Boulder-versary

One year ago today, Ed and I pulled up in front of a house on a vaguely familiar street in a vaguely familiar town with a car full of suitcases and cats, ready to start a new chapter in our lives. It was an anxious moment in a lot of ways. Packing up our beloved apartment and bidding our friends farewell in New York felt less final, somehow, than arriving in Boulder. It didn't really hit me that we'd left all that behind until I started to put our things into strange closets and cabinets in our new house. I had no idea what the next months would hold, and while I was enchanted by the charming neighborhoods and restaurants and the beautiful vistas beyond, I felt as though I was looking in at Boulder from the outside. We weren't yet a part of this place.

Today, it's difficult to believe that we have been here a year. There is no sign of the boxes that once filled these rooms, and my calendar is full of social events instead of phone dates with far-away friends. I rarely use Google maps to help me get around anymore, and I can speak with great authority about the quality of various restaurants downtown. Ed and I have landed a really wonderful group of friends, mostly transplants like us. I miss New York mightily, and in some ways it still feels like home. But Boulder is beginning to feel that way, too, and I can't wait to see what the next year will bring.

Grillin' Like a Villain

It's a little embarrassing how long I've dreamed of the day when Ed and I would have our own barbecue. Thanks to a dear family friend who sent us funding for the one we requested on our registry, my dream came true early this week! Ed and I took home this handsome beauty and fired up our first dinner on it that very night. It features four burners under the grill, plus a fifth one on the side for heating up a pan, just in case. We feasted on steak, a veggie burger, corn on the cob, and zucchini, all hot off the grill. Enjoying a beer on the porch while listening to good food sizzle a few feet away felt like heaven.

The Jaipur Literature Festival Comes to Boulder

I was quite excited when I heard several months ago that the Jaipur Literature Festival would be coming to Boulder. Granted, I'd never heard of it. But I had missed going to hear authors read their work and speak from my New York days, and I figured this was at least worth a shot. Plus, it was free.

The Boulder Public Library

The event was to take place at the Boulder Library, which is one of my favorite places in town. The building is beautiful both inside and out, and I looked forward to having a reason to hang out there for a weekend. I was a little less optimistic when I saw the line-up of speakers, however. I'd heard of only one (Anchee Min) of the hundred or so who would be coming, and for someone who follows literature and publishing as closely as I do, this was rather unusual. I figured these must be pretty obscure writers indeed. I wasn't at all sure I wanted to listen to excerpts from a lot of mediocre books. 

Luckily, that's not really what the Jaipur Literature Festival is about, as it turns out. The connection to literature was actually fairly loose. Instead of talking about books, writers of fiction and non-fiction (and some translators, too) converge to discuss all sorts of topics that they've explored in their books, but the goal is to exchange ideas rather than to promote certain works. The festival started in Jaipur, India eight (I think) years ago and has grown to be tremendously popular there (partially, one can't help but suppose, because it is free). In addition to its yearly visit to India, it has taken place in London and several other cities as well. The JLF had never occurred in the United States before, and a local couple approached the coordinators to suggest that it come to Boulder, thinking it was a pretty long shot but determined to at least propose it. To their surprise, the committee was intrigued and sent some delegates to check out the area. They promptly fell in love and the rest is history. I was a little disappointed to learn that the focus would be less on literature than I'd thought, but I figured it might be an interesting event. 

The JLF took place on Saturday and Sunday. There were talks throughout both days, each lasting about 45 minutes, from 10:00 A.M. through 6:00 P.M. On average, there were three or four talks to choose from for every single time slot - in short, a lot of options. Titles on the program included "Rewilding Our Heart," "Cities and Their Shadows," "First Draft: Between Fact and Fiction," and "Matters of Faith." In other words, they were a little ambiguous. Although the website provided more detailed descriptions of the themes, the prospect of clicking through all of them seemed overwhelming, so I think most people just chose the ones that sounded most intriguing and hoped for the best. Most discussions were led by panels of three to four authors with a mediator, with time for questions from the audience at the end. Having just returned from traveling, I was happy to let our friends Diana and Joel pick the first two talks on Saturday, and Ed and I showed up to attend:  

