Protesters – update

  • August 28, 2008 6:05 am

I heard on the radio today that 3500 people protested at the Pepsi center last night where the DNC is being held. A group called Iraq Veterans Against the War led the protest march down the streets to the Pepsi Center. The organizers of the DNC have built a “free speech zone” which amounts to a cage area for protesters, and any protests outside this zone are considered unlawful and people will be arrested. Last night, the marchers called it the “Freedom Cage” and refused to go inside; they remained outside chanting and singing and trying to talk to someone from the DNC or the Obama campaign. At one point the crowd was getting riled up and the Veterans marched away to avoid getting tear-gassed, pepper sprayed or arrested and formed up 3 blocks away.

Fortunately, just as things were looking really bad, the news came out that someone from the Obama campaign would meet with a rep from the protest group and hear their concerns! A young man in full military dress was escorted into the Pepsi Center and at this point the crowds settled down, from what I’ve heard no one was even beaten, sprayed or arrested.

So, I guess to counter the cynicism of my previous post, it looks like the protest culture is alive and well and can achieve results.

DNC Day 1 – Protests and Police

  • August 24, 2008 6:52 pm

Today is the day before the DNC begins in earnest, so needless to say the city was rolling over itself with activity. Having been tuckered out on the mountain yesterday I decided to head down to the Capitol building and see what the fuss was all about.

At 9am today the crowds started assembling led by Unconventional Action, an anarchists group, there were speeches and chants and music and all sorts of great protest-y things. The thing that I noticed first was that at least half of the assembled group was made up of gawkers like myself; the second thing I noticed is that for a city of 2.4million people it was very small group of protesters!

Cindy Sheehan gives a speech

He couldn’t have gotten to his parking spot today if he’d wanted to!

If you can’t read that, click on it and it gets bigger

2008-08-23 Mt Bierstadt and Sawtooth Ridge

  • August 23, 2008 6:45 pm

Mt Bierstadt is a classic 14er and definitely one of the more popular ones! Sawtooth Ridge, which connects Mt Bierstadt to Mt. Evans is far less popular but just as beautiful. This morning, just like so many morning before, I was reluctant to get out of bed early to hit the trail which can have some serious consequences when hiking 14ers (you’ll hear about those later!). The road up to Bierstadt is in rough condition but it’s well traveled and after one false-trail head, given away by it’s lack of vehicles, I found the correct one, easily identified by the thousands of cars spilling out in the road! The plan was to summit Bierstadt by the easiest way and then traverse Sawtooth Ridge and swing up to Evans before retreating to the car, however with my late start it was already at risk.

Mt Bierstadt on the right and the Sawtooth Ridge to the left

 

Another view of Bierstadt and Sawtooth

 

The fearsome Sawtooth with less-fearsome foliage in the foreground

Motorcycle Ride to Mt. Evans

  • August 19, 2008 8:53 pm

Blue skies and warm weather always make me want to be outside and tonight was a definite motorbike night! Colorado has a great number of squiggly roads and it’s my duty to explore them all!

My route tonight

Mt Evans’ is a 14er with a road all the way to the top, sort of like Pikes Peak but less popular (c: The road is closed from Labour Day to Mother’s Day every year, and there was already snow at the top!

The road up is fantastically curvy and has some great corners in it, unfortunately I really hadn’t planned on driving up to 14,000′ so I only had my warm weather riding gear (aka a jacket made of holes!) to keep me warm. I watched the temperature drop from 18C at the bottom to 10, to 7 to 4C at the summit!

View from the top

Sun going down from Mt. Evans

Mountain Goats and kids

Sharing the summit with me were 5 mountain goats, three adults and two kids. The kids were butting each other and playing around, it was so cute to see!

Molting, what more can I say?

Kids playing King of the Hill



Sun going down

I was freezing up there and couldn’t stay any longer so before the sun disappeared completely I boogied back down the 14 squiggly miles to the restaurant/bar/junk store at the bottom of the road. Once my hands thawed I wrapped them around a mug of coffee and once I had mobility I gripped the heck out of a fork and demolished some apple pie (c: Great ride, 4hrs long and definitely somewhere I hadn’t planned on going, but great all the same!

Success in Winnipeg

  • August 19, 2008 8:25 pm

The weekend in Winnipeg was fantastic! Landed Thursday night and was met at the gate by my cousin Leigh, my sister Juli and her husband Rick; it’s always so nice to see friendly faces after getting off an airplane. I don’t think I realized just how much I liked traveling until I wasn’t doing it as much (though isn’t that always the way?) I had a stupid sized grin on my face at the Denver airport, even for a flight to Winnipeg, it just felt great to pack a bag and go somewhere!

Friday was spent at Grand Beach on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, white sand,warm water and sunshine all day long are an excellent combination. That night we hit Folklorama and the German tent was great to us (c: tall beers, singing, dancing and a fantastic night that culminated in cartwheels on the lawn!

Saturday was a family reunion out at a farm near Glenboro, tons of people I hadn’t seen in a long time and tons of people I didn’t ever know! But again, when you’re surrounded by family it’s hard to have a bad time isn’t it? Sunday started off with canoing on the Assiniboine then lead into pancakes and wrapped up with good-byes all around.

Winnipeg Bound

  • August 14, 2008 2:43 pm

I’m off to Winnipeg for the weekend and am drastically looking forward to it for the following reasons:

1) Haven’t seen the family in a while, easily #1 by a long shot

2) Haven’t gotten on a plane to go somewhere exciting* in a while

* Winnipeg isn’t usually “exciting” by definition but I’m still looking forward to it (c:

Weekend and Update

  • August 10, 2008 6:33 pm

Tonight I am good and sore. My legs are tired, my back is sore and my face is a little windburned but I’m feeling really good (c: Both days this weekend were spent in the mountains and it’s really hard to go wrong with that I’d say.

I do want to complain a little about the traffic on I-70 though… Everyone agrees that I-70 is a problem but to be honest I’m not sure what is being done about it nor do I ever have suggestions about what can be done! The problem is about 10mi west of Denver where the road narrows down from three lanes to two and then dives through a short tunnel. I am going to suppose that there is a local legend about some trolls that live in these tunnels because everyone slows right down to go through them and then speeds away like they’re scared stiff to stick around! For everyone in Calgary imagine now that the the tunnels are at the intersection of Hwy 22 and Hwy 1 and that traffic is backed up to Canmore! Thats the impact of this bottle neck and it boggles the mind! I got down from Grays and Torrey’s around 2:30 this afternoon and was stuck in traffic for at least 2 hrs on what should be a 30min drive!

Regardless it was an excellent weekend and I can’t believe I randomly ran into another Canadian on the trail, very cool.

In other news… it’s raining right now and it smells nice (c:

2008-08-10 Grays and Torreys

  • August 10, 2008 6:07 pm

Sunday morning I was planning on getting up at 6am and heading west to attempt my first of the 14ers. Turns out I wasn’t so keen on that this morning and at the crack of 8 I rolled out of bed and rubbed my eyes!

2008-08-09 Woods Mountain and Mt. Machebeuf

  • August 10, 2008 5:47 pm

Saturday was another CMC trip, this time out to Woods Mountain and Mt. Machebeuf with a rather varied group of 15 people. From the trail head we worked our way up Watrous Gulch which was a nice easy trail through coniferous forest to a good looking saddle between the two peaks.

View of Machebeuf from near the saddle

2008-07-27 Ypsilon Lake

  • August 5, 2008 8:45 pm

Ypsilon Lake is in the Rocky Mountain National Park, just NW of Denver… beautiful spot!

Dean trying to work the map

I love some of the signs here (c: