Weak Sauce

Tonight has sucked butt. I don't mind all the work of this teaching thing, but I really hate just being a visitor here. I should say first, I am enjoying teaching. So far, that part of this gig has been really enjoyable. But sitting around this apartment by myself is getting old, and this is only the 4th day of class. I worked a lot last summer, and it wasn't fun, but at least I had my friends around to talk to and make me laugh. And I got to eat dinner with Chris instead of with ... well, me. I went on a run yesterday and Tuesday, but other than that the only purpose of my life right now is to work and it feels lame.

Tonight my mood is definitely being effected by the weather. It's been snowing, really windy and below freezing all day. Many of the college facilities shut down around noon. And being outside is a completely miserable experience. The roads are awful, from here to Fort Collins, and it is supposed to keep snowing through tomorrow, so I might not even get to go home tomorrow night because it might be too dangerous.

Here are other things that are bothering me:
The stupid dining hall (the only open food place in walking distance today) closes at 7:00 (all the time, not just because of weather). When you work through lunch time and don't eat until 3:30, dinner at 6:30 is too early.

I wanted to bake some cookies earlier, because they taste and smell good. I thought it would make my apartment feel happier. But my oven smelled funny when I turned it on, so I resorted to eating some dough.

I brought a bottle of wine from home, but guess what, no corkscrew. So I tried opening the bottle with a knife. Well, big surprise, that didn't work. I got really annoyed with it and just wanted to open the darned thing, so finally pried the cork out. I got wine all over the place and then realized I felt like a huge wino. So I poured out the wine, then I was sad because that bottle cost me $7. But at least I got the stupid thing open. Take that bottle!

I made an awesome dinner consisting of spinach, sauce, and pasta. Wow. Amazing huh.

I can't watch heroes because the internet here is not good.

I guess I should stop whining and get back to work. Probably working till midnight every night is not helping my mood too.

welcome to the Springs

I am at Colorado College, getting ready to teach an undergraduate course on climate change tomorrow! I feel a combination of feeling like I have a million things to do before tomorrow, and feeling like I could go to bed in two hours and be fine. My apartment is decent - one bedroom with a double bed and a nice view of Pikes Peak, one bathroom with a sloping wall that makes me glad I am only 5'4", a small kitchen and a decent sized living room with some comfy couches. I am on the third floor of a pretty old building. It is really windy outside and kind of drafty in here (I just lit a candle and the match burned up almost immediately). Luckily it was in the 70's earlier today so I'm not worried about getting cold tonight. But if it is this windy all night, I might not sleep very well.

I will be getting free food while I am here, but I might eat a lot at this taco place called Monicas. I had a huge burrito there a few hours ago and it was only $3.80 and muy delicioso. Anywho, I am working on a lab and just wanted to say I arrived safely and am anxious to get started!

Daydreaming

Today I would much rather be ...
back at Canyonlands:

or on my Alaska vacation in the Chugach Mountains (yes we bought the tickets and are now officially going for 9 days in mid-July!!):

Don't those places look better than an office?? But alas, I am prepping for the climate class. So I better get back to work!

maybe ...

It is possible that I am days away from running my global model. I don't want to get too excited, but I've found a few bugs and it just ran for a few hours without crashing. So, maybe I can start looking at results when I get back from CC! That would be so great!! Why is this so exciting?

Well first I got the code in December, then went out of town for a month, and since then have been debugging. Second, this is getting me closer to coming up with ideas for the PhD and could be a part of my PhD research. Third, the model will probably take about a month to run so the sooner it gets going, the better!

Fourth, earlier today I realized the sun was not turned on in my model. Yes, I was trying to simulate present climate with no sunlight. Blasting the sun out of the sky is an obvious way to halt global warming, and now I have proof. However, it is not a good way to get a PhD. Luckily it wasn't too hard to fix.

I'm waiting for it to compile right now (story of my life lately). This is good stuff, especially since I felt like giving up altogether about a week ago.

Flat Tops Wilderness - Devils Causeway

Ok, this is about 6 months late, but I was looking through old pictures and wanted to put up an overview of our backpacking trip to the Flat Tops with Mollie and Rob. I had read an article about this trip in an issue of Backpacker several years ago. It has been on my list for a while because it sounded completely amazing and was a doable weekend loop. The article suggested 3 days but we figured we could do it in 2 longer days.


We went Sept. 5-7. The Flat Tops are located north of Glenwood Springs and southwest of Steamboat Springs. We went in at Stillwater Reservoir, which you can get to from the tiny town of Yampa. From Fort Collins, it's about 4-1/2 hours (180 miles) and the best way to go is over Trail Ridge and then through Granby, Kremmling, and over Gore Pass.

We left Fort Collins Friday afternoon and so we didn't get to the Flat Tops until after dark. We set up our tent right off the road and had no idea until the next morning what a beautiful spot we had selected, right next to Yamcolo Reservoir!