• Against the Grain: In the Times of Groupspeak - Margo Jefferson, Adrian Molina and Ryan Gattis moderated by David Barsamian
• Twilight Zones - Kai Bird, Simon Sebag Montefiore, and William Dalrymple, moderated by Nur Laiq

Things got off to a rather disastrous start. Against the Grain was (as perhaps we should have expected from the title) disjointed and very poorly mediated. Barsamian is apparently a host on a local, uber-liberal radio show, and he kicked things off by delivering a long, meandering monologue, then asking the panelists if they had anything to say (after failing to introduce any of them). They looked at each other in bewilderment, then, after a few tense moments, delivered monologues of their own. Barsamian had prepared no questions, and the "conversation" was difficult to follow and felt like a waste of time. 
Happily, Twilight Zones (which, as it turned out, was about the Middle East) was fascinating and expertly run. All three panelists were historians, and their conversation, expertly mediated by author and Middle Eastern scholar Nur Laiq, was fascinating.  

I was on my own for Sunday, so I chose to attend: 

• Twice Told Texts: The Inner Life of Translations - Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Christi Merrill, and Linda Hess, moderated by Arshia Sattar
• Jerusalem - Brian Aivars Catlos, Nur Laiq, and Simon Sebag Montefiore, moderated by Sanjoy Roy

Both sessions, thankfully, bore no resemblance to Against the Grain. The discussion about translation was particularly interesting for me, as it's a subject that I've always found fascinating. Two of the panelists were translators of poetry, which I've always imagined must be the most difficult type of text to work with, and there was plenty of lively debate about whether to translate word-for-word as much as possible, forget the words and try to evoke the meaning of the original poem, or try for something in between. Jerusalem was, predictably, fascinating as well, and I learned a great deal about the history of a city I've often visited but known comparatively little about. One of the panelists was a Medieval historian who teaches at CU, and Nur Laiq, who spends most of her time interviewing Arab youth about their perceptions of current events, sat beside him, so we heard very interesting and diverse information. I was so interested that I bought a copy of Jerusalem (the book) in the JLF gift shop and had it signed by Simon Sebag Montefiore, the third panelist. It's a fairly monstrous tome and I both look forward to, and dread, diving into it. 

There is much talk about having the JLF return next year, and it seemed to me that things went so smoothly that we have a good chance. Overall, it was a wonderful experience, though there were lots of local nuts in the audiences. In Boulder, the local nuts are usually the older generation who have been living here since the '60s and are overly fond of tie-dye and conspiracy theories. Oh well, I suppose they just added to the experience. I encourage anyone and everyone who might be interested to keep tabs on JLF Boulder and to come out next year. Our guest room may even be available. Keep an eye out for recordings of the talks, too; I heard that they will all be posted on the website and will be available for public viewing. 

Failed Fourteener

As Ed's friend Dave said to his son over our consolation breakfast in Boulder at 10:30 on Friday morning, "It's not about making it to the top, it's about making the right decisions." That about sums up our experience attempting to climb Long's Peak yesterday. We stayed low, but we also stayed alive.

Beautiful Long's Peak. The bare rock face is known as "the diamond."

Ed has been dying to climb Long's, something he hasn't done since his days as a camper at Cheley. He and his old camp friend Dave, who lives in Denver, planned together for several days, checking the weather, discussing our packing list, etc. Dave wanted to bring his ten-year-old son along, and so the two of them planned to sleep in the parking lot and get an extra-early start on Friday morning, just in case it took Jack longer to make the ascent. We planned to meet them at a feature called the Keyhole over halfway up and continue together from there. Ed and Dave checked in with each other on Thursday night and agreed that the chance of precipitation didn't worry them too much; there was a 25% chance, but there always seems to be a 25% chance.

