by the pool where I thoroughly enjoyed getting Deuce to jump in the pool. Deuce is Abby's adorable pug who thinks he can swim, but mostly he sinks. Abby took me to the posh salon where she works and I got the full treatment: wash, deep conditioning, cut, and straightening. It is unfortunate that we don't have a before and after photo of my hair because she really worked some magic.



With Abby the morning we left.



Outside the modern art museum in downtown Denver.

From Denver we wound our way through the mountains to the west. We found ourselves in the Vail area where we stayed with Mark's high school friend Nick Bergquist and his new wife Heather. Nick and Mark together are kind of like Naomi and I together--you can just tell they have been friends for ages. Heather took me on a great trail run and cooked us some amazing meals.



After Vail we decided that we needed some time in the mountains and so we headed south to Buena Vista. We thought "climbing" a fourteener might be a good rest day for us. We picked an easy one- Mt. Yale and started hiking at 6:30 am (apparently that is a late start by Colorado standards). Through the hordes of people we met along the trail I started to learn about the phenomenon of "climbing" fourteeners in Colorado.



Here is Mark taking a break to do some technical juggling on our way up Mt. Yale.



It was cold. I wore socks on my hands. Apparently if you are an experienced 14er you bring gloves. Who knew?

Needing a good meal after our climb we thought "who better to go spend time with than the amazing Bozeman family?" So we did. They whipped up a fabulous chicken korma the first night, and the food only got better from there. We spent much quality time with the six above-average Bozeman children who range in age from 12 years to 3 months. There was a lot of great conversations, a short but steep hike, some ice cream and chess playing. Hmm..and miraculously, out of nowhere, a $20 bill appeared. Any theories as to where this may have come from? We have some ideas..



Gabriel, 6 years old, teaching Mark how to play chess.



I'm always a sucker for the toddlers.



The wonderful Bozeman family.

Which brings us mostly up to the present. Yesterday we spent the afternoon in Manitou Springs with Curtis and Emily, more college friends of Mark's. Manitou Springs is a unique town just west of Colorado Springs. We looked at some neat Navajo stuff and did a "hike" to some waterfalls. It was at least 0.2 miles. Strenuous.



Street tough.

We are now waiting for the weather to improve so that we can head up to Rocky Mountain National Park to climb before heading to the Regier family reunion in Estes Park. At least we have a dry place to stay-thanks Masimers! And I hear there's a big football game to watch today..
So until next time. Cheers.

Adventure is overrated (Part II)

By Mark

You'd think we'd learn our lesson (about this whole "uncertain outcome" thing. But no. We have to ride more 4 wheel drive roads to get to South Colony Lakes trailhead to do a technical rock climbing route (old school 5.7) to the summit of a 14,000 foot mountain. Everything went fine (for the most part) getting there, and we had a nice quiet evening eating and preparing for the coming day-- 4 mile hike to the base of the Ellingwood Arete, about 3,000 vertical feet of climbing, and then an easy walk back down the "standard route". We went to bed early.





So I'll try to make this brief. The climb went well, and we thought the crux was in the first pitch. Turns out it was on the third, which surpised us. Katie was leading at the time, and decided to lower off and let me try. Let's just say that 5.7 in 1920 (during the first ascent) is a little different than the 5.7 we are accustomed to. We summitted with clear skies but ferocious winds-- with all the cliffs surrounding the summit, Katie didn't even bother with scrambling the last few feet to the tippy-top.







We had the summit all to ourselves which is kind of rare in Colorado, and the view was fantastic.





We ate a bagel with tuna salad for lunch, and began what we thought would be a fairly casual and quick "walk off" type descent. It was not casual, it did not involve walking, and it was certainly not quick. ...And all that was my fault. I made some assumptions and didn't research the descent route. Katie trusted me, and we unwittingly walked right past the ridge we were supposed to scramble down, and headed into the gully from hell. The photos below don't do it justice. High winds, Loose rock, steep snow, and some rappels from dubious anchors made the 3,000 foot descent a 4 hour, miserably scary and cold experience. We took our time, helped each other, and eventually made it to the bottom, utterly frazzled. In the first photo below, notice the lake at the bottom of our gully. We looked down at it the whole way, judging our progress.





