Royal Arch Trail - Chautauqua Park

It is finally time to celebrate the return of hiking season! After a spring when the Colorado weather couldn't decide if it was ready to move toward summer or if it was going to stick with snowy winter, we seem to have reached the warm weather with the afternoon thunderstorms. I personally have no complaints about this landing place, since I happen to have a huge soft spot for rain showers!

To usher in summer, I decided that it was time to kick the hiking into gear this weekend and check out a new trail. As luck would have it, an old friend was also available to come explore with me, which just made the adventure that much better. I'm not opposed to hiking alone - in fact, I will do it with no hesitation if that's how things shake out for a particular day - but I happen to think that having the opportunity to catch up with a friend while enjoying the scenery is not one to be passed up! Even through the huffing and puffing that goes with a first-of-the-season hike, there are few venues that make it so easy to share stories about work, kids, family, and hopes/fears for the future.

So onto the hike.

After researching a truckload of trails in and around Boulder, I stumbled onto Royal Arch because it happened to be the right length for the time period we had set aside. The trail is 3.5 miles, and everything I read suggested we'd be finished with the round trip in about 3 hours. The descriptions of the trail varied from moderate to strenuous, but because of the fairly short distance I decided that we'd be fine even if it were a more difficult hike.

The trail started at the Chautauqua Park entrance, which I'd been trying to avoid because I'd heard that parking was difficult. However, I'm so glad that we wound up here because with all the hiking I've tried to squeeze in over the last couple of years, I'd never visited Chautauqua Park. For anyone not familiar, my friend hit it right on the head when she said that this is where every major photo of Boulder you see is taken. The parking lot is right on a beautiful meadow that leads straight up into the famous Flatirons.

From the trailhead, the path leads up Bluebird Road to a shelter for picnicking before it begins to hit the incline. Unfortunately for us, all the descriptions I read said nothing about stairs...but we realized right away that we were in for more than some standard switchbacks. Most of the "stairs" were rock outcroppings in the trail which later on changed to log steps hammered into the earth - most likely to help with erosion, what with the pitch of the trail. Regardless, the end result was a lot of stepping up to get to our end destination.

Even with the unexpected stairs, this is a beautiful hike. The majority of the trail winds through trees, with the occassional small creek crossing. Once you pass the false summit (which fooled me, and from what I could tell fooled some of the other folks we encountered on the trail), there are sweeping views of Boulder and the surrounding area just there for the taking. And when you finally reach the end point of the hike, the Arch and the views offered are completely worth the effort.



This is definitely a heavily populated trail, but the trip didn't seem to bottleneck until close to the end of the climb where the trail is more narrow. However, there are plenty of places to step off and let people pass if so inclined.

My personal take on the trail is that I would do it again - it's a good workout, and even having to park on a side street allowed for easy access to the park. My only hesitation would be the amount of people on the trail - as unlikely as it would seem, I actually ran into a co-worker headed up as we were headed back down. Since we work in south Denver (a good 40 minutes from Boulder), that was definitely unexpected!

Overall, though, a great hike with a good friend followed by lunch at The Sink (if you've never tried it, it's a fun novelty in Boulder - great pizza & beer, but that's another blog) made for a wonderful Saturday...and I can't wait to do it again!

Twilight Book Review

Twilight has become a pop-culture phenomenon, one which I completely ignored until recently. Like with the Harry Potter series (which I eventually fell in love with), I didn't want to be one of the early adapters who jumped on the bus just because everyone around me was adding to the buzz. I had seen the Twilight trailer in the theatres last summer and had written it off as another lame teen flick with very little to say - and that was the last I gave it any thought until it showed up in office conversation.

From time to time, I find it useful to give in and watch a certain TV program or read a certain book just so that I have conversation currency with the people I see every day. In this case, there are two women in my office whose company I truly enjoy who were both taken with the series, so I finally decided to give in and borrow the first book. I knew that the series was intended for young adults, which I didn't hold against it since some of the best literature I've read is directed to that audience. However, I went into the series with very little expectation, not even knowing the basics of the plot.

I was shocked and somewhat embarrassed to discover that early on in the first book, I was captivated by the images I was given and the way the storyline was woven. The star-crossed lovers theme is as old as the hills, and yet the twist of involving the supernatural world completely sucked me in. I had never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel, never been drawn in by the promise of vampires (Interview with a Vampire may be the one exception), and I was tearing through this story like there would never be another day to read.