Ed and I woke up at about 3:15 A.M. on Friday morning, dressed, and headed out the door. The trailhead isn't all that far away, and we were hiking by 4:50. It was, of course, pitch black (there wasn't even much of a moon), and so we hiked by the light of our headlamps, sometimes chatting and sometimes just enjoying the feel of the dark, silent forest around us. At some point, Ed asked if I was seeing raindrops. We were still under the cover of trees at this point, and after looking carefully I realized that I was seeing a drop intercept the beam of my headlamp every few seconds. I was surprised--I had been admiring the view of the stars in the cloudless sky not long before from the parking lot--but not too worried since the "rain" was barely noticeable.

The picture changed pretty dramatically by the time we got above treeline, though. We were about halfway up, and the sky had lightened enough to show us a mountain range cloaked in thick clouds. Worryingly, it was clear that the weather was headed our way. It was getting colder, too. I'd stripped down to a long-sleeved shirt, but since the rain had turned into pelting little ice balls, I called for a stop and reached down into my backpack to extract my raincoat. Out of the corner of both eyes, I saw a bright flash. "Was that lightning?" I asked nervously. A few moments later, we heard a boom. "I think that was about five seconds," Ed said. Yikes. Not right on top of us, but the storm was headed our way and we were above treeline, setting us up to be lightning rods.

Note the white streaks whipping by Dave - ice balls!

We waited for a while to see whether it would clear up or get worse. The ice balls (I maintain that they were not snowflakes) continued to abrade my face and standing still was making me colder and colder. A thick, white layer was accumulating on the ground. Right around the time we heard a second boom of thunder, a group passed by us, headed back down the trail. They weren't taking any chances, they told us. Ed was pretty sure we should throw in the towel, too, but he was worried about Dave and Jack. Phone calls to them were not going through, and he finally managed to get a text message off but receive no response. I was pretty sure no knowledgeable mountaineer would stick around on top of a mountain with his kid in tow in a lightning storm, but Ed was worried they were waiting for us. Finally, after another five minutes of indecision (and another rumble of thunder), we agreed that I'd start for the car while Ed went up the trail to try to find them. I wasn't thrilled about this, but I'd forgotten to bring hand warmers and my gloves were soaked through. I was eager to put my numbing hands in front of the car's heating vents.

Our intended route

The day was predicted to be beautiful after about 9:00 A.M., and it did start to clear as I got lower and lower. Still, it was too late in the day to attempt to summit Long's (afternoon thunderstorms are the norm around here, so it's important to summit early), and we wouldn't have been able to get to the top even if things had cleared up earlier. The ascent requires lots of scrambling over boulders and shimmying along narrow rock passages, which are a little dicey when dry and not to be attempted when wet. I passed hikers headed up as I went down and nearly all of them quizzed me on the conditions up above. Although my report was grim, no one seemed to worried since they were all going to Chasm Lake, which is under the treeline. Several told me that they'd passed a steady stream of would-be Long's hikers sadly trudging back to their cars.

I was thrilled to reach the parking lot and crank up the heat in the car. Ed, Dave, and Jack appeared about 45 minutes later. When they'd gotten Ed's text they had already been on their way down, as it turned out, and so Ed had joined them for the rest of the descent. Disappointed but resigned, we drove into Boulder for a massive breakfast and pity party.

Oh well.

The nice thing about living here is that we have easy access to Long's, and distance won't prevent us from going back for another attempt any time. It may be too late this season, though, so we'll have to be patient. (It is definitely possible to climb in winter when there's a thick layer of snow covering everything, but that requires a great deal of technical climbing and gear and is a whole different ballgame.) One of the most disappointing parts about the day was missing out on the views, both of the land spread below us and the mountains looming in front of us, which is one of my favorite parts of climbing. Everything was just too cloudy this time. But I look forward to many more attempts of Long's and of Colorado's other high-elevation playgrounds, some of which will certainly end in failure but some of which will make me feel as though I'm on top of the world.

A Chilly Rockies Game

The last few weeks in Boulder have been hot, and so when my friend Rikki proposed an evening trip to Denver to watch a Rockies game, I couldn't think of much that sounded better. A warm evening, a cold beer, and a baseball game to ignore while I chatted with my friends sounded like a recipe for happiness. To sweeten the deal, tickets for a section of bleachers called "the rock pile" were only $4. 

