Batizado, Four Fourteeners, and a Bunch of Burros

Joy was once again drove down to support my capoeira, but this time for my second batizado.  We hung out in the park until they started the ceremony and I'm sure she and Darren both know all the songs and some of the moves now after spending so many hours us get our new cords.  In order to get a new one, everyone has to play a mestre or someone with a higher ranking and the mestre or whoever it is has to knock the cord-getter to the ground.  I was the first in my group, and, not to brag, but I think I did a pretty good job staying upright for quite a while.

Anyhoo, the next day we knocked down four fourteeners: Mt. Democrat, Mt. Lincoln, Mt. Cameron, and Mt. Bross.  AND it was beautiful.  The meadows had the best collection of wildflowers I've seen all summer.

On our way back home, we passed some donkey and outhouse races.  Only in Colorado!

Summertime in Boulder

Darren and I wanted to take advantage of the last moments of summer, so we headed once again to Boulder.  We have been wanting to climb Yellow Spur for a very long time and finally we made it happen.  It was rightly awesome as we expected.

On Sunday we went into Boulder Canyon and found an unexpected gem.  We also saw a film crew filming some climbers, perhaps for an instructional video.  It was super hot, so we were looking everywhere for shade on the route.

We'd been listening to too much Justin Bieber.  "One less lonely girl!"  So sad.

Nature's fireworks

It's NorCal Family Time again...with a side of Classic Climbing

Darren's family has a long tradition of house boating trips.  And now that I am part of the clan, I get to join in!  Before we left for the New Melones, Darren and I climbed Traveler's Buttress (a North American classic) at Lover's Leap and did a lot of grunting and screaming as we tried to navigate its off-widthyness.  Unbelievably we still made it to the top.

For the next week we spent on the boat spending a lot of time eating, reading, worshiping, and trying every type of water gear possible: slalom, air chair, tube, kneeboard, ski seat, and our favorite, the surf board.  

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Darren and I also took a little detour mid-week to drive to Yosemite, camp, and climb another North American Classic: Royal Arches.  Darren had already done it and it is notoriously one of the easier long routes in the valley, but he still seemed quite excited to do it and I've been wanting to climb it for years.  Royal Arches if fun and quick because a lot of anchors one can build on trees, and some places a climber can feel safe simul-climbing.  I was happy because it was easy enough where I felt comfortable leading a few pitches

Southern Fried 4th of July

All of my immediate family was going to be together for the 4th, so my parents suggested we come out as well, even though it would be a short weekend trip.  I don't know the next time I will get to see everybody, so I'm glad we went.  I was also excited to have Darren experience my childhood favorite season of summer in the South.  We spent most of our time inside the house or in the pool.

On Sabbath, we took Sadie to Sabbath school which might be the highlight of her week.  She definitely is the superstar getting right up to the lady telling the story, singing the songs, riding in the "mission boat," etc.  

Darren is a fan of Sabbath school too.  I probably saw more friends at this service then any other one I could have gone to.  Apparently most of my childhood friends have children now.  Oh gosh, the pressure!

After church, a hoard of friends and family came over for lunch and ice cream...something I love that my family often puts together.  Then we went to the Cabbagedale fireworks.  We camped out on the church above where they were shooting them off so it wasn't too loud and theoretically it'd be easier to fight the traffic getting out.  Sadie loved, loved the fireworks and the neon glow stick my sister's friend gave her.  She kept running down the church road waving it around with my sister and I chasing behind her.

It took a good 30 minutes or so getting out of the parking lot.  But Darren and I had fun texting each other even though we were sitting next to each other.

Freedom means fireworks and bushy eyebrows.

On Sunday we relaxed, went downtown to see where my sister is moving, and ate some froyo at Cici's.  Bob and Mandy drove us past all the crazy tornado destruction on our way to Atlanta (So sad!  There were so many driveways to nothing).  Brad, Jess, and Sadie had a similar flight time, so we were able to hang in the airport together for an hour or so.  Of course, we followed Sadie around as she ran exploring the terminal and saying hi to other children.  Seeing the family and interacting with Sadie was worth our short time together.

Petit Grepon

It's time again for another North American Classic Climb!  When the clock strikes five, we had to have our poptarts...and begin hiking.  We, however, were not the first on the trail.  Backcountry skiers woke us up at our renegade camping around 3:30AM with their blaring music.  

Being that the Petit Grepon is a classic means that usually there are loads of people climbing it.  We chose to pursue it in the early season requiring us to bring snow shoes and extra energy, but we were the only ones on the route the entire day.

After six-ish miles we finally arrived at the base of the route.  Yipee!

Darren about to pull an overhanging-ish roof.  We could watch the backcountry skiers flying down the mountain from our vantage point.

Darren took this picture while climbing up the last pitch.  The rock became very narrow at the top.

Summit photo!  Darren barely made it in time.

Relaxing and trying to stay warm.  All I could think about was how cold I was during the last pitch.

Beginning our six or so pitches down from the peak.  Marmot chirps were our soundtrack.

Unfortunately marmots also attacked Darren's shoes that we had left after the first snowy pitch.

Rappelling down the first pitch.  We'd had to use our nut pickers as ice axes on our way up because there was snow almost the entire way.

Darren is way more hard core then Bear Grylls

Glissading down on our six to eight miles back to the car

Loch Lake.  It felt like forever to get around it.

A map showing our hike.  I guess if one wanted to find out our exact mileage, he or she could use the image below to do so.

We picked up some gals that had missed the last bus and took them to their car.  They hadn't seen much wildlife so we did some elk spying on our way down.

On Sunday, Darren and I were so exhausted that we read books and fell asleep in Kind Coffee, and then just drove around the entire Rocky Mountain National Park.  I was stoked because we passed two moose.  I'd never seen them so close before ever.