Discover your Inner Julie Andrews on Mt. Bierstadt

Trail Length: 7 miles round trip
Elevation: 11,669-14,060 ft
Elevation gain: 2,850 ft
Difficulty: Strenuous
Critters: Big Horn Sheep, peak baggers galore


Left to right, Mt. Evans (14,264 ft) and Mt. Bierstadt (14,060 ft) as seen from the Square Top trail. This photo is mine. The rest in this post are courtesy of Lynn Johnson.
Mt. Bierstadt is one of Colorado's 53 14ers. Technically it is one of the easiest and the views of lush Guanella Pass make it doubly appealing. There was a time when slogging across the willow infested valley before beginning the climb used to be a soggy mess. Now, with the addition of a boardwalk, this part of the hike is a walk in the park.

Things get serious after the willows when the trail climbs up to a broad shoulder. The views from this place make it a worthy destination in itself for those interested in a shorter hike. It still has some elevation gain to provide sufficient bragging rights and a wide area for picnicking and people watching. You can hold up Olympic score cards measuring lung capacity as folks crest over the shoulder. You'll see everything from small children to trail runners using Beirstadt to train for the Leadville 100. When no one is looking, do your best Julie Andrews imitation and twirl around. At high altitude motion sickness takes on a whole new meaning.


Big Horn Sheep on the road
The more able bodied will want to continue up the trail which rises steeply into the distance. It is rocky but the use of poles quickly adds needed stability. Stop as often as necessary and tell everyone you need a view break. Turn around, face down trail, suck wind, and admire the increasingly expansive views of Guanella Pass. I found that I was able to zip up the trail with no quad burn whatsoever but that the inevitable effects of high altitude did have me breathing heavily. Perhaps I should have slowed down a bit because near the upper ridge the trail started getting a bit blurry. We wouldn't want it to be TOO easy, now would we.


Looking down on the shoulder
Hikers get a nice break on the upper ridge which is flat but full of scree. Take your time crossing. A twisted ankle at this point would make getting down a challenge. The final cone of scree is a jumble and hikers just find their way from rock to rock with little coherence.


Another view from higher up
We were lucky and the weather was beautiful. We stayed on the summit for over an hour just gawking at the rolling green hills below us. I have been chased off of Guanella so many times by lightening that I have developed a neurotic paranoia about the place but this day there was barely a wisp of a cloud. I still eyed them carefully because Guanella is notorious for brewing storms at explosive rates.


Lynn snacks before tackling the final skree pile.
From the summit, Mt. Evans feels like it is within spitting distance and you can see all the tourists who drove up to that summit. "Look Vern there are mountain climbers over there!" With more time and a car shuttle, you can cross the sawtooth that connects the two peaks and bag two in one day. I have several friends who have done this and say it is easier than it looks and well worth doing.


View from the summit looking west.
So, for those of you who have never climbed a 14er, give Mt. Bierstadt a try. It is an easy walk up but will require you to have gotten off the couch in the last year. Some scrambling is required in the scree field so bring your gloves as well. Do it like I did and take the day off of work to avoid the crowds and meditate on why we love living in Colorado.

Samba Room: The end to dining ennui

The Samba Room is conveniently located downtown in Larimer Square. Park under Writer's Square and walk up. We went before visiting the Demented Divas Show at Lannie's Clock Tower Cabaret. Something worth going to as well.

I just love going to places that have drinks I can not pronounce. The Samba Room has Brazilian Capirinhas which is the national drink of Brazil. it is made with cachaca which is a distilled beverage made with sugar cane just like rum. I had mine with a little Bacardi Limon. It was both fun and potent. Limit your intake or you might find yourself waking up on a flight to Rio. Besides Capirinhas, there were the ubiquitous Mojitos, Martinis, and Tequila based infusions.

The room is modern and loud, so don't go for intimate conversation. Dress warmly as well. They had all the ceiling fans going plus the air conditioning even though it was quite nippy outside and every time the front door opened a blast of cold air would rush in. We did ask them to turn down the AC and they did but it took a while.

I started with the house cerviche which I order when ever I see it on the menu. While better in the summer of course, cerviche is still a treat and comes in so many different variations. This one came with mango, ahi tuna, and plantain chips. Ok, so I am a tacky American and missed the tortilla chips but other wise it was tasty and complimented the Capirinhas nicely.

