Colorado, USA

12-28th August, 2008

Colorado! What a beautiful part of the world. I could write about this place, and in particular, some of its very friendly residents, for pages and pages. But I won't, not because it's boring, but because I don't have the hours and hours and hours I'd need to do it justice.

So let's start at the beginning. The year was 2001, and the Tas Uni Climbing Club was cruising along. That was until this little upstart from Colorado named Dayna Hochevar came along, and started traditions like massage conga-lines and dessert pizza that changed the face of the club.

Dayna and I have kept in touch for the last 7 years, would you believe, and man it was good to see her again. She picked us up from Denver International Airport, which is 2 hours drive from her house in Pueblo. And that was straight after she sat an exam to get into Physician's Assistant School. So she was all tired and stuff, but still she drove all that way for us. That's how cool she is.

We stayed with her in her share house, living with her sister Tracey and their landlord (and friend) Daneya. Both were super-cool and almost as untidy as us, which made all of us feel completely at home.

So what did we get up to? Well, lots of hiking, driving around, and even some climbing. It was super cool.

The first place Dayna took us was to the Garden of the Gods, which is an amazing place with an alien sandstone and conglomerate landscape. Here's a photo.

The Garden of the Gods

Reygan, Dayna's niece, top, and Dayna at the Garden of the Gods.

We did some cool bouldering in the Garden of the Gods, and also found a little garden snake which Reygan promptly picked up and started stuffing down the backs of our shirts. What fun!

Dayna's parents, John and Dianne, lived about 10 minutes drive from Dayna's. They were really nice to us and we spent many evenings there eating delicious food, playing pool, using their internet, watching the Olympics, and planning hikes. They were our adopted parents for the time we were in Colorado, and we'll love them forever. Thanks guys!

We visited this place called Bishop's Castle, which was built single-handedly by this slightly bizarre old fella, Mr Bishop. He's been working on the castle for over 40 years. It's a litigator's nightmare, with rickety steel stairwells, a dragon's head, teetering towers, and anything you could imagine that would make parents' wills crumble as they watch their 8 year-old kids tear around the place. Entry is by donation, and you also have to sign a legal waiver before you go in. What made it more dramatic was the fact that it was misty, raining, and we were 30-40m up in the air surrounded by steel, with a thunderstorm approaching.

Atop the tower of Bishop's Castle. Scary stuff.
Clockwise from left: John (Dayna's brother), Dayna, Jen, Reygan (under stairs), my feet.

Em Willcox, a fellow medlet from Utas joined us a week after we got to Colorado. Together, the three of us went for a hike up Greenhorn Peak whilst our poor hosts were all at work. It was a 2 hour drive to the start of the hike, and when we got there, we realised we'd left all the food for the day on the bench at Dayna's place. Oops. At least we had water, and I happened to have a single muesli bar in my pocket. So it was a third of a muesli bar each for lunch in our 5 hour hike. Good work team!

Me and Em on top of Greenhorn Peak. Hungry.

One morning Dayna's father John got us out of bed at 3am so we could drive 3 hours to the foot of La Plata, one of Colorado's "Fourteeners" (i.e. peaks greater than 14,000ft). This turned out to be a fantastic hike; it took us about 5 hours to get up to the top, and 3 hours back down. Here are some photos:

Contemplating my navel on a very square boulder, on the way up to La Plata.

Jen took this great photo of these two marmots. They're cute. Very cute.

John, Dayna, Em, and Jen very happy to be at the top of La Plata.

We also did other cool things like hike up Pike's Peak (another Fourteener, and then caught the cog railway down), went to Water World (how cool!), the Colorado State Fair where we saw our first Rodeo, spent many many days lost in REI (Recreational Equipment Inc - a huge outdoor store where we spent many thousands of dollars on mountaineering and climbing gear for our mountaineering course we were about to embark upon in Bolivia), oh, and we musn't forget Walmart where you can buy everything from your groceries to potting mix, drugs, bikes, and fridges.

Thanks so much to the Dayna and the Hochevar family for letting us use and abuse you, and to Daneya and Tracey for putting up with our slobishness. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip!