Another Year, Another Mountain

As has been tradition for the past few years, Ellen and I took our annual 14er hike this weekend. This year's target: Mt. Democrat.

We stayed the night in Silverthorne so that we wouldn't have to get up too ungodly early. On the way to the trailhead, we caught some fall colors.



Kite Lake Trailhead was our starting point, which is around 12,000 feet.



The first half was pretty easy, but by the time we hit the saddle, the talus was aplenty. Annoying to hike on, but the new views opening up made up for it.



And, without further ado, here's the view from the top at 14,148 feet.



And, his and hers truly.



Bonus: After the hike we had lunch in Breckenridge and completely unbeknownst to us stumbled across their Octoberfest party! The key takeaway from the event was that we'll soon be making this simple but super-fun game for y'all to play the next time you visit us!





In the interest of migrating stuff off of Facebook and over here to this blog, here's a brief recap of previous 14er hikes:

Grays Peak and Torrys Peak in September 2015

Flickr Album

Mount Bierstadt in July 2014

Flickr Album

Mount Massive in September 2013

Two Guns Distillery post-hike medicine.

Goodbye, Mark

In light of continuing and apparently increasing censorship on Facebook, I'm going to begin posting blog-first. I'll copy the links over to Facebook, but Mark and his company have proven to no longer be trustworthy stewards of my content.

The most recent example of this is:

Mark Zuckerberg accused of abusing power after Facebook deletes 'napalm girl' 

If you don't like that picture, Mark, perhaps you'll prefer this one.

Photograph: Nick Ut/AP

I'll be slowly removing all of my old content from Facebook, at least the stuff that I think I should keep, and relocating it here. Some of the conversations I had with you, my friends and family, were the best part of that content. If the conversation was something more than "Nice shot!" then I'll probably copy that over here, too. Because this is a public blog, I want to respect your privacy. If you see a conversation here that you participated in with me and would prefer that conversation be kept private, just let me know and I'll remove it. 

To end on a positive note, I'd like to share a quote that I ran across while researching the original "Napalm Girl" photograph. That little girl turned out to be a wise and beautiful human being.

Forgiveness made me free from hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most days but my heart is cleansed. Napalm is very powerful, but faith, forgiveness, and love are much more powerful. We would not have war at all if everyone could learn how to live with true love, hope, and forgiveness. If that little girl in the picture can do it, ask yourself: Can you?

-- Kim Phúc, NPR in 2008