My entree was the Argentinean Style Skirt Steak. It came with Chimichurii, which is a tangy Latin American marinade derived in the early 19th Century from Italian pesto. It is made with parsley, oregano, garlic, salt, pepper, onion, olive oil and vinegar. How such common ingredients could taste so different I would like to know. Don't tell your Argentinean friends, but the sauce was originally created by an Irishman called "Jimmy McCurry" and the name of the sauce is the inevitable mispronunciation of his name. I can see why Jimmy left Ireland for Argentina however. Such a vibrant sauce would have been cause for excommunication in Ireland. The steak came with a side of fries which dipped nicely in the sauce.

I don't know about you, but I suffer from dining ennui this time of year when I see the same five entrees on every menu. You can eat only so many lamb chops, duck l'oranges, boring-chicken-somethings, and filets topped with who knows what. I want to go back to the Samba Room and try their marinated pork or various fish dishes.

Of course, if we have another winter like last year it won't require a bucket of Capirinhas to get me on a plane to Rio.

Royal Arch: Boulder's Stair-Master

Distance: 3 miles round trip
Elevation: 5,680 to 6,950 ft
Elevation gain: 1,270 ft
Critters: Snack stealing ground squirrels

The last few rocky steps to Royal Arch

Updated: June 2009 with more comprehensive pictures

Come spring, we head to Boulder and all the trails that ascend along the flatirons. There is no better training than a steep trail. Royal Arch may be short, but it packs a punch. We typically make it to the arch in 50 minutes or less and gratefully suck wind while admiring the expansive views of the plains and nearby flatirons. You can't see the arch from the road, nor can you see it from NCAR although it seems very close when viewed from the rocks surrounding the arch.

The trail itself starts out at Chautauqua and ascends along a flat road to the official trailhead. The Royal Arch Trail quickly becomes a narrow and rocky as it switchbacks up the hillside deep in the shade of the rocks, pines, and thick riparian foliage. Most of the trail is large stone steps that are a challenge for short-legged folks and will make you wish you had spent more time on the StairMaster.

Three quarters of the way up is a false summit. There are impressive views of the plains here and a nice log to sit and rest on. The trail descends sharply for 150 ft or so before angling upwards again. After more steps, more logs, and more lactic acid build-up, one will finally see the arch. It is actually quite large, and the rocks on the other side provide raptor-like perches for the downing of trail munchies.

Try this trail to get you motivated for summer peak bagging and avoid weekends if possible. There is not much room at the top and CU co-eds can pack the trail on nice weekend days. We go after work when the days starting getting longer. Don't forget to bring hiking poles, which can provide stability on the return trip and help prevent quad burn out.

To get to the Royal Arch trailhead, one must first travel up Chautauqua Rd.

The first part of the trail is light dirt and rocks in a dark Ponderosa Pine forest

The trail quickly begins to climb up a series of rock steps

The flatirons are visible through the trees

View through the trees from the false summit looking at the rocks ahead

Standing on the false summit and looking down the sharp decent

At the bottom of the decent

Some of the tree damage from 2009

On the south side of the arch looking back through it

The view from the rock pile on the south side of the arch. The pink building on the hill is NCAR

An older picture from 2007 showing the view looking north through the arch itself

Mt. Tallac, South Lake Tahoe, CA

Trail Length: 9.6 miles RT
Elevation: 6,480-9,735 ft
Elevation gain: 3,255 ft
Difficulty: Strenuous
Critters: Bears!


Tallac Peak viewed from below
After a week in Reno for the annual Supercomputing conference, a friend and I took off for Lake Tahoe. I used to go there as a kid, but have not been back in over ten years. I was amazed by how blue the lake was.

We stopped into the local visitor's center and puffed out our chests. "We're from Colorado, what is the hardest hike you have around here?". The young man behind the counter gleefully told us about Mt. Tallac and seemed suitably impressed with our hiking ambitions. He said most tourists just wanted 1/2 mile nature walks. We were feeling holier than thou and motivated for the next day. By the time we would finish however, we would gain new respect for the Tahoe area and their "tiny peaks".

The Tallac trail starts upward immediately and winds through ponderosa pines and up and down ridges. There are three lakes to see along the way. Long Leaf lake is very long indeed and the trail climbs up along a high ridge looking down on the lake. You can see views of the casinos in the distance. The other two lakes are called Floating Island and Cathedral lakes. They are more like ponds, the first being filled with Mallards and the second being surrounded by a rocks and drift wood. Above Cathedral lake is a lovely rock terrace perfect for lounging and trail bar munching. You can see Cathedral Lake below and finally a stellar view of Tahoe itself. After the shelf the trail climbs sharply up to the top of a ridge. The trail was steep and rocky, in fact infuriatingly rocky. The forest service laid down large and small gravel the entire length of the trail, so it was like walking on talus for 10 miles. My boots kept slipping and the sharp stones were irritating after a while.

