Man and Mountain Bike vs Highest Paved Road in North America

Fortunately/Unfortunately, I live with two guys, Aaron and Sam, that have biked across the country, are training for an Ironman, and are younger than me. This means, there is always an outdoor activity that is going on at the house. That also means that when it involves being in shape, I am usually struggling to keep up, which never really matters anyways.

After our Friday night grill out party, which resulted in wasting away Saturday, we decided to do something bigger on Sunday; we were going to bike Mt. Evans. This road is the highest paved road in North America, and goes to the top of Mt. Evans, another 14,000 feet peak. Luckily Kristen decided to join as well, so I would have someone to start with.

We left at 6:30 am this morning, and headed up to Idaho Springs. There, we would drop off Aaron and Sam, so they could do the full 27 miles/over 6000 vertical feet bike ride. Kristen and I headed up to Echo Lake to start our trek. We "only had 16-17 miles of all uphill. Unfortunately, since I only have a mountain bike, I had to use that. For those that don't bike, this is a huge difference. Mountain bikes lose a lot of energy in their shocks, and although sturdier, the tires need a lot more energy (These are just the beginnings of my excuses!).

We started up. Luckily, the first 1/4 mile was pretty level, but then it started up. Luckily, it was not too steep, but it never got less steep. The road we were biking on is called Mount Evans Road and starts at around 10,000 feet above sea level. After around an hour, I was only about 5 miles in, with three necessary stops under my belt. Kristen left me mile marker 2, which I was glad about. I knew just the difference in bikes, I would not be able to keep up with her.

At this point, it actually started to get cold. The weather called for a high in the upper 60's, but the wind was blowing like crazy. It seemed like not matter what side of the ridge I were on, or which way the switchbacks were headed, I was biking directly into the wind. It wasn't as rough as the hike last week, but there were some good 30 mile an hour gusts. My breaks got more frequent and the miles slowed. The goal was to average 5-6 mph, which doesn't seems like a lot, but with the wind and steepness, it was all I could do. As I was getting passed by other bikers, I would always have a nice little chat with them. Many spewed words of encourage. Most complained about the wind. I definitely stood out. I was the only one without a road bike or bike shorts. My Trek 4500 and mesh shorts stood out.

Quickly the motto of "go one mile then break", turned into a half mile, then a quarter mile. As the miles slowly passed, I actually became more confident. I thought I was done at mile 4, and I was still going "strong" at mile 8. My legs started shaking uncontrollably around mile 5-6 because of fatigue, but I just keep pushing on. Aaron and Sam actually passed me at mile 12. At that point, they had gone 23 miles, while I had just gone 12. I knew at that point, I was not going to make it to the top. I set the goal of two more miles, which would put me around 13500 feet. The switchback turns on the road became more frequent, the wind stronger, and my legs weaker. I would be able to go around .1-.25 miles before I needed to stop for a couple minutes. Aaron, Sam, and Kristen headed down from the top and met me struggling up.

It was a relief to see them. It meant that uphill was done and I could turn around and enjoy the downhill. I had gone up 14.3 miles and gone up almost exactly 3000 vertical feet. The downhill was amazing. We average around 30-35 miles an hour, actually passing cars, once we got used to the switchbacks. The road is on a cliff for around 5 miles of the ride. A cliff that if you misjudged a turn just a little, that would definitely be the last mistake you ever made. It dropped at least 400 feet in most places. Of course the wind was still howling and pushing the bikes around quite a bit. Because of this, we had to ride the yellow line for most of the ride. We made it back to the car. Kristen sacrificed for the team, and loaded up the car with her bike. Aaron, Sam, and I biked down the rest of the downhill to Idaho Springs.

After all was said and done, I had the most intense 39 mile bike ride I have ever had. We of course had to go to Beau Jo's again for some massive pizza. I posted a couple pictures below that I took, then a couple screen shots from Google Street View to try to show the intensity of the cliffs we were biking on. Of course, nothing does it justice.

For those people that have been out here, I biked over 3 times farther than Loveland Pass, and climbed over 1800 feet higher than Loveland Pass, while actually being about 2000 feet in altitude higher than Loveland Pass. Basically, I'm just trying to make it sound as hard as possible. Although I was sort of upset I didn't make it to the top, I realized that I'm not living in Colorado to cross things off my bucket list. I'm out here to try these things. With that said, I will bike up Mt. Evans by the end of this summer.

The route I took going up.


The cliff I was talking about.


One of the many switchbacks.

Another busy weekend

I need a break from my weekends. This past weekend provided another busy and amazingly fun time. Luckily, my work provides me the option of working 9 hour days and getting every other Friday off. This past Friday was my first flex Friday.

Friday: I have actually been looking to buy a house in the Denver/Golden area, so I knew that I had to be back in cell service at around 8:30 to work with my Realtor to submit an offer on the house I wanted. So Thursday night, I packed my backpack with my skis, boots, poles and everything else I needed to ski, with the intention of getting up at 2 am, hiking up a 14er, skiing down it, then getting back to the car by 8:30 am.

