Summer Will Be Time For PMDs 15Jun24

The rivers are still raging but with total loss of my mayfly box I still need to tie up some summer flies. I have my Chubbies but soon enough it'll be time for PMD and green drakes, Today I tied my most effective PMDs: for weight, it's a jigged Rainbow Warrior and for a nymph it's my PMD pheasant tail variant. The warrior is what you expect. the DRC PMDPT is #18 PT with a red bead and a white ostrich or pale & UV pearl dubbed thorax. PMDs have big red eyes so yeah...

I've yet to do the green drakes. We did get in a 2nd ride with Kala's Skitch. The pic is from America The Beautiful park (and of the Olympic museum in the bg).

Fun Springtime Weekend On The Front Range ~ Golf, Red Leg, Ute Mtb, Golf With MLC, Stop @ Tomahawk 01May24 - 05May24

First up was Kala on Wednesday wanting to hit some gold balls! We headed over to Patty Jewitt, a great COS muni. It was a smidge breezy but we won't blame that. Best practice areas and putting green in the state ~ GR8 in the shadow of Pike's Peak. Kala was hitting well.

Of course we hit Red Leg on the way home and sat in our fav CO Adirondack ski chairs. My suggestion of lobster rolls was summarily rejected @ $28 each. That night we caught the latest from Elizabeth Moss and we fully approve of the The Veil... surely reminded us of Homeland with Claire Danes.

Thursday I cajoled Jim to head out for a ride before enduring my 3rd unsatisfying call with CO agencies, insurance support persons, and an appeals board ~ where all three said "I can't help you" ~ I bailed for the time being and we had some more fun.

Friday I hit the Atlantic Sun Conf lacrosse championships hosted this year @ Falcon stadium in COS. The host Falcons were 7-1 in the league and decent overall; they were seeded 2nd behind the Utah Utes. Both these teams are affiliate members of ASUN (playing just lax in the league). Awesome; one would've thought... the 1st game saw the Ute slaughter Cleveland St. And, the 2nd game with a rematch between the Falcons and Jacksonville U had the bolts down quickly and really never in it well enough. How can JU play that hard (great energy from them) at 7Kft elevation when they live at 56ft? AFA lost by 4 goals despite being tied on tow occasions.

Oh well, there are many more great league championships this weekend before we pick the sweetest 16 next week. Bittersweet... as that includes my old team, the mighty Mountain Hawks of Lehigh, who handled Navy in their semi game, and faces BU in the championship of the Patriot league today... which they won and will be in the NCAA tourney. Woohoo.

So, Saturday was qualifying for the Miami F1 race AND it was qualifying for the Coffin-Marietta 3-some at Patty Jewitt Prarie course. We had a blast with Derrick, a para-olympian coach with 6 going to Paris. I played well through 6 as did Kala with her improved ball-striking. Matt wasn't with us but on occasion as yesterday's poke bowl got him on the run. None the less, it as nice but windy and a blast being with the kid for nine and dine. Too, we got the kid an early bday gift of a MLC-colored 4# walking bag; his current bag leaks balls and fails to stand well from some fails.

I recorded the lax league championship games and headed to Summit. Kala got to play another round of golf with her friend Gail ~ nice. Matt @ CO Lumber had completed some tough cuts on 18mm birch plywood for me for a new set of speakers I'm building; assembly and use are in the NestMT. I went the back way on #24/#9 and stopped at Tomahawk for my 1st effort of the year on the Middle Fk. Decent but weird... I wielded the fun RFT3 loaded with a chubby and trailing egg and caddis weighted by Perdigon. I did catch a half doz rainbows! ~ in several hours. The 'bows hit the Perdigon and egg and some small browns hit the caddis on the swing. Water is stained but at perfect pre-melt flows at 90cfs... pretty fun but weird. I'd arrived early and appraised normal attendees of the sitch on departure ~ some think is unwarranted; it won't hold me back. Cool meadow.

Fun In The Sun ~ Ride, Lounge, Fish, And Ski 31Mar24-04Apr24

Kala & I had another nice bike ride on a sunny day on the Front Range. There we quite a few people out on Sunday on the rec path but we navigated around 'em. Kind of an 18 miler. No pics from the ride. We stopped for refreshments after at Red Leg, where my face got totally fried in the sun. Still time for a spa soak.

