Colorado Part 1

After waiting a whole summer, James and I found time to pull of our Colorado trip. The 20 hour drive was long, but I didn't expect Kansas to be so incredibly boring. Pulling into Colorado, we were exhausted. We decided no hiking for that day so looked into some leisurely activities. After a quick look, it was a no-brainer that we needed to head to Golden to visit the Coors Brewery. We walked to stretch our legs, checking out the little shops and playing in Clear Creek, the one that's pictured on every can of Coors (remember Rocky Mountain spring water). The line for the brewery tour was wrapped out and around the parking lot, all in the hot sun. After a half an hour, I couldn't take it anymore and headed to buy a couple tallboys and joined James back in line. I've never been to a large-scale beer production facility (Sam Adams doesn't actually make much in Boston) and this was completely different. The kettle room held at least a hundred huge copper kettles and smelled absolutely amazing. We learned about all the grains and filtration elements that I wasn't familiar with. Another thing I didn't know is that Coors makes Killians and Blue Moon. The best part of the tour was the free beer at the end in their lounge. We ran into a couple of people playing cards and had to join in the game. After several rounds of fresh beer and good rummy games, the four of us hit the bars and live music there in Golden. Four pitchers later, we found ourselves admiring the mesa formation up above Coors. We asked the bartender if there was a way to get up top. In sandles and flipflops, the four of us hit the trail only a couple blocks away. We reached the top of the cliffs right as the sky was beginning to blaze in orange and red above the town in the valley below. Of course the sunset was amazing and relaxing with our legs hanging over the cliffs was just perfect. We made it back with just enough light thanks to the full moon and went back to the bar for more live music. With plenty of fresh beer in our hands and great new friends at our sides, we danced the night away. The second morning after eggs and toast for breakfast, James and I drove up to the mountains to hike up Longs Peak. The idea was that we would probably have a hard time doing a 14er without being acclimated to the altitude. Unfortunately it was a bit worse than I thought. I was out of breath just bending over to lace my hiking boots. After a couple miles we ascended above treeline and had amazing views all around us. A mile later we came to the trail turn-off for the lake at the bottom of the cliff straight to the peak. It was absolutely gorgeous looking to the cliff in front with the valley and another mountain behind us. Moving on we started climbing a bit more but it was never actually steep until we hit the boulderfield. Here was the basecamp where about ten tents were set up in rock windbreaks with ammo boxes to store the food in. At 4 we headed up the boulderfield with no trail to the appropriately named Keyhole. At 5 we went through and the view from the other side was ridiculous. The mountains seemed too steep to actually be standing and the lakes at the bottom were reflecting the sunlight straight at us. It was pretty scary because if we made one slip we were tumbling several thousand feet. The only bad part of the view were the thunderclouds staring us in the face and moving right for us. The peak was completely shrouded in clouds. We knew we only had a mile to go, but realized that we had to turn around. Being caught on these rocks in a storm would have meant death for us. We turned around and scrambled down the boulderfield, and my worse fear came true. Jumping down to a rock, I felt the tear in my left knee and the pain shoot down to my toes and up to my back. I limped six miles back down, watching the lightning overhead just waiting for my hairs to stand on end. We ended up in the dark because we were going so slow, but the stars were totally worth it. Once back to the car, we decided call James's cousin living in Denver to have a place to crash. Sleeping in, I woke to the planning session for the next few days. We decided that we needed a day off of hard hiking to let the joints rest. So if not hiking, then? Microbrews. We drove to Boulder to go on Avery's tour. It was a much smaller brewery than I've experienced, but they had a large selection and a great laid-back atmosphere. Their beers were hoppier than most and some had more than twice the alcohol content of normal beer. From there we drove to Left Hand Brewery in Longmount to enjoy a sampler of more amazing beers and great conversation with some locals. Heading back to Boulder we climbed to the top of the Flatirons. It was nothing compared to the previous day, but gave me a chance to see how my knee will do using treking poles. The view over the town was great because from over a thousand feet up, it was perfectly flat as far as you could see. It was just getting dark as we got back to the car. We grabbed a pizza and drove up to camp for the night. Pictures and video will be added when I get to a computer.