Alas, when we met at the bus station to ride into Denver, the weather had other ideas. It was chilly and gray and had been all day, so I didn't have high hopes that things would improve much as the evening wore on. I'd never taken the bus into Denver and was glad for the opportunity to try it out. The trip cost $5 and took about an hour. I found myself wishing for the rail line connecting our two cities which was discussed and approved but never built. 

We waited at a bar at the newly refurbished and charming Union Station for the rest of our friends to arrive on later buses, drinking beer and enjoying the atmosphere. Then it was time to head for the stadium, which was only about a ten-minute walk away. 

I don't know whether it was the damp chill of the evening or the fact that the Rockies are a pretty terrible team, but we found that a pretty sparsely populated stadium awaited us when we finally arrived midway through the first inning. Entire sections were completely empty. My friend Lindsay's co-worker had told her that the stadium personnel virtually never check tickets once one is inside, and so we found some seats sheltered from the drizzle that would have cost much more than our spots on the rock pile. Sure enough, we sat there unmolested for the duration of the game. The night was cool enough that beer didn't sound particularly appealing; I found myself wishing for an Irish coffee instead. Warm food did sound good, but vegetarian options were scarce, and I ended up with a tray of nachos followed by a funnel cake shared with my friend Laura. (Hey, this is why I exercise.)

We saw a home run (hit by the other team, alas), but other than that the game was pretty slow, as baseball generally is. I had a good time chatting with my friends but was ready to leave at the end of the seventh inning when we decided we ought to head back to the bus station. The bathroom stop we made on the way out of the stadium managed to separate our group, however, and my friend Colleen and I ended up on our own, very turned around, jogging through the streets of Denver in search of the illusive bus station. If we missed the bus, we'd have to wait half an hour for the next one, and we arrived, panting, with about thirty seconds to spare. The rest of our group, who had taken a more direct route and arrived ten minutes before we had, was amused but happy to see us. 

I'd certainly be willing to go to another baseball game, particularly if tickets can be had for such a low price, but I'll be sure to wait until the last minute to buy them next time so I can vet the weather first. And I'm going to be sure I know exactly how to get to the bus station before I leave the stadium next time. 

Triathlon in Steamboat

Last weekend, Ed and I drove to Steamboat Springs to join some other members of the Boulder Triathlon Club for a race. There were both sprint and olympic distance races, and Ed was signed up for the olympic distance (1500 meter swim, 23.5-mile bike, and a 6-mile run) for one more chance to race before competing in Austria. We'd assumed, for no good reason, that the drive would be about two hours, but, in fact, it was more like three-and-a-half, made even slower by the road maintenance that seems particularly endless in Colorado. We were very happy to arrive. I checked out the farmers' market and bought some huge peaches while Ed rode the course. Then we joined some of our condo-mates for an Italian dinner downtown before bed. 

Usually, Ed's half-Ironman starts are nauseatingly early. This time, though, the gun wasn't scheduled to go off until a luxurious 8:00, so we didn't need to leave the condo until a little before 7:00. I'm training for a half-marathon and needed to get my long run in, so instead of hanging around and waiting for Ed to finish like I usually do, I was ready to do a little sweating myself. The area was beautiful, and turning my back on all the athletes stretching, sucking down energy gels and drinks, slathering on sunscreen, and squeezing in to wetsuits, it was rather idyllic. Beneath the surface, however, we'd heard that pondweed lurked in abundance, and we could see people wrestling with thick hunks of it as they warmed up in the water. 

I watched Ed start the swim, then headed out on a segment of my long run, heading down the road a bit, then coming back in plenty of time to watch him get out of the water. It was pretty amusing to watch the athletes emerge from the water dripping and adorned with garlands of green weeds. Ed said later that at one point he got so tangled toward the end of the swim that he had to stop swimming and push off the bottom with both feet to get free.  

Ed's heat reaches the first buoy in the distance. The scene is less idyllic but certainly more exciting. 

