30 June 2015

14er Season!

It has begun. Since we had a wet spring, the snow was pretty piled up in the mountains, but it's finally starting to allow access to the peaks.

On Saturday we climbed Pike's Peak, standard route. It's 13 miles to the top. It was rough, but we did it. Longest 14er hiked yet.








We ended up catching a (not so cheap)  ride down.

For a more thorough trip report click here.

08 June 2015

a weekend

I saw my nephew this weekend for the first time in a long time. He’s 15 now, and I cannot really get my head around that. It doesn’t help that he looks about 11, and doesn’t talk a whole lot. But he’s super creative and has been modifying old sawzall blades to make knives.

It’s sad to me that my transition, while being exactly what I needed to move forward with my life, has made many past aspects of my life awkward at best and completely void at the worst.

I appreciate my dad more than I can express. He’s a very genuine person. And genuinely good. He uses my name. And even my pronouns, though he fumbled and backpedaled when given a death stare by my mom.
Both of my parents were very nice and giving and kind to my friends and me. I know that my mom misses me. She is always prompting me to come visit.

And I’m mostly okay with visiting, it’s just that I don’t really enjoy how jarring it is to be misrepresented. I am not ever going to insist that she use my name and pronouns. I am never going to give her ultimatum or anything of the sort. But I am going to be hesitant to spend very much of my valuable time away from work putting myself through such -once again “jarring” is the best word- encounters.

Both of my parents seem to accept Liam as my partner. I have never explicitly told them this is true, but they are not dumb. The invitation is for both of us (despite the insistence of separate rooms.) I do not know what they think of the relationship, or even if they think of it much at all.

Because we have a State Parks pass, we will be visiting that side of the mountains a few times this year, as there are several state parks near them. Hopefully it will continue to be good.

Also this weekend, I visited an old workplace - Glenwood Caverns. I was a tram operator for most of high school and a couple of summers after starting college. It was a fun job. And though it has changed a whole lot in the intervening 8 or so years, it’s still a fun place. I hope my friends had a good time trooping along after my nostalgia.

It was nice to spend some time visiting old places and people that I once knew so well.

02 June 2015

Trail Tuesday

This week is a two-for-one since I neglected to post last week.

Last week I decided to check out Sand Creek Regional Greenway, as it's about 15 minutes north of my house. It was a nice trail for the most part, but there was a lot of construction and other hazards that required me to make several detours. It also switches back and forth between gravel and cement, which made it slightly unpleasant to run on. I also got a killer sunburn. I don't think I'll return. Not for awhile anyway. But it was nice to find a new place and I got a pretty great photo.
Today I returned to North Table Mountain. I had the idea of doing a figure eight to stretch the length a bit more, since the longest loop is about 7.5 miles. Well, I was able to successfully stretch it to 12. But it was super hot and not very pleasant. I walked a good 30% of the time. And about 3/4 of the way through I found a creek and sat in the shade with water running over me for about ten minutes.

I need to find some places to run that aren't front range. And/or I need to get up much earlier. ugh.

a nice big root to trip over.

pretty day, just way too hot.

cactus blooms!

and paintbrush.