To Hell You Ride

You wanna' know the single coolest piece of trivia about Telluride, Colorado?

/waits breathlessly for response

Forget it, I'm telling you anyway. Positioned in the middle of a box canyon, there are three ways into Telluride, but only two ways out. Two of the ways in require drives over steep mountain passes, and one of the entries is so foreboding,it can only safely be climbed INTO Telluride, and not out.

Feel free to impress your friends at your next dinner party with that little nugget of info.

Anyhoo, Lauren and I packed up the Outback Saturday morning for what was supposed to be an overnight excursion to Telluride for the Blues and Brews festival and celebration of our good pal Lori's 40th birthday. Did I write 40th? I meant thirtieth. Yeah, that'll do.

Some would say it's a waste of time for me to attend a Blues and Brews festival, since I'm already clinically depressed and currently unable to imbibe alcohol, but what do they know?

On our way out of town, Lauren took a good shot of Mt. Sopris, in all its downvalley glory. Enjoy.

The idea of the festival was to pitch a tent in the campground adjacent to the festival, so you could convene with friends and fellow party goers well into the night after the bands stopped. Here I am setting up the trusty BD tent and enjoying my last few moments of lucidity before suffering a nervous breakdown.

Why did I snap? Look, I've come a long way since this surgery, and I'm capable of doing nearly everything I could prior to May 9th. But one thing I am NOT ready for, it quickly dawned on me, was to surround myself with 3,000 sweaty hippies on the wrong side of a 72-hour bender when I'm stone sober. I'm still at the point in my recovery where sleep is invaluable, and it quickly became apparent that rest would not be readily available in our intended setting.

So Lauren and I decided to bag the campout, but enjoy the festival regardless and head back to Aspen when the night wore down. Here's a view of Telluride on the way into town. It's a beautiful town, as you can see, but it has a way of making one feel a touch claustrophobic.

Here's Lauren grooving to the sounds of G Love and Special Sauce. We've traveled 2,400 miles, only to hear a guy from Philly play in Telluride. Go figure.

A shot of the festival. You couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting some dreadlocked, patchoulie scented thirty-something deeply immersed in a game of hackey sack.

With the night winding down, Lauren and I had the brilliant idea of driving an hour east and grabbing a hotel in Ouray, Colorado. I drive through Ouray all the time on the way to ski at Silverton, and it's generally considered one of the most idyllically-set towns in the US.

When we arrived it was dark, so no pictures until the morning. Lauren and I grabbed a quick bite to eat, then returned to our hotel room a bit despondent that we weren't spenidng the night in the tent.

One quick trip to the car remedied that up quick.

I'll confess, while it didn't quite provide the feeling of freedom that only a night out under the stars can provide, it did cut down our chances of being ravaged by a bear in our sleep dramatically.

The next morning we were greeted by bluebird skies and a sleepy town. We grabbed a bagel, shot some pictures encompassing the entire town of Ouray, and were on our way back to Aspen.

Besides, the Mexican Food Sucks North of There Anyway

Big happenings here in the valley since I last posted, but sadly, my laptop was on the fritz so I couldn't upload any pictures. Until now, that is. But you probably already figured that out.

Ahhh, Texas. There's so much more to the Lonestar State than the Dallas Cowboys, oppressive humidity, and frequent executions of the mentally retarded. It's also the home state of our good friends Brianna and Ryan Smith, who decided to take a break from their twice-weekly hurricane evacuations and spend Labor Day weekend in lovely Aspen, Colorado.

Bri holds a special place in my heart, as we ran our first marathon together back in 2001, and she was the first to encourage me that I had some potential as an endurance athlete. Ryan is a fantastic guy, LSU grad, and the current pilot of my old Cervelo P2K triathlon bike.


Early Saturday morning, we headed out to hike to Cathedral Lake, a 2,000 foot climb and 3.5 mile round trip. Here's the happy Texans' at the beginning of the climb, which started at an elevation of 9,800 feet.

The views, while not painted in their fall colors just yet, were still beautiful. A waterfall here, river there, valley bottom here, towering peaks there...

As we started to ascend above tree line, the surrounding valley opened up. I believe this is a view of one of our Elk Mountain 14ers, Castle Peak, which I skied back in June 2006. I could be mistaken, however.

There's one last steep climb before the trail flattens out and offers hikers a choice of heading to either Cathedral Lake or Electric Pass, named for its frequent and violent lightning storms. * Since the forecast was calling for storms after noon and the skies were already growing ominous, we decided Cathedral Lake was the better play.

Here's the happy couple posing before our well-earned destination, Cathedral Lake. Set in the shadow of Cathedral Peak at 11,800 feet, the water is clear as the Caribbean. Soon after this tranquil photo was taken, Ryan causally tossed several sticks of lit TNT into the lake, blew it to all hell, and harvested the now dead, floating fish from the surface one by one. He referred to it as fishing, "Texas Style." Good times.

With the water temp hovering around the mid-fifties, only one in our group was willing to make the leap.
After a rapid descent, we headed up Independence Pass for a quick tour of the Grottos, seen here in the first week after Lauren and I moved to the valley. A quick stop at the Devil's Punchbowl, a popular Aspen cliff-diving area, and we were on our way back downvalley for some well-deserved rest.

Saturday evening we had a delightful dinner at the Riverside Grill, which as I explained to Bri, was founded by James Riverside in 1971, and has nothing to do with its location adjacent to the Fryingpan River. **

Sunday morning, we took the bus up to the Maroon Bells, the most photographed mountains in the United States. The morning was hazy and overcast, so we decided to get a closer look and go for a hike.

Here's my lovely bride and I enjoying a Sunday morning atop Maroon Lake.

After about an hour of hiking and with a steady rain developing, we reached our destination, Crater Lake, which was discovered by old man Crater in 1945.*** No pictures, sadly, as the weather quickly grew worse and we had to hightail it back to Maroon Lake.

Monday morning, Bri and Ryan left us, and the Nitti family looked to catch up on some much-needed rest. I hopped on the couch, and Maci, as she'll do from time to time, climbed up as well. Only this time, she decided to make her bed in a rather, uh...uncomfortable manner.

* may not be accurate

** most definitely not accurate

*** absolutely, without question not accurate