I set off again after Ed took off on the bike, explored the road a little, then turned around and did the run course that the athletes would do after the bike. I couldn't have asked for a prettier run, but I could have asked for a flatter one. The course itself featured plenty of rolling hills, and the sadist who laid out the route put the turnaround point midway up a steep hill. I was glad I wasn't racing and could take the ascent a little slower. 

As I ran back toward the transition area to wait for Ed to finish the race, I started to pass athletes jogging in the opposite direction who'd started the run course. I yelled encouragement to them as they ran by me and a lot of them cheered for me, too; I guess they thought I was racing myself, which meant they thought I was winning! Back at the transition area, I enjoyed one of the farmers' market peaches and hung out in the shade until I saw a speck in the distance that looked vaguely like Ed. It was. 

In the end, he finished 9th overall and took 2nd place in his age group. Perhaps more exciting, he won a raffle and got a free pair of sunglasses! He was pleased with his bike and run times but furious about his slow swim; we heard this complaint enough that we figured the course must have been a little too long (and the pondweed couldn't have helped either). After collecting his plaque at the awards ceremony, we showered and piled back in the car for the drive home. About half the group was staying another night and I wished we were, too; if we attend this race again next year, I'll vote for that option.

The excitement continued into the next day when we learned that Ed's picture ended up in Steamboat Today, the local paper!

He was a little embarrassed that they got a shot of him right at the end of the bike after he'd already taken his feet out of his shoes, but I still think he looks cool.

First Fourteener: Mt. Elbert

My legs are aching, but my weekend was so much fun that I don't mind. I joined a group of five friends to climb my first--but not my last--Colorado "fourteener," and though I am not literally on top of the world anymore, I feel as though I am.

A fourteener, usually written as "14er," is a mountain that is at least 14,000 feet high. There are 12 in California, and Colorado has a whopping 54 of them. My dad and I climbed 14,180 feet to summit California's Mt. Shasta several years ago, but the peak we chose for this weekend, Mt. Elbert, is even higher. The tallest of all the 14ers in Colorado, it soars to 14,439 feet. Just because it is the tallest does not mean it is the most difficult, however. Actually, Elbert is regarded as one of the easier 14ers to climb because going up it doesn't really require climbing at all. It's really just a very long, very steep hike, and seemed like a good one for our group, which is active but contains different fitness levels.

Our route

On Friday, we drove three hours southwest (should have been closer to two, but we hit the traffic that chokes 70 every Friday when residents of the Boulder/Denver area head to the mountains in throngs) to Leadville, CO (circled in red), where we camped for the night at a very crowded campground. Car camping often leaves a lot to be desired in terms of peace and scenery, but you can't argue with the convenience. We brought coolers filled with food and had a luxurious meal cooked over an open fire before turning in around 10:00 P.M. Sleep, alas, didn't come easily for most of us, as conversations from neighboring campsites were broadcast at us on all sides. We got our revenge, though, when we emerged from our tents at 3:00 A.M. to dress, eat, and prepare for our big day. I packed sunscreen, chapstick, toilet paper, layers of clothes for various conditions, several wildlife guides, binoculars, three liters of water, and an absurd amount of food.

Afternoon thunderstorms are very common in Colorado, and being caught above tree line when they strike can be deadly. Lightning has been particularly pernicious this year, and so an early start to a long, high hike is critical; at all costs, one must be below treeline if a storm hits to minimize the chances of being struck. We blearily drove to the parking lot at the base of Mt. Elbert and started our walk at 4:17 A.M. I can't imagine hiking those first few miles without headlamps, but the full (blue!) moon was bright and two hikers without lamps passed us after about an hour. We were all feeling the effects of the elevation (about 10,000 feet) from the word go, even during the mile it took us to reach the trailhead. We tried to keep the pace moderate and stopped to catch our breaths occasionally. I could feel my heart pounding against the chest strap of my backpack.

