august and so forth

A disjoint account of a fractured month, it got awful busy for a bit. 

August slipped away into a moment in time

August sipped away like a bottle of wine

mine was none so poetic, nor did it slip away, more a series of body blows. 

Off to work as usual the first week, tripping over the cat as I commuted the twenty feet from kitchen to study, entrenching behind three monitors and two work laptops. The cat doesn't like me working, so gets up to things. 

First weekend, RMCC Rendezvous on the upper Colorado river, been doing this for nearly thirty years. Last year the old Ford had worn out a ground strap somewhere so the drive was enlivened by a gradually discharging battery with red lights flickering in the gathering dark. The last few miles of this is a steep dirt road in the very dark. This year there were thunderstorms above behind and below, the steep dirt was now steep mud, still very dark and abandoned in there. My new Ford has traction control, a slippery mode etc etc, all of which I completely forgot to engage in the slithery steeps, not being used to having options other than the loud pedal for acceleration and the soft pedal for stopping. 

Each day the thunderstorms rolled through early and late including hail on the river at one point. Usually this rendezvous operates at 90-100 deg F, my giant cooler was packed with two bags of ice and dozens of sparkling waters, none of which was needed. Bourbon was more to the point. The ice had not melted by Sunday evening back in Denver. Paddling was good though. Here's Jeff giving the trip and safety briefing so we don't die, at least not today of whitewater. 

It's the.. eye of the needle, the thrill of the fight ! 

sorry, can't get through this Eye of the Needle rapid without that song starting up in my head. Not me in pic, I'm behind the camera. 

Next day a short run, pack up camp, and homeward. I took a couple of hours to hike up into Gore canyon to check on the trout. Too tired to fish really, the canyon is always good though, very Western. Saw three nice brown trouts 16-18" turn and flash at the lure, no take. This picture involves a fat strong 13" which I can't prove as the barbless hook released the fish quickly before I could get his closeup. 

Back to work. 

Short week, left on Thursday afternoon for Milwaukee and USAT National Championships. My primary race goal for this season had been to redo the Boulder Peak Triathlon where I'd walked in 2023, get up the Old Stage hill without walking, and legs still good enough to ride the rest of the bike course hard (for old man values). A whole new box of gears for the race bike and lots of mountain riding did get me there. As an astonishment I also won the age group 65-9. The win was mostly due to the fast guys not showing up, still I'll take it. This got me an invitation to the Nationals, knew I was in no shape or form competitive there due to a missing run and weak bike, still thought it would be fun in a perverse way to do it one more time. 

Thirty years since my first Boulder Peak, here chewing hopefully on some nutrition before the start, wearing a 1995 race shirt in 2025. 

Taking my pot belly for its daily outing, a lap around Boulder Reservoir for today, with the extremely dorky bucket hat that my dermatologist likes. Someone said as I walked/ran back in, 'you look good in that hat !'. I suspect my dermatologist bribed them.

Met the legendary Ellen Hart at the start and had the honor of zipping up her wetsuit. I got out of the water 3 minutes ahead thanks to the additional floatation from that belly. Ellen climbed quietly and quickly past me up the big hill with a cheery greeting, saw her later on the bike thanks to throwing out my chest (belly actually) and getting gravity on my side for the descent of the hills. Then got outrun by fifteen minutes, won the 65-9 age group men but did not win 65-9 overall as that was Ellen's title. Ha. They are having way too much fun in this picture. I can remember running like that but it's only a memory from some August in the long past. 

We're both on the same racing team, Slowtwitch Goodlife. The Goodlife sponsor produces prime grass-fed beef without antibiotics on a Nebraska farm. Part of the team freebies was a shipment of that beef, makes you stronk like triathlete. 

Anyway, Milwaukee. The usual horrible travel drag, charged $100 overweight fee for a bike box one pound overweight. Arrived at vrbo after delayed flight and long wait for bike in empty airport halls, where I talked with a paratriathlete on one entirely artificial leg who walks faster than I can. Arrived at apartment with great relief after nearly being hit by a drunk driver then a drunk e-scooter pilot who crashed hard into the parked car ahead of me. The code opened the door, saw the bed was unmade and dirty, then someone sat up in bed and said 'hey!'. Retreated in confusion with the 51lb bike case to the hot airless stairwell, called the management company, which luckily had staffed the phones at 11:30pm. They found another apartment for me in the same block. There was a moment of regret for not booking the hotel instead. The race hotel was $450 a night, in triathlete terms that's reasonable, I'm not a real triathlete. 

In the morning at the best coffeeshop in America, Colectivo Lakefront, in an old pumphouse down by the lake. 

