Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Weekend recap

Camping was a lot of fun and the Echo performed admirably in the mountains! I wasn't the fastest car on the uphills, but I certainly wasn't the slowest! Thank you, giant RVs and trailers.

Buena Vista is about 2.5 hours from Denver, beyond the Front Range and in an area known as South Park (which I learned is also the setting for the cartoon - allegedly. I'm pretty gullible so Kyle very well could have been pulling my leg). Its crazy - once you get over the Front Range, there is this wide open area full of farms and little towns before you get to the next set of mountains.

About 14 of us set up camp at a small campground right off of Route 24. The location left a little to be desired, but it suited me just fine for my first excursion. On Saturday I hopped into a car with one of the couples (it was me and approximately 7 couples. singleton, anyone?) - but we headed over to the next town, Leadville, to watch the finish of the Leadville Trail 100 - a pretty big mountain bike event, or so I'm told. Big time biker Levi (some long last name) finished first, breaking Lance Armstrong's record finishing time from the previous year.

Leadville was a very cute little town with a surprising amount of pink and purple homes. We never quite figured out why. After watching the first ten finishers, we headed back to the campsite, passing Mt. Elbert (the tallest peak in Colorado), Mt Harvard, and Mt Yale on the way back. Mt Princeton was right below our site, finishing out the collegiate range.

Our campsite was at 8,200 feet, but I got up to 10,200 in Leadville. Given that I'm still adjusting to any kind of activity at 5,200 feet, hiking was out of the question. Mt. Yale is a "14-er", and I'm anxious to give it a climb next year once I've done a little more running and a little less beer drinking.

I'm in Spokane for work, so pictures will be forthcoming upon my return!

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