We were nearing the treeline when the sun began to rise. This was one of my favorite parts of the day: ahead of us, the full moon was setting over the peak we were bound for, and behind us the lush landscape was flushed with exquisite pink light. We stopped, speechless, to gaze at the nearly unbelievable beauty around us.

About half an hour later, we passed treeline and found ourselves in a sloped, expansive alpine meadow generously freckled with white, blue, yellow, and purple wildflowers. We'd agreed that we'd stop to eat and rest at this point and so, exhilarated by the beauty and the break, we wolfed down trail mix and dried fruit, drank as much water as we felt we could hold, shed layers and put on sunscreen. It was shaping up to be, as they say in Colorado, a bluebird day: barely a cloud in the rich blue sky.

We continued to ascend. Luckily, Lindsay had done lots of research and we knew that the peak we saw ahead of us was a false summit; in reality, Elbert's summit was at least 45 minutes past that. Gradually, the grass and flowers began to thin, replaced by scree fields and dusty gravel. In summer, hundreds of people climb Mt. Elbert each weekend, so the trail is well established. When we paused to peek behind us, we could see a steady stream of hikers lining the trail. Our early start had guaranteed us a few initial hours of solitude, but as a few of the group began to struggle more with the altitude, we slowed and others hikers caught up to and passed us. Nearly everyone was friendly, cheerfully wishing us a good morning and commenting on encountering so large a group of women on the trail.

The trail got steeper and steeper, and our talk turned to discussion of how we were dreading coming back down the slippery, dusty gravel.

Approaching the false summit

The top of the false summit afforded us a view of the nearby second false summit (argh!), but we were over that in short order and beheld, at last, the highest point in Colorado. The so-called "ridge" that connected the two was none too narrow but plenty steep, but adrenaline fueled us up the final ascent and at last we stood on top of Colorado!

Christina, Liz, Lindsay, Rikki, Beth, and Candice celebrate at the top!

The summit was pleasantly spacious, which was a good thing because plenty of people had beaten us to it. After looking around a bit, I found a boulder that seemed particularly large and stood on it, savoring the fact that my head rose above everyone else's; I was higher than anyone in the state, and taller than nearly everyone in the lower 48. Only a person standing on top of Mt. Whitney in California would outstrip me. I had guessed that the views would be unparalleled, but they were even more astounding than I could have imagined. I gaped.

Although it was only 9:45, we sat on boulders and ate "lunch." Most mountaintops are windy and cold, but we felt hardly a breeze in this enchanted place. Several of the girls talked about being tempted by the thought of a nap. But we knew that the single grayish cloud drifting innocently toward us could proliferate at the drop of a hat, and so, a bit sadly, we began the descent.

It was nice to go downhill for a while, but we quickly grew tired of our slow progress. One has to take tiny, mincing steps to avoid sliding down such slopes, and it was both exhausting and nerve-wracking. At long last, the trail became a little more solid, and we breathed a little easier as we passed through the alpine meadows again. It seemed to take forever to reach the treeline, and even longer to get back to the parking lot. Perhaps it was fatigue, or the fact that we had hiked the first hour-and-a-half in the dark, but the way down seemed to be much, much longer than the way up had been. I accepted the sight of a row of parked cars through the forest with the same enthusiasm as a desert traveler spotting an oasis.

All told, we hiked 11.5 miles and gained about 4,000 feet of elevation. Our leisurely pace meant that our total trip clocked in at 9.5 hours, but I'm confident I could have done it in less than that had I been alone. We celebrated with beer and pizza in quaint Leadville, then cleaned ourselves up at the campsite and enjoyed a fire until exhaustion forced us into our tents. The morning found us refreshed but sore, and my aches amplified as they day progressed. Walking downhill elongates muscles in a way that my frequent running and yoga hadn't prepared me for. Despite my complaining quadriceps, I am determined to climb many more 14ers. Lots of people make it their mission to "bag" all of them, and while I'm not motivated by a checklist, the experience was wonderful in myriad ways and I can't wait to have a bird's eye view of Colorado again. Luckily, I don't have to wait long. The same group, give or take a few, will drive to Fairplay, CO next weekend to take on three of them!