The SE Face of Russell Peak near Berthoud Pass.

Had a nice day of skiing on the Westside of Berthoud Pass today.  I got a nice looking Panoramic taken with wide angle though.

Dreamweaver is the right hand snow line, but it was not enough for a solo

The wind also aided my decision to take it easy.

The wind was alive up there, looking along Lady Washington's South Face.

Despite this, I found an excellent stash of ice below Chasm Lake.  I monkeyed around for a bit with a little ice climbing and a little dry tooling.  Good times!

The ice flows from Chasm Lake above. This was taken after my play time.

Along the base of the ice flows.

Naturally, I was alone and without a tripod.  Therefore, I have no really cool self portraits of my climbing.

First attempt at this Layer Mask business....not sure if I'm a fan yet.

Here’s what I did with Photoshop, the background image is the standard photo, then next layer is the BW. I colored the BW layer with Black on the bottom half (the color section) this brought through the colors of the original background….well, see if I get better.

Darkerened the blue, lightened the red and yellow to add to the contrast depth. Shot with the Canon 30D 50mm ISO 800 1/200 sec f/22

The afternoon started with a swim in the snow up a hill by Frisco, CO

The swim afforded me this shot peering into the Gore Range.

From a near by vantage, I snagged up this shot. Then, called it a day after a few hours of snow groveling.

Then, this evening or not really, almost this morning I got a few shots of the Flatirons.

I got a total of four shots in about 45 minutes.

The Full Moon to my back was a wonderful fill.

A coating of ice in the shocks

I rode home from work at 0440 hours last Wednesday during Colorado’s first statewide snow storm. My upper body fared well, but my lower extremities with ice sheets for pants did not. For most of the ride I was able to pedal hard and fast to keep my legs moderately warm. However, towards the end as the chain started slipping and the speed decreased the chills set in. By the time I got home I was borderline hypothermic….or maybe completely hypothermic.

My icy filled water boots were frozen shut and I had to knife the laces to get out. Then, well I’ll just say I ended up wrapped in a blanket on the couch for a bit. After a few moments on the couch is when I realized the bike was coated with maybe a pound of ice as I heard it melting onto the entry pad of our home.

I also wrote something with the above title, but waiting to see if I can publish it else where before it goes up here.

Just a few links on the topic:

Mountain Bike

Studded Tires for you bike

Tire Chains for the bike

Planet Bike for your shopping needs

So once my shift ended this morning I blitzed up to Frisco’s Main st and I-70 trailhead parking for the Tenmile Range and arrived just prior to 0700.  The initial goal was Peak One or  Tenmile Peak to get a sense of the Tenmile Range Traverse.  I left my car at 0700 knowing that I had a possibility of T-storms around 1300.

The bike path start

It’s about a half mile towards Breck to the Royal trailhead.

A lot of interesting information about the old Masontown site.

The morning light was fabulous for taking shots of the dew on flowers.

Lots of blooming flower variety along the trail to Mount Royal and Mount Victoria

Summit of Mount Royal

The hill wasn’t too bad

One of the steep sections leading up to Mount Victoria's Northern Shoulder

One of the views along the crest of the Tenmile Range looking Northwest into the Gore range.

The views were….[edit]

amazing all day.  As I worked my way up the East side of the Mount Victoria I could look out over Frisco towards the Continental Divide.

Dillon and Frisco with Torrey's and Grays in the right distance

The view of Peak one from near the second false summit.

Self Portrait on Mount Victoria

Parting shot back towards Peak one and Mount Victoria on the descent

All in all,  it took 44 mins to get to the top of mount Royal and 2.5 hrs to get to the false summit of Peak 1 where I turned around.  Another 1.5 hrs back to the car and then I trip over to David’s restaurant Food Hedz where I talked climbing with David and then refueled a little for the drive home.  For some reason I couldn’t sleep and was awake until 0130 this morning for a total of 36 hrs awake after I finally fell asleep I slept 11 hours.  If you’re ever in the Frisco, Silverthorne, Breckenridge or even Cooper and Vail mountain areas Food Hedz is certainly worth a stop.

View my Panoramic here

Massive

Sunrise on lower slopes of Mount Massive

Alpenglow on South and main Massive

The final slopes of Massive

The friendly Marmot

The West slope from Main Massive

North Massive from Main Massive

Massive Summit ridge looking South with South Massive in view

Terry approaches South Massive summit

Self portrait, South Massive

The brew

The brew II

The brew III

The Light in the night

A light not so bright

The stormy brew a pop

The three images of the Lightning were 40-80 sec exposures @ f22 and ISO 150. This is only my second set ever of photography lightning. These are of the storm that has been brewing almost every night over our home in Broomfield, CO since the beginning of July. It will be interesting to see what kind of photographs await me in the future.

A frozen Saint Mary's lake and the beginning of the SE slopes route to James Peak

Two unknown climbers heading up Saint Mary's Glacier enroute to James Peak

Looking South along the Continental Divide halfway to James Peak

Self Portrait on top of James Peak

James Peak Panoramic