Rebuilt the bike out of the bike box slowly and painfully, getting the angle of the aerobars wrong though it seemed right at the time and on the short ride down to check-in. 

Early to check-in, a lot of expensive bikes already on the racks, my humble 2005 Cervelo with imitation disc wheel in foreground. Confident that I had the one of the oldest cheapest bikes in the whole paddock, didn’t see another rim-brake bike in the 65-9 rack. Bikes that cost as much as a good used car were more the rule here. 

Finish line on the other side of the bay, walk down past the Art museum to get to the transition area and bike checkin. The museum does a nice cafe lunch, quiet and low stress. 

57 of us lined up on the dock waiting for the start, into the water and the usual thrashing. I went out fast as there was a bridge to go under at 2-300 yards out and I wanted to beat the crowds there, a bit too fast really. The lead swimmer swam right away despite my best efforts to draft behind him. A lovely thing at Nationals - everyone can swim, don't have to spend half the race navigating the flotsam of previous waves. We had clean water the whole way, maybe 3 or 4 swimmers from the previous wave. Eventually 13th out of the water, not my best swim - I'll take it given the two months of not swimming due to that dermatologist scraping away much of an ear. Needed that handrail to get up the ramp, too. 

Onto the bike, flew out to the first turnaround feeling like a good day, then turned back into the headwind that had been giving me that false impression. On the bike there is never a tailwind, only good days and headwinds. 

It quickly became apparent that I'd screwed up the aerobar in my rebuild. The angle was just a bit steep which gave me shoulder cramping and spasms that kept me out of the aero position more than was reasonable. The gusty strong winds also kept me out of the bars, trying to keep control and not blow over the edge of the Hoan bridge. There were a couple of crashes due to the wind. The last five miles or so had that tailwind again, good for speed, terrible in 90 degrees F and high humidity.

Starting the run I thought the top of my head was going to blow off like a cartoon volcano in the heat. Run course beautifully flat out along the lake front, past a beach or two, cruelly back to the finish area at 8km then out and back along the side of the harbor basin.

My friend Carl texted me to say, head up and smiling, makes a good finish line photo every time. Well didn't quite manage that. A nap after beergarden lunch. That's a beer bratwurst with genuine Wisconsin cheese curds as a garnish, enough calories to appease. 

Finished content with the effort, when I saw results I was less happy: down to 28th after bike, 34th after run. I thought I could be top 30 even with the known bad run. Last times at Nationals I was trying to qualify for Worlds and had been a bit obsessive about checking the competition, previous results etc. This time just sailed blithely into it, didn’t realize quite how much I’d slowed relative to the competition in both bike and run. It probably didn't help that my bike training had been focused on climbing rather than head-down aero position steady efforts. 

Walked out to see awards and found one of those 100-year storms that we seem to be getting every year now, rolling in from the lake. Immense black clouds full of lightning loomed and tornado sirens moaned. Spent a couple hours in a restaurant waiting for the rain to stop which didn’t happen. The walk back was a good thorough washout, haven’t been that clean in years.

11" of rain that night so the next day's Sprint distance race was cancelled. Sat at my gorgeous cafe on the course, watching crowds of frustrated triathletes ride and run up and down the road. 

Frank Lloyd Wright built a Greek Orthodox church here in Milwaukee. I took myself to church. Outside is a little sad, inside is stunning but worn down. 

The interior is very thoughtfully designed. There are two crying rooms, with full windows, so families can take their fussy babies etc out of the main space but still see the service. The upper level has a circular walk going all around at the topmost level, where active toddlers can do their laps without much disturbing the worship below. Traditionally Eastern Orthodox churches have domes rather than spires, for reasons theological. These get extensive and imbricated like most theology. Gary Neal Hansen has a good summation, 

Spires are on our churches to point our attention upward, toward heaven, reaching for a distant God in Heaven. 

The church as dome sends a different message about the same faith: The dome is heaven, and we are invited in. In the Incarnation heaven was poured out upon and united with earth. 

Another strenuous interlude with the 51lb bike box, and back to work.

On call for work the next weekend, that leads to a 12 day work week. No adventures but not restful as such. 

Next up, off to Newport RI to see a son graduating from Navy officer training. 

Lots of shouting and marching around, just like my Army experience half a world and half a century away. This is a class of professionals becoming officers. The largest contingent was dentists, followed by nuclear engineers, medical a distant third, a sprinkling of chaplains. Later going to lunch in the expensive downtown of Newport, put on my extremely dorky hat for the walk, son looked at me and said "you're really looking like a Dad today". 