Saturday morning we headed northwest from Stillwater Lake. It was 2.5 miles up on the East Fork Trail. It got pretty steep at the end, but the views at the top were worth it.

View back down the trail from Stillwater near the top of the saddle:

At this point you can go left to get to the Devils Causeway, or head back down the other side of the saddle to do the loop. We continued on and had amazing views of some massive cliffs along the "flat" mountains around us - one in particular called the Chinese Wall was really neat.


Heading down from the saddle with the Causeway behind us:

The views kept being great but the day dragged on. We were disappointed that the turn off for Lost Lakes Trail (which we took) was not the lost lakes themselves. They are aptly named! This day was supposedly 9.5 miles but it felt a little longer. We found a nice campsite above West Lost Lake, and we were the only ones there. It was very serene, and the next morning we were awoken by the sounds of elk bugeling.

Unfortunately we had to wake up around 5 AM. Sunday's hike was probably one of the best I've been on in Colorado because it was almost all above treeline, but that meant we had to complete it (somewhere between 12 and 14.5 miles!) before any afternoon thunderstorms rolled in. Also unfortunately for our butt muscles, the trail was straight up almost right away. What a way to wake up! We still beat the sunrise to the top, though, and then the trail became breathtaking.

You would be making these faces too if you were ascending 2000 feet before sunrise:

The top of the Flat Tops aren't exactly flat, there is some up and down, but in general you are walking in an alpine meadow for miles and miles. It was incredible. Here are some pictures:



We eventually reached the Devil's Causeway. The Backpacker article describes this part of the hike pretty accurately as "a sphincter-clinching dash across an eroded arete". The Causeway is 50 feet long and only 4 feet wide in some places, with 600-foot drops on either side. I found it completely terrifying, especially with a heavy pack on. My dear husband tried to reassure me at one point by telling me, "Don't worry Anna, if you fall it's only certain death!" Thanks. Lucky for him, he had no trouble crossing it. Anyway, it was exciting!

This is me hanging on for dear life and Chris just hanging out:

Here is the hike down from Devils Causeway. You could just do a day trip to the Causeway, it would be about 6 miles round trip, but you would have to hike up this!

After that you rejoin the East Fork Trail and head back to Stillwater Lake. All in all, it is an amazing hike that I would highly recommend. I think the Flat Tops get a lot of snow so you might need to wait until July to go. September was a nice time but a bit past the peak wildflower season. I'm sure those meadows would be spectacular covered in flowers. I hope we get to go back sometime, there are miles and miles of other trails that look equally enticing through the Flat Tops (a 235,000 acre area). (And thanks to Shannon Davis, who works for Backpacker and emailed me a scanned copy of the article because I couldn't find it. Chris met her climbing Longs Peak in Sept. 2007.)

Home Again

Today I am working at home because the roof is being repaired at my department - they are gluing it back together, apparently, and my office smelled awful by about noon today. Apparently this will be going on all week so I guess I will work at home a lot. There are pro's and con's to this. It's nice to be home and be able to do stuff like unload the dishwasher while I wait for code to run. It's nice to have it be so quiet, but that is also bad sometimes too. Sometimes I'm really productive when I work at home, but as you can see from this post, that is not always the case!

I moved my desk into a different room today to make a nicer work environment. We have two extra bedrooms - an office (aka disaster area) and another room that I like to use for exercise and meditation. So now my desk is in the latter room, which is much less cluttered and dark. So far it's been a good change.



It's a nice day out - Nora is enjoying it, and Daphne is helping me debug my code.



It's nice to be home also because Chris and I were away again this past weekend. We went to Atlanta to visit with his grandfather, and unexpectedly also spent a lot of time with my mom and stepdad. Grandpa Harper has 99% of one artery clogged, and most of another one is clogged as well. The doctor's had a grim prognosis for him a month ago, but he seems to be doing pretty well. He was on oxygen but could still get around. This was probably the most time I've spent with him and it was good to get to know him more. He has a PhD in forestry, so I think we bonded a little over how long and difficult the process of getting a PhD can be.

The other highlight of the weekend was the time with my family. It was pretty low key and enjoyable. I ate so much food on Saturday, it was quite a feat, and it was all amazing.

Two weekends ago, Laurie, Stuart, and Evan came skiing with us. Laurie and Stuart took their first lessons ever, and I think Laurie was getting the hang of it by the end of the weekend. :) Hopefully they can come back and work on their skills some time!

Here are some pictures of:
Me and Laurie at the base


Evan taking on some bumps at Mary Jane


Evan and Laurie on the bunny slope


And some really cool wave clouds over the continental divide!



But now I am really happy to be home - for 3 weeks - until I go to Colorado College! I have a lot of work to do to get ready, and desperately need to get my computer model up and running, so I will be busy between now and then. But at least I will be sleeping in my own bed :)



Thanks for stopping by!