DAYS OF MY YOUTH - EXTENDED TRAILER

This movie captures a lot of how I feel about skiing and climbing... about the sense of adventure and sharing it with like-minded and motivated individuals... about escaping the grid and exchanging cell phone reception for blue skies and untracked lines... about learning to communicate and express oneself through movement in lieu of words... where age is relative and experience is king.

OWEN LEEPER'S POV SKI EDIT - JACKSON HOLE, WY

The end of summer is nearly here and I'm starting to think more and more about the transition to winter. Soon the hoop houses will be going up in the garden, the leaves will slowly change colors and very shortly afterward, I'll be tuning skiis and replacing essential ski gear (including the aluminum poles I broke last March on my sternum!).

Joe Gratz recently posted his predictions for the upcoming ski season at OpenSnow.com and it looks like a mild El Nino winter is in the making. We can probably expect average snowfall conditions for most of Colorado with above average snowfall for San Juan Mountains (which is great for a week-long hut trip I've scheduled to the Silverton area in early February 2015!).

In the meantime, while we ponder new places to ski and daydream of blower conditions on bluebird days, here's a ski edit from Owen Leeper from the 2013-14 season at Jackson Hole to help elevate the winter stoke. This guy commands the terrain at Jackson. Footage includes his backflip into Corbett's, throwing 70-footers like nobody's business and needling some of the tightest couloirs I've ever seen anyone ski. Classifying this guy as a bad ass... is probably appropriate.

Video link: Owen Leeper's Killer POV From Jackson Hole, WY

 

Leeper's backflip in Corbett's Coulour

 

SOME COOL "FIRSTS" FOR LUCA - BOULDER, CO (AUGUST 2014)

(Caution... bit of a proud pappa moment here.)

Our 7-year old son, Luca, did his first Tyrolean traverse earlier this month on approach to a local crag in Boulder Canyon. We climbed with friends at The Watermark, which has a slew of concentrated beginner and moderate sport routes, perfect for a family day at the crag. The following week, he attended a week-long climbing camp through Avid4 Adventure in Boulder, which gave him some consistent exposure to climbing, while enjoying being outdoors with peers in a fun and constructive environment.

 

Luca also had his first day of fly fishing. We only had 40 minutes and didn't bring any fish to hand, but the experience of hiking to the river and wading in the water was still great nonetheless. He'll be getting his first fly rod this month and we'll be heading out together this fall.

 

 

It's been a great summer for Luca with a lot of changes. He also started public school this month for the first time as well, after private schooling his entire life up to this point. We think he's ready and has so many talents to bring to the table. He's a cool kid with a lot to offer.

 

 

 

JUMP PHOTO SESSION WITH OFFICE STAFF - BOULDER, CO (AUGUST 2014)

I got together with my office staff in Boulder and organized a fun social event to build office comraderie. Per the expected hippy culture here in Boulder, we made tie dyes and ventured out to Chautauqua Park to shoot some photos in front of the infamous Flatirons. A climbing buddy of mine, Drew Basque, offered to shoot the session for free, which was incredibly generous. I made sure that we took care of him for taking not only his personal time to meet us, but for also doing a great job on the processing. Thanks, buddy!

FLY FISHING THE NORTH PLATTE RIVER AND IT'S HEADWATERS - NORTH PARK, COLORADO AND WYOMING (AUGUST 2014)

For my 39th birthday, I decided to take a solo trip into Wyoming to fish the North Platte and it's headwaters. I can’t emphasize enough just how amazing the North Park watershed and the North Platte River really are. Despite blown out conditions the first day (i.e., chocolate milk), following a 5-inch rain storm that hit the watershed in the middle of the week, the North Platte fished remarkably well in the Northgate Canyon section on the Wyoming side. I was there for two days (Aug 1-2), which was the tailing peak of the blow out. Local guides told me that the 650 cfs mark would be the green light for a return to good fishing conditions. Camping was easy, as the entire area is national forest and there are access roads everywhere with nobody around. I have a favorite spot in a mixed aspen/spruce forest five minutes east of the split of highways 125 and 127.


The North Platte River

 

 

On Day 1, to keep myself occupied, I fished two local tributary rivers (Richards State Wildlife Area and Michagon River) in the North Park watershed that had received much less rain and had already pushed the runoff water down river. They were classic wide meanders with undercut outside banks with tall grasses and inside gravel bars. I landed a lot of 11-12” browns on dry flies (specifically #14 green drake). Best fish was an 18-20” brown that hit a #6 yellow stonefly (can’t remember specific pattern) in a deep 8-10 foot pool, which went airborne and snapped my tippet at the base of my leader (think I'm going to start using tippet rings).

 

Then on Day 2, I hiked ~3.5 miles downstream from the Six-Mile Gap access and fished the North Platte at Northgate Canyon and conditions just got better and better. Patterns that produced fish included mostly big stoneflies, but specifically #8 and #10 Pat’s Rubber legs, #6 and #8 Yellow Sallies, #16 olive caddis pupae and #16 BH copper john. The larger fish in the North Platte are meat eaters and as a result, they grow really big. The absolute highlight of the trip was landing a big beautiful brown (“butter belly”) on a fly that my 7-year old son tied. I grabbed the fly out of his fly box before I left… who would have guessed?