Once on top of the ridge, the trail climbs behind the mountain and the view shift to glimpses of the continental divide for the Sierra Nevada Range. We could not tell which of the scree fields to our right was the summit. It turns out it was still quite a ways away and still a significant up. The views from the summit were spectacular as you can image. Tahoe is impressive in both size and color and the sweeping extent of the Sierras was beautiful to behold.

Without poles, the hike up was harder than I anticipated, particular on all the loose rock. I was also carrying two peoples worth of food, water, and clothing because my friend conveniently did not bring a pack. We had anticipated freezing temps given that this was Nov 17th and a front was due in. The weather held though and I hiked in my base layer most of the day. At the top we donned hats and soft shells to fight the wind but it was quite pleasant.


View from the summit
In November, one is always fighting the lack of daylight. We got started at 9:30 am and reached the top four hours later. It took us 3 hours to decent and we made it down just as it was getting dark, so our time on the top was miserably short. The lateness in the day did bring out the bears, however. I alas only saw a brown furry butt scurrying off into the chaparral. By then I did not care and just wanted to get down and off to our fine dinning event at Tahoe's Evan's Restaurant. A religious experience I will have to relate in a separate post.

Flagstaff House: Its true, the view is what you pay for

My fine dining club was off to Ocean in Cherry Creek when one of our members, who works in Boulder, got sucked into a last minute meeting. We quickly switched our destination to the Flagstaff House. The irony of this choice is that last February we had reservations at the Flagstaff House but they closed on us because of a snow storm and we ended up at L'Atelier instead. Here we were at the Flagstaff house as our alternate choice.

I had always been told that the window seats were the premium seats but our table was just inside and our view as better in my mind because it was more expansive. If you are used to big city dining the view will be nothing special but for Boulderites who are not used to city lights it is unique. I can't tell you much I enjoy dining in a room filled with men in ties. Sometimes I think Coloradans have forgotten that nice piece of formality.

I confess I almost danced on the table when I saw that the wine list was a thick as the Denver white pages. There were 10 pages of Scotch that had me foaming at the mouth. I am lucky if a restaurant has one Scotch from the western Scottish islands. The Flagstaff House had an entire page and even a Scotch flight from Islay which I gleefully ordered. What a treat.

Even before the amuse bush, there were two chef's treats. One as a fried banana wrapped in bacon and the other a cheese tart. Both were unique and tantalizing.

The table ordered the Rabbit loin appetizer. It came wrapped in pancetta with goat cheese and a garlic sauce. Promising but not as robust as I would have hoped. Our other appetizer was a prawn, head-on, with crab and salmon roe. This appetizer was even more disappointing. It had one prawn on it and a mousse like lump of potato. It was bland and hard to share.

For our entrees, the table ordered two of the filets, mine with a fois gra supplement, a New York strip and rack of lamb. My filet was over cooked. It is possible it was swapped with the other filet which was order more cooked than mine, but with the fois gra supplement I did not feel comfortable asking. If that is case and the filets were switched, then it was a novice line chef mistake that you would think a place like the Flagstaff house would be above. I did taste the NY strip and it was far more tender and moist in its port wine sauce. I would recommend that entree. The filet came on a bed of beans and ham that seemed out of place and did not compliment the meat. I did not try the lamb but was told it was quite excellent.

The sommelier was very pleasant and zeroed in with seconds on a bottle of Scherrer Russian River 2004 Pinot Noir $78 ($38-45 retail) that was excellent, smooth, fruity, and managed to compliment all our entrees.

Before I describe the service I need to relate to you my baseline for excellent service. I was dining at Kevin Taylor's one day and was pulling the crust off my bread so that I could eat it later. Completely unbeknownst to me, a server had whisked my bread away and replaced it with de-crusted bread. Now that is a server who pays attention! The service at the Flagstaff house was fine but it did not live up to that level. We did dawdle quite a bit but the staff was very patient and friendly but not distinctive.

Dessert was a rectangular box of chocolate filled with cream and berries. Certainly enough for four and a nice capstone to the evening.

All in all we had a lovely time. Good friends, good wine and decent but not exceptional food made it delightful indeed. I would need to try a few more entrees to really recommend the cuisine.

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