Stayed a couple of days with old friends from S. Africa. They were dogsitting a wild puppy named River, a rescue pup who looked vaguely greyhound/whippetish, clever and active. Ran one morning about 8 miles, then a nice bike ride around the RI bike paths to lunch and back. I'd hoped to get in a swim to complete a sort of slow-motion triathlon, but the River monster needed a long walk to take the edge off. 

Back to work. The cat didn't appreciate all this leaving and had opinions. 

The next is a bit of cheat as it mostly happened in September, the trouble all started in August though. A week of wilderness canoeing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Weather happened again, strong cold winds and rain, inordinate grotesque amounts of rain. 

Undaunted we take ship for the edge of the motor-navigable waters. 

Paddled in, encamped, watched a black stormwall of cloud advance to cover us for the next three days. First time in my life for:

- wearing raingear 3 days straight 

- keeping a fire going 3 days straight 

- staying in one camp for 3 days straight

- wearing the same wet clothes 3 days straight, why put on dry clothes, now you have two sets of wet clothes and no way to dry either. 

For Helen, after the first day of paddling portaging and racing for a good campsite without benefit of lunch - the dreaded bonk - a total inability to continue, marked by nausea, extreme physical weakness, poor coordination, and a profoundly awful feeling. Luckily this happened only after we were encamped and dug a trench or so to redirect the river running through our tent. 

In the morning, some gallons of water in the boat. I was down here the previous evening trying to get it turned over when the wall hit, completely soaked through in a minute, gave up and fled for the shelter of the tarp. Maybe not 11" of rain but a fair attempt. Back in the days when we backpacked and canoed regularly with friends, this was known as Kretzmann weather, on the ragged edge of survivability. Good to know I haven't lost my rainbringing powers. 

 Gratuitous pretty picture from the day we left this camp, courtesy of Jeff. 

In the intervals between storms we had to paddle out to fetch more firewood. Camp is on the far shore, this is the sunny side of the lake. It may have been Canadian, luckily the gunboats didn't show up to demand tariffs on our lumber. 

Here there be bears. Regulations require a food bag hang 12' off the ground, 6' out from the tree, 4' down from the hanging point. This is surprisingly difficult to achieve. We had to hike a half mile out from camp to find a tree, a mini adventure twice a day, over the blowdown trees, through the swamp, up over the rocks. Nothing quite like the satisfaction of a good hang in the daylight, though. Jeff and I have had some epic hours of hanging in the dark entirely surrounded by mosquitos. 

We eked out a couple of fish meals despite the cold front. 

On the last morning the BWCA showed us its fair face. We might even go back. 

So, August.

The same things that I've always done

But I'm older now and I get tired some

small fishing

In a small stream, for small trout. On the other hand, these are native Colorado cutthroat trout, living in a tributary of the Colorado river headwaters, exactly what and where they are supposed to be, and how many of us can say that ? 

I'd thought they were native, the ranger said they are re-introduced wild ones after the brookies were got out of the creek. They appear to be flourishing, one or two about everywhere you'd expect a fish to be in a little creek.  

My wife and I used to do a lot of backpacking together. The last time we were out was on a Boy Scout trip, nearly ten years ago. She was mentioning that I kept doing these long trips without her. Prudence, that delightful girl, suggested another trip together. The plan was for a shortish hike in for 2 nights, potter about day hiking in the middle day. I was online 7:59am on March 1st and was able to get one of the coveted backcountry campsite reservations. Not the one I wanted, still getting anything at all is a good trick these days.  

My wife is struggling with plantar fasciitis. I went for a perfectly ordinary run last week, same as I've done several times a week since 1975, and partially tore an Achilles tendon. Wut. So the two of us were KT-taped up, in soft supportive running shoes instead of hiking boots, and just generally a couple wrecks rolling down the trail. 

A much later start than planned, driving up on the morning of July 4th thinking to miss some of the traffic. I70 wasn't bad, then the line to get into Granby for the 4th parade was backed up half an hour out of town. As a result of this when we got to the Wilderness Office to pick up our permit, the ranger was on lunch, and we had to wait for that. We missed the Rotary Club pancake breakfast in the park too. At least the Rocky Mt NP entry was easy since they went to timed entry permits, no line at all and a relatively uncrowded trailhead. First backpack out of the new truck, long may we both run.  

Rain chased us up the hill, into the campsite, and rained until we got the tent up, wetly. Then it stopped. Ha. 

At least the columbines are enjoying the moisture. We are grateful too, really. 

Signs say there is an 'active landslide' on this trail. I pictured a sort of slow-motion sliding of the hill downwards, what that actually means is the hillside shifts every winter so it's not possible to rebuild the trail yet. Here's the trail vanishing into a mess of logs ditches and small streams. Note the stealth fishing rod carry - 7' four piece rod in a black cloth bag, slid into the side pocket of the backpack. Undetectable except to the closest scrutiny, and frees me from all those 'hows the fishing' questions. 