After 3 hours, I actually woke up at 1:45 am and started the 1.5 hour drive to the base of Mt. Torrey. This is one of the easiest and closest 14ers to hike. I did not know that the last 3 miles of the drive was a small dirt road with pot holes the size of a football offensive lineman. I actually got stuck once, but after slowly backing up and trying again, my trusty Subaru made it past the giant ruts.

I got to the trail head at 3:20 and started hiking at 2:30. It was amazing to hike in the dark by myself. All I could see was what my headlight shone on and of course the moon and every star in the sky. Unfortunately, I underestimated the altitude and the heaviness of my pack. It weighed around 30-40 pounds and the altitude was killing me. In steep sections, I could only walk around 2 minutes until I had to stop and catch my breathe. I realized at around 5:30, I would not be able to make it to the top, ski it, and get back to the car by 8:30. Instead, I found a great place to relax and watched the sunrise over the mountains. I then headed back to the car. After passing around 20 people hiking up (don't people have jobs to go to?), I made it back to the car at 8. Even though I failed to reach the summit of my first 14er, I had an amazing time.

After being on the phone for the rest of the morning, I met with my realtor to work on the contract. Two hours, the contract was complete and signed. I was finally able to get some rest around 3 pm.

Saturday: I found out that the seller was going to counter my offer. To clear my head, I went mountain biking with Kristen on Green Mountain. Then, came back to the house, only to head out 20 minutes later to meet up with some people at a Brews Bluegrass festival. Unfortunately, after the 5 mile bike ride there, I realized I had forgot both my wallet/ID and my bike lock. That was the end of that night.

Sunday: Woke up bright and early again, around 5:30 and picked up Kristen to hike Mt. Bierstadt, a mountain 14,065 feet high. We knew it was going to be crowded, since it was another close one to Denver. By the time we got there at 8 am, there was easily 40 cars there and a line about 10 people long for the outhouse. The hike was about 4 miles up. It was a gorgeous day, but very windy. Halfway up, we needed to put on our jackets and gloves. Honestly, I didn't know if I was going to make it. I had to stop every 200 feet to catch my breathe.

The final .75 miles rose about 1200 feet, with two snowfields to cross and over .5 mile of rock scrambling. And the wind, it was relentless. We finally made it to the top after 2 hours 45 minutes of hiking, which was actually a pretty good pace. Even with me holding us back, Kristen and I passed 4 people and only got passed by 7 people. The top was amazing. You could see for miles and miles. Someone had a devise to monitor wind speed. The entire time we were on the summit, the wind didn't dip below 48 mph!

It took us 2 hours to get back to the car. On the way back to Denver, we treated ourselves to some Beau Jo's pizza and a 32 ounce Tommy Knocker Amber in Idaho Springs.

That night, I talked with my realtor and decided to stop pursuing the home that I put the offer down on.

What a weekend! Pictures and videos to come soon.

"Extreme" Tubing

This past Sunday, I went with 5 friends, Rob, Henry, Sam, Aaron and Kristen, tubing down the Colorado.  We started about 30 minutes past Beaver Creek (40 minutes past Vail) and tubed down to Glenwood Springs.  We were going to raft through some class two and three rapids, but we only had two helmets and one life jacket.  For some reason, we came to our senses and avoided these rapids and put in a little lower.  So we are now scouring Craigslist for cheap life jackets so we can go back.

Henry was sporting the beverage raft, while the rest of us were rocking the tubes.  I have to admit it was sort of funny watching people pass us in big rafts with helmets and life jackets while we were just sitting in tubes drinking.  The water was unfortunately pretty cold, around 58, and the sun hid behind a cloud for half of the trip.  We did go through some class 1 rapids, which were pretty fun, and the canyon was just unbelievable.  We were surrounded by 1000 foot cliffs all day.  There was one wave that Aaron, Kristen and I all went through, and wrecked.  The video is from Aaron's perspective.  The sound is pretty cool when the GoPro goes in the water.

Luckily at the end of the trip, we stopped on the side of the river where the hot springs came into the river by Glenwood Springs.  It really is amazing how warm the water was.  To finish off the day, we went over to Rob and Henry's amazing place in Beaver Creek, had some great BBQ and ribs while enjoying the view. Really a great day!  If these past two weekends are any indication of what my life will be like in Colorado, I'm sad it took me this long to come out.  That being said, I still do miss my friends in DC.  You should all come out here!

On Friday, I may be trying my first 14er, either Gray's or Torrey's.  There is a good chance I will just sleep in, but hopefully I will wake up in time.   I have to wake up around 2 am on Friday morning if I want to hike it and get some turns in, so I decided to pack tonight.  Maybe some GoPro ski footage to come soon.

For those that don't know, Bud Light Lime-A-Rita's are amazing!

Untitled from Drew Wagner on Vimeo.

How much are memories worth?

I just got a call from the guys working on my hard drive.  Apparently they haven't been able to recover any of the videos.  There is a good chance they can, but they would have to tear it open in a clean room, which would cost $1,500.  Of course.  So now I have a big decision to make.

On a higher note, I woke up early this morning to bike up Green Mountain and take this picture as the sun came up over Denver.  This was actually 3 weeks ago, but my phone lost service and it didn't post it, although I thought it did.