I wanted to know more about Bella and the things that drove her - her feelings, and I was intrigued by Edward and his obviously difficult interest in Bella (really, in a teenage relationship it's hard enough to get anything to go smoothly - and that's without the challenge of wanting to kill the one you love). Maybe it was the intensity of their seemingly doomed love at first sight experience that so caught my imagination, or the description of the two stubborn personalities that made up the main characters...but the end result was that I couldn't wait for the second book.

I understand what the nay-sayers see - the books aren't technically the greatest writing the world has ever seen. And it's not a book that's really intended to set either character up as a role model - Edward has some stalking tendencies that, if you took the fantasy element out of the story, would be extremely disturbing (sneaking in the window to watch her sleep, anyone?) while Bella becomes so obsessed that she blows off all other experiences and relationships. But the book isn't intended to be a moral guide to teenagers - it's not only fiction, it's fantasy! At a certain point, once you've suspended reality I think it's key to suspend it all the way and just see the world as the author intended you to see it.

And in this case, while I was surprised at how attached I became to the series (I expect I'll write something on the three other books and the movie here shortly), I think that it's not a bad thing to find an escape that allows you take a step away from real life and enjoy the romance and adventure of characters who spark the imagination.

Bolder Boulder 2009

So I decided that since I live in Denver I should run in the Bolder Boulder at least once before I die. Since I'd done a 5k run earlier in the month, I thought that this should be the year to go see what all the hoopla was about!

I will fully admit that there was some buyer remorse once I registered (is that possible?)...I mean, it's not terribly appealing to know you're going to get up at 5:30am on your day off just to go run 6 miles. And I was cursing the experience as I was driving 20 miles per hour up Highway 36, just to park 1.3 miles from the start of the race. But once I actually made it to the start line, it was really hard not to be impressed by not only the sheer number of people but by the obviously well thought out organization that comes with 31 years of practice!

The run itself was broken into waves based on your expected running time, so that you're less likely to either run over the people who are walking or be run over by those who could easily lap you. And I loved that you were timed via a shoe tag which registered electronically each time you reached a mile mark. Being my first real race, I'd never seen anything like that and was completely amused (and have to admit, it made me feel all runner-esque :-)). Then, they actually started each wave by firing off the stater gun...totally amps up the excitement as soon as you approach the start!

Along the entire length of the course, there were people cheering, making breakfast in their front yards on camp stoves, belly dancing (actually saw two different groups), and handing out everything from beads to Dorritos and Bloody Marys. This event appeared to be quite the Memorial Day party in Boulder!

The very best part of the experience was the end. Not just because the race was finally over and I could limp up into the stands and not think about the 1.5 mile walk back to the car...but because winding up in Folsom Field with most of the stands full of people is a pretty crazy feeling. CU Band Day's got nothing on this!

All in all, even with the early morning and the parking challenges...I might actually consider doing it again. Who knows - I might even be able to improve on my own time!

To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

In my line of work, I feel like I'm running into Twitter references everywhere. It's in the trade journals, the daily emails, referred to by various news programs, and of course used heavily by celebrities. Based on the prevalence of this new social media forum, I have decided to run a test with Twitter to see if I can figure out what all the hype is about.

My initial impression is that it's like Facebook status updates without all of the other Facebook features. Going in blind, it seems like this format is really nothing more than a monumental time suck - who really cares what you're doing at every moment? Do people really follow all the mundane information of day to day life that closely?

At least with Facebook, there are direct ways to interact with the rest of the network - conversations, even short ones, monopolize the home page allowing people to not only know what's going on but to be able to respond. It seems like this would be a more satisfying experience compared to sending random bits of information out into cyberspace...

So clearly, I've got a bias for which social networking site I think I'm going to prefer. Maybe it makes sense, since I'm slowly but surely moving away from the demographic most likely to use Twitter and Twitter-esque communication. But before I make a final judgement, I'm going to see what it's all about.

Anyone have thoughts one way or the other on Twitter-mania?

Blogging - Take 2

Wow - so I've technically had this page up since last September, and then immediately decided not to keep it up. As hopeful as I was that I'd gotten past the intimidation of blogging, clearly that was not the case. That, and lack of time I'm sure was the other piece! Anyway, I'm thinking of trying to be a little less ambitious in my goals and just use this as a place to post whatever random piece of information I feel like posting, rather than trying to tie the thoughts to a single specific topic.

I might be surprised to find that it's a lot of fun!