The cat enjoyed our new tent when I put it up to test at home. Mountain Hardware Aspect 3, weighs 4lb for a roomy three man tent. I may now own nine tents. It seems excessive but there's an excellent reason for every one, perhaps not for keeping every one I confess. 

Hammock up for wifely nap and headed streamwards. This is a newly made rod with an old Heddon reel. At one point in my long forgotten childhood I owned a Heddon spinning reel in just this shade of greens, a little prick of nostalgia each time. The fly reel is a good Japanese copy of an expensive English reel, Hardy Flyweight. Poor American cousins can fish it happily though. 

Tiny stream with many downed trees. The pine beetles killed a great many of these trees and they have been declining and falling ever since. I kept trying to make cunning sidearm casts to get the fly into the pockets, the fly kept hanging up in spiderwebs. After a few of these I stopped with the cunning casts as I was feeling bad about tearing up the webs, poor old spiders gotta live too. 

Fish there as expected. I caught a few in the 7-8" range that wriggled and flip-flapped off the barbless hook before a picture could be taken. Small trout have so much vigor. Here's a minnow picture instead.  

Visitors in camp that evening. The campsite had a number of trees cut down for safety, creating the only meadow for miles around. I guess the deer couldn't resist the succulent browsing. They were close enough we could hear them chewing.

Over 100 degrees in Denver, low 40s here at night. Good sleeping weather, in between the thunderstorms. 

Next day up to Timber Lake at 11200ft. We started late again, on the trail by 9, then I had romantic notions of visiting Long Meadow and finding a lake of flowers. In the event the Long Meadow trail is unmaintained and the whole of it looks like that landslide picture, a mess of downed trees. We tried for a bit and quit, emerging both bloody and bowed. By 11:30 the thunder and hail began again. The advantage of this was by the time we'd waited it out in the deeper forest, everyone else had left the lake, and we had solitude and rising fish. More you cannot ask. 

Fish were rising to a hatch of #16 midges and perfectly able to ignore the hopperish fly that had worked on the creek. These looked to be in the 8-10" range. The next thunderstorm was boiling up over the ridges. My eyes are such that tying on a #16 fly and new tippet takes me 10-15min, did not attempt. Quick pic of the lake and sky with blooms then back down the hill.

Fished down the tree canyon for a bit in the evening, results much the same as before. Worth it though. 

Next day hike out and drive home, over Trail Ridge road to avoid I70 on the Sunday after a long weekend. The elk were safely grazing at 12 000ft, on the far ridge there was another herd bedded down in a snowbank. They really don't like to be warm. Click image to embiggen, then look for the elk in the near foreground, half a mile or so down the hill. 

In the fall I have a permit for a campsite down in one of those gorges on the far side - five miles in on the Continental Divide along the ridgeline, then drop down across country without benefit of trail for another two to four miles, depending on how often you get cliffed out and have to backtrack. Frankly I'm a little intimidated. 

Still, as John Gierach wrote, 

"although I'd now and then wonder if I was getting too old for all this bushwhacking and rock scrambling, there I was doing it, so apparently not."

Wholly gratuitous song, just happens to be what I'm listening to. 

Megg also does a Western swing cover version of Kate Bush's Running up That Hill (Make a deal with God). It's splendid. 
Those lyrics are in my head these days anytime I run, would like that deal so I could run up a hill again, instead of a panting walk. 

And if I only could

I'd make a deal with God

Be running up that road

Be running up that hill

With no problems

paddling deficiency

I was suffering from a paddling and nature deficit, sneaked out after work with the canoe. 

The reservoir was raised a couple years back, drowning the trees around it. Most of the trees were cut out and plucked by helicopter, leaving sad watery groves of stumps around the edge. 

In the Plum Creek arm of the lake, there are dead trees still standing. The birds moved in.

A new heronry, dozens of nests, the herons had strong loud opinions about everything. 

A rather small fish, with an arsenal of fishing rods/toys for background. 

At least there is the majesty of nature to contemplate, viz. the two goose bottoms sticking out of the water on R of the trees.

The pelicans are judging me I feel. Sticks and bits of string, how does he expect to catch fish like that ? 

Eventually one decent walleye on the fly, 17". The legal size here is 18" so no fish dinner tonight. 

Came home tired, put truck away, forgot to close tailgate so the garage door bounced off during the auto-close and stayed open all night. My wife hates when I do that, believes I should not be going out tired and coming back more. Without paddling and general nature boy pottering around though, I should go mad slightly faster than the current rate of descent.