 



Big beautiful brown caught on a #16 BH Red Copper John tied by my 7-year old son.

The wildlife I encountered in 48 hours up there was insane (foxes, porcupines, snakes, moose, coyotes, mule deer, golden eagles, HUGE rabbits, bull elk and black bear). On the morning hike downriver on Day 2, I found fresh bear scat on the trail loaded with berries. When I crossed back over the same path an hour later, there were fresh bear paw prints in it (momma bear and baby cub). Yikes.

Yeah, that's black bear poop.

FLY FISHING THE SAN MIGUEL RIVER - TELLURIDE, CO (JULY 2014)

After an exceptional few days in the backcountry with my wife, we eventually made our way toward our hotel reservation at Hotel Madeline in Mountain Village above Telluride, where we quickly cleaned up and headed to the gondy ride into Telluride for dinner at 221 South Oak.

View of Mt Wilson (14,252 ft) and El Diente (14,160 ft) from the gondola between Mountain Village and Telluride.

Following two relaxing days in Telluride, Jen opted for a spa treatment and I opted to fish the San Miguel River about twenty minutes downstream of Telluride. The Telluride area is impressive. You can access 4 major rivers all within an hour’s drive from town or just fish downtown: San Miguel, Upper Dolores, Uncompahgre and Lower Gunnison (all with great tributaries). I spent about 2.5 hours on the river and managed to land 14 rainbows, all between 12-15” and never saw another fisherman. It was all subsurface action on nymphs (no dry flies), in particular #16 BH prince nymph and #16 red copper john that I tied, both subtle variations of the traditional patterns. Water temp was 52 degrees, but it was full sun and perfect for wading in Chaco sandles and board shorts.

 

 

BACKPACKING AND KID-FREE IN THE LIZARD HEAD WILDERNESS AREA - SAN JUAN NATIONAL FOREST (JULY 2014)

Jen and I spent a week in mid-July in the San Miguel Mountains (southern San Juan National Forest) and started the trip with some backpacking into the Lizard Head Wilderness area just south of Telluride, CO, which includes Mt. Wilson (14,252 ft) and El Diente (14,160 ft). The kids were safely off to visit family out of state and we revelled in the idea of a week alone together, outside, enjoying each other's company and the beauty of the mountains in and around Telluride. After a brief dinner refuelling stop at the Cypress Cafe in Durango, where we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves enjoying live jazz at dusk in a super chill courtyard patio after a long nine hour drive, we made it to the Kilpatrick trailhead around 10:30pm. After stuffing our packs, we hit the trail by headlamp and made a quick camp at the edge of an alpine spruce glade about a mile up the trail. We fell asleep to sounds of the Upper Dolores River and metronome-like rythm of mountain crickets. Morning eventually came for us (thankfully at 11am, which never happens at home) and we crawled out of our bags, made tea and coffee on the JetBoil in the vestibule, then packed our gear and methodically hiked our way up the valley.

 

 

 

We meandered our way up a topographic bench perched above the river that followed the main axis of the valley, which was exploding with alpine greenery. At lunchtime, we spent twenty minutes at a waterfall and caught enough pan-size brook trout for a solid dinner. The fly pattern of choice was a rainbow warrior nymph that I’ve been tying recently. We eventually made it up to treeline and into the hanging valley below Navajo Lake, only to discover an amazing camp spot within an old spruce forest, perched on the edge of a 100-foot granite cliff and adjacent to a waterfall. Unexpectedly perfect. After building a warm fire, I hiked down to the river to clean the fish. Jen then prepared the fish in foil with olive oil, red pepper, Cajun jerk and all-seasoning spices. Oh my god... it's my new favorite way to cook trout. While the fish cooked over the embers, I whooped Jen's butt at a game of travel backammon.

 

 

 

In the morning, we made breakfast, then hiked the short 0.5 mile up to Navajo Lake (11,160 ft). Jen suffered through a 20 minute fly fishing lesson, then we headed back, broke down camp and began the hike out. After arriving back at the car and freshening up with baby wipes and clean clothes, we began making our way out of the forest toward Mountain Village above Telluride. Unfortunately, we only made it a few miles before running into a forest service ranger, who stopped and informed us that they were in the process of extracting a Toyota Corolla by tow truck cable that had plunged about 600 feet down a steep gully through a dense aspen stand at a bend in the road. Apparently, judging by the tire tracks, some guy drove right off the edge and somehow lived to tell the story. They found him wandering along the side of the road on the main highway with a major head injury, after he crawled his way back up to steep gully in the middle of the night and walked his way down the mountain in total darkness, later to be found by a passerby at 9am the next morning. We spent an hour watching the tow truck pull the mangled car up the gully, over stumps and impossible looking boulders. When the car finally made it back onto the dirt road, the ranger's first words while staring into the backseat of the car were, "Is that a bong?" After further inspection, he managed to pull out a glass bong, a pipe and a half-filled tall boy of Miller Light. Hmmm. Mystery solved.