My New Blog -- All Outdoors Adventures, not just Bicycling

Here's the link....  nothing quite so grand as last year but looking forward to variety of activities in my new home in Wisconsin which is ideally suited for all kinds of different outdoor fun!

Here is the link to the new blog

Andre's Outdoor Adventures

Second Backpacking Trip

I'm back into civilization again after a second backpacking trip.  The trails I hiked this time did not have the incredible vistas of the route I took a couple of weeks ago, but the Tileston Meadows, Lost Lake and Gem Lake were lovely in a quiet way.

Lost Lake

Tileston Meadows

Gem Lake

I can feel the adventure winding down--it's been incredible but "to every thing there is a season."  I saw some Aspens turning yellow on my hike out of the mountains, so it's easy to see that the season is turning....  Next week I'll be back in Chicago!--it will be good to see all my friends there after a long summer away!

Wow ... WOW!!! -- I want to do it again!!!

The second half of my first backpacking outing turned out to be even more incredible than the first half.  "Glorious" is about the only word that I can think of that even approximates the right mix of beautiful, awesome, mystical, spectacular, mind-blowing, peaceful, wondrous, etc.

Here are just a few of the photos from those days....

Majestic Mountain with Mystical Moose in Meadow (between the trees lower right corner)

Lake Nanita with Ptarmigan Mountain behind it....  It's like a fantasy landscape except it actually exists!

A view from the North Inlet Trail

A view from Flattop Mountain near Ptarmigan Point

As pleased as I am with the photos, they are only capturing the smallest trace of the experience.  On my next time out (starting today, for five more days), I'm also taking a sketch pad and some pencils hoping that even if the sketches are really awful (I'm certainly no artist!) I will nonetheless somehow be able to transmit more of the experience into the image through that manual process than through a photograph.  I'm going to be out in the backcountry again for five days, so, unless I come across an unexpected coverage pocket, I'll be out of touch for a while!

Wildlife Gone Wild!

I hit a coverage pocket near Grand Lake halfway through my 5-day backcountry backpacking trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. The highlights of the first couple of days have been the wildlife sightings.

Yesterday morning I saw two male elk rubbing the velvet off their horns. At first I thought thought the elk was caught in a tree with the branches tangled into the rack LOL. They did this for about half an hour.... but I didn't get any really good pictures because the trees were so dense I was afraid to get closer enough to have a clear photo. I got a decent shot after they were resting later on.



Yesterday evening and this morning I saw numerous moose. Two of them (a mama and a baby) decided they would walk right through my campsite this morning so close that I retreated back a little ways from my pack that I was on the process of loading up.





Besides the wildlife, of course the scenery has also been beautiful.

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Winding Down from Bicycling... Gearing Up for Backpacking

I arrived in Estes Park the day before yesterday and had a nice rest day yesterday.  I've firmed up the plans for the rest of my trip (through September 11) and, I'm almost at the end of bicycling -- I'll have two more days of riding as I backtrack down to Denver over the Labor Day Weekend.

The day after tomorrow, I'm headed out for 5 days of backpacking.  Along the bicycle portion of the trip, I would often look up into the mountains and say to myself "wouldn't it be cool if I could go back a little further into the backcountry than is possible on the bicycle."  This backpacking trip will let me experience a little bit of that!

Intense Climbs!

The last few days have involved the most intense uphills of the trip. From Cañon City to Colorado Springs was 65 miles virtually all uphill, then coming out of Denver I took 72 up Coal Creek Canyon which was really steep. This morning I rode Flagstaff Road, the most incredibly twisted road with tons of 180 switchbacks, down out of the mountains and into Boulder. Thank goodness I was going down, although I saw many bicyclists who were going up. One (or two, maybe) more rides up to Estes Park to go!

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Another Natural Wonder

Well, the Royal Gorge canyon is natural, and the bridge is pretty cool too! They have a zip line strung over the canyon.... it was amazing to watch the people "flying"across the canyon on it!





And then there is this crazy sunset happening right now--Colorado really is lovely!

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