The Great Outdoors
Me atop Gray's Peak in Colorado (14,000 + ft). In the background is Torrey's Peak (also 14,000 + ft). The saddle between Gray's and Torrey's is the windiest place I've ever been in my life (and I lived in Minnesota for 5 years). I dropped a sandwich 3 feet off the ground, and it blew 30 feet (on the relatively level ground of the saddle). The two peaks are a short, if somewhat steep climb that can be made in a single day.
I took this picture from the summit of Torrey's Peak. Can you spot the mountain goat? There were lots of them, and even a few goat kids. After eating a sandwich on top, I concluded that I had to get off the peak, as the people I was talking to kept getting crazier and crazier. The first people said they were worried about lightning, so they left. The second group said that they had nearly been struck by lightning (then they left), and the last guy said he had been hit...recently. I left.
Sunset at my parents' cabin. The silhouetted figure on the beach is me searching for good skipping stones. The silvery object is merely an aluminum canoe--not a beached whale.
This, I think, is probably Mt. Bierstadt. I took this picture on the way up to Guanella Pass, which lies between Gray's Peak and Mt. Bierstadt (14,000+ ft). Part of the sawtooth ridge between Bierstadt and Mt. Evans (14,000+ ft) can be seen to the left of the peak. I had wanted to traverse the ridge that day, but a high altitude snowstorm convinced me that it would be a bad idea. Bierstadt is reportedly quite the climb, as it requires a half-mile bushwhack through the willows on Guanella Pass. Mt. Evans isn't much of a climb, though, as you can drive a car to its summit.
Great Sand Dunes National Monument on a rare wet day. We took the scenic route while travelling to the balloon base (to launch my stratospheric ozone collector), and stopped at Great Sand Dunes National Monument. The first time I visited (when I was 10), it rained half an inch the night before, and Dad told us that we would probably never see the dunes like this (they get REALLY hot otherwise) so we stayed and played (a king hell BLAST for a ten-year-old). On this visit, it had rained about 2 inches the night before, so you could actually walk on the sand without sinking in at all (witness the footprints in the lower left corner of the picture). Very strange. The speck in the distance is indeed me. My co-worker, Al said he would take a picture of me if I went over to "that next peak over there". Apparently, he was referring to a little one just off the left edge of this picture. Oh, well.
Great Sand Dunes National Monument as seen on the National Park Service brochure.
My brother Mark, Judy Tant (a very good friend of the family), and me skiing. The three of us skied down the cliff-face of the mountain behind Mark's head. None of us fell, but someone else took a tumble and skidded all the way to the saplings at the bottom.
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