On the way to Summit I stopped again in 11 Mile Canyon. I fished just briefly but caught some; the wind was up and it was chilly despite a decent 47° and sun. It's still midge weather and while the redds are evident I saw little spawn action yet. Very late start this year on this section of the S Platte. I wielded the Rodfather Diamond Blaze this outing and the maroon pop top and the money midge took the fish.

I caught up with bro Brown arriving in Summit. We tried the new Screaming Pika taproom. Surprisingly it is one of those "by the ounce" spots and we each had several tastes. It's a very nice spot with cool furnishings and outside area right on the Blue River. I guess we'd both rate it "meh" though ~ sensing stops at our local breweries were more fun. We moved on for nosh at Dillon Dam Brewery. Of course we capped the night with totties & tunes on the latest 5.1.2 NestMT. Fun day; good to see Steve again.

We hit Keystone pretty early for the late spring season. The snow was not soft at 9:15am. We headed straight back to Bergman Bowl as its mostly sunshine there. It got better as the day moved on but we did have some teeth chattering bump runs and screaming corduroy rips till it softened. I did get a good pan of all of the entire 10 Mile range though.

Good Spring Rides & Runs 23Mar24-25Mar24

This early spring weekend in COS was fab... Kala & I dusted the bikes and spun out a nice Foundry ride to America The Beautiful Pk. It was great riding with her again. We also enjoyed some hazies afterward at Red Leg and then soaked in the hot tub. Great start to springtime in the Rockies before the next storm.

The clouds were gathering as we finished our soak and I decided to make the drive to Summit in attempts to beat the pending storm. The drive was simple and snow didn't start in earnest till Sunday PM ~ whereupon we received a decent and fluffy 6" at the Nest. Monday AM I hit Breck for some of the best skiing of the year frankly. I was knee deep in untracked Whale's Tail after grabbing first rides on Imperial. And, I enjoyed great runs in Contest and Horseshoe bowls from the T-Bar to boot. Breck said 7" to start but it snowed all morning. You can't tell it from the white out that I'm atop the Tail but yeah... awesome.

I stopped at Dillon Dam for the 1st time in a while. Good nosh and surprisingly good The Hazy... not high ABV but the scarcity has them only offering snifters. Very worthy.

Brantleys Visit Summit 02Oct23-06Oct23

After returning from their family trip to Tanzania, Scott & Peg joined us in Summit Co for some days of stuff & things in the mountains. Kala scored us a great meal of rubbed salmon and arugula salad on Mon night, and then we rested. Tue was a much wetter and colder day than recent, including snowfall. Despite the conditions we did view the colors from the deck. But then, we watched the keen mini-series Drops Of God on Apple+. It was a good story of enologists vying for inheriting the most valuable wine cellar in the world... it was in French, Japanese, and English so subtitles are vital but hearing the dialogue in original languages is a plus. Good characters, good screenplay, good acting. Dave made Dave's egg and a round of appetizers and "we" cracked a nice bottle of Edgar's 2014 barrel-age tempranillo. 

I made French toast and we finished the series binge ~ then pursued a travel day. We went up past Montezuma along the Snake River and then back down to Peru Ck and up toward Argentine Pass. Nice.

I'd read of the chef Robbie Reyes @ Breckenridge Distillery Restaurant winning best of CO for a corn uchepo dish, we booked a dinner and it was excellent. Not just the uchepo but the entire meal of Peruvian-slanted dishes. Wow.

Thursday we arose to improved weather and headed to Leadville to ride the mining loop there... it's the Mineral Belt Trail and we had a great time on the 12 mile and 750' gain & decent through Leadville and surrounding mining remnants. We caught plenty of views and color on this fun track. Of course we had great tacos at the food truck too but were unfortunately turned away from Two Mile Brewing at 2:30pm (due to their opening @ 3).

After a nice ride and tacos, Kala led us to a new monument to the many Irish who died in harsh conditions in Lake Co; they had come to Leadville to mine silver when the famine hit their island. We found all 3 Irish names in Kala's close heritage: Ryan, Murphy, and Halloran.

Peg liked the ride yesterday so much she wanted to go again; she can't walk but she sure can ride. We headed over to Frisco to do the ride to Copper Mtn on the rec path. It was chilly in the shade but we were pumping up the 10 Mile Ck grade so were going aerobic. The aspen colors are waning but there's still a smidge present. At the turn to head back down I checked out the creek and saw a couple of decent browns sunning themselves and looking for nosh... no gear on board though.

Once down and back at the cars we said our "good byes" and vowed to do it again ~ maybe with snow on the ground. Good week with our friends.