By the time we reached the lake at the bottom of our gully, we were out of water, energy, and in the wrong drainage. This is where we had our second "trail angel" experience. The guy in the photo, whose name we didn't get either, gave us elk jerky he had made himself, let us use his water filter to pump some clean water, and most importantly, gave us directions out of the drainage. Again we were struck by how uncanny it was to have someone just "show up" at the right time to help us out. My heart still fills with gratitude even as I write. Katie even got a bit of a dog fix, playing with Gracie, the man's energetic dog.







It eventually got dark, and with one meager headlamp, we stumbled down the trail to our campsite. 15 hours round trip to the summit of Crestone Needle and back.
We woke up the next morning with a definite "mountain hangover". We were exhausted, sore, and hungry. After a leisurely breakfast and pack-up, we rode to my parents' house, only 60 miles away. While telling them the story of our harrowing descent and miserable, dark walk out, my mother retrieved a photo album from 1981. She produced the photo below, and reminded me that when I was 4 years old, and at almost the very same spot, I had declared that, "I hate hiking. I never want to climb a mountain again!" At least I'm wearing a 'Dukes of Hazard' shirt.



My whole family (parents and sister) along with my mother's parents. Funny how my dad is wearing a cowboy hat in this photo. I wore my own cowboy hat for the hike... right past the same spot. We are greatly alike, in ways I don't even notice sometimes.



Since then, we've been recovering and enjoying Southern Colorado. We've walked around the local lake with my parents, done a few small projects around the house, and cleaned up the bikes. It's of course great to be with my parents, and we've enjoyed many good conversations and small cups of ice cream out on the patio.

Adventure is overrated

By Mark

So if you walk into a motorcycle shop (particularly one that sells adventure-touring bikes), and start looking at a bike that can "do it all", you will inevitably hear the buzz word: Adventure. Let me tell you. In real life, its not as glamorous as it might be in your mind. An adventure is an endeavor with an uncertain outcome. Two days ago I talked Katie into riding Ophir pass-- a 4-wheel drive road connecting the Telluride and Ouray areas. The crest is 11,743 feet above sea level. On the map this road looks like a glamourously red dotted line-- a true scenic route at the very least-- at the best, an adventure. Hey, I've drank the Kool-aid from time to time...



So we start up, and Katie rides like a champ. We kept our cool, and with our intercoms on, we could warn each other about hazards, recommend left or right sides of the track, etc.





I was headed up through some loose scree (rocks of similar size), and with a heavily laden bike (Arrrg climbing gear!!!), basically slick tires (which I should have let some air out of), and generally the wrong bike for the job, and I dumped it. Fell onto my left hand side. Katie was coming up behind me, and I directed her to the other side of the track. This was a squeeze, but she rode it perfectly. She got to a spot higher up on the track and parked. So now we were having an adventure. There was an impressively steep slope dropping off to my right, and I wasn't sure I was skilled enough to ride the rest of the road. Doubts flooded my brain. I don't think I could turn the bike around if I tried-- what if I had fallen off the side? This is supposed to be our honeymoon! This isn't fun anymore--at all. The dark side of this huge marketing scam-- Adventures can turn out poorly. You'll never see that written on a poster in the motorcycle shop.

So then our guardian angel showed up in the form of a (nameless) man riding a KLR 650. He was calm, strong, and helped Katie and I pick up my bike and walk it up the rest of the loose rock. I'm glad I had the presence of mind to take a photograph.


We owe a great debt to this gentleman.

My bike wasn't damaged, and the gentleman had encouraged us that the road quality improved higher up (before mysteriously disappearing down the trail). We talked, decided to carry on, and soberly began shuttling some of the extra weight from my bike further up the trail.

The road quality did improve, and Katie and I finished the ride to the top without incident. Eventually the anxiety started to leave our bodies and we were able to celebrate a bit.