Eventually, the call of the mountains will reach you. It will reach you and pluck you out of the suburbs of Denver, even if you are a staunch urbanite type who sees outdoor exercise foremost as a vehicle to hipness, but who dains to over-exert themselves and so chooses a bicycle with only one gear. It will reach you, and before you know it you will try fly-fishing, or learn to ski, soddening your jeans and returning home with tales of high adventure. It will reach you, the skateboarding grommet, and see you paying good money for a lift ticket, but nevertheless hiking the halfpipe over and over, unaided by locomotive. Putting aside the question of why we go out to the windy, moist, cold, sunny, blighty places, I am here to regale the invisible audience with a tale of such urban transformation this past weekend.
Fourth of July Bowl, on Peak 10 in the Ten Mile Range, Breckenridge, provides an annual pilgrimage for many. In mid-summer, grommets, veterans and "flat-landers" alike will push their All-WDs to the limit getting a head-start on the mountain, and frequently crushing a muffler or two. Hipsters will feel their skinny legs willing them out somewhere grassy. They will drag rusty ski gear from the boot, and plod the few miles final upward to the summit of Peak 10 aided by complex amalgamations of organic oats, agave nectar, electrolytes and caffeine.This past weekend, the glorified granola bar, a blue heeler and four Denverites left civilization and soy dandelion lattes behind to conquer this landmark again. Pictured below, I have sketched in the spirit animals of the young adventurers, perpetually searching for the safe climes of childhood. Above Pendergrass soars the spirit of an eagle, its eye zeroing in on potential photographic opportunities. In the middle, Norkin's protector, the fox, narrows its gaze on a double cheeseburger from high above Breckenridge's Empire Burger. On the right, McAllister's alter-ego, the bear, clubs a propensity for thin-bloodedness from view, and takes in the sights of a punter ascending the mount via an arduous bootpack up the snowfield.
Free to let natural instinct rule in such a setting, the team embraced the empowerment of peeing outside, and improvising a mix of technical and rudimentary fabrics as the wind came and went. Pictured high on the Rockies, Coogee's spirit animal looks keenly out across the world in search of nibblets.
The almost too-perfect placement of an American flag on the summit, suspended in an outstretched fashion much like a bird soaring the stream above, led us to believe we may have unwittingly walked into a covert Facebook page photoshoot. We also encountered a granola-y couple at the top. The woman, like me, was wearing a dress, but a dress even longer than mine, convincing me that we had either cramponed our way to the ultimate underground hipster hangout - an underground dive bar on a mountain (they were drinking beer) is as subversive as counter-culture gets - or we had just met a nice Mennonite couple.
Seen above, the "Iwo Jima" flag photo-op distracts from the very tedious act of hiking part way back down the mountain to the snow patch. There, like Texans in a rental shop, we awkwardly slid about trying to get our ski boots on.
Pendergrass's descent was as epic as incremental glacial attrition conducted across thousands of years, but much faster. I skied unpredictably, as per my animus, the trout, and managed to skin bits of my knuckles on the brute ice crystals as I banked my turns. Not pictured: descent on skis while singing Devendra Banhart's "Little yellow spider" and brewing homemade kombucha from the mother culture.
Fourth of July Bowl, on Peak 10 in the Ten Mile Range, Breckenridge, provides an annual pilgrimage for many. In mid-summer, grommets, veterans and "flat-landers" alike will push their All-WDs to the limit getting a head-start on the mountain, and frequently crushing a muffler or two. Hipsters will feel their skinny legs willing them out somewhere grassy. They will drag rusty ski gear from the boot, and plod the few miles final upward to the summit of Peak 10 aided by complex amalgamations of organic oats, agave nectar, electrolytes and caffeine.This past weekend, the glorified granola bar, a blue heeler and four Denverites left civilization and soy dandelion lattes behind to conquer this landmark again. Pictured below, I have sketched in the spirit animals of the young adventurers, perpetually searching for the safe climes of childhood. Above Pendergrass soars the spirit of an eagle, its eye zeroing in on potential photographic opportunities. In the middle, Norkin's protector, the fox, narrows its gaze on a double cheeseburger from high above Breckenridge's Empire Burger. On the right, McAllister's alter-ego, the bear, clubs a propensity for thin-bloodedness from view, and takes in the sights of a punter ascending the mount via an arduous bootpack up the snowfield.
Free to let natural instinct rule in such a setting, the team embraced the empowerment of peeing outside, and improvising a mix of technical and rudimentary fabrics as the wind came and went. Pictured high on the Rockies, Coogee's spirit animal looks keenly out across the world in search of nibblets.
The almost too-perfect placement of an American flag on the summit, suspended in an outstretched fashion much like a bird soaring the stream above, led us to believe we may have unwittingly walked into a covert Facebook page photoshoot. We also encountered a granola-y couple at the top. The woman, like me, was wearing a dress, but a dress even longer than mine, convincing me that we had either cramponed our way to the ultimate underground hipster hangout - an underground dive bar on a mountain (they were drinking beer) is as subversive as counter-culture gets - or we had just met a nice Mennonite couple.
Seen above, the "Iwo Jima" flag photo-op distracts from the very tedious act of hiking part way back down the mountain to the snow patch. There, like Texans in a rental shop, we awkwardly slid about trying to get our ski boots on.
Pendergrass's descent was as epic as incremental glacial attrition conducted across thousands of years, but much faster. I skied unpredictably, as per my animus, the trout, and managed to skin bits of my knuckles on the brute ice crystals as I banked my turns. Not pictured: descent on skis while singing Devendra Banhart's "Little yellow spider" and brewing homemade kombucha from the mother culture.
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