The other day I found out that it is possible to bike into Denver along hike-and-bike paths from Golden.  There's a path along Clear Creek that currently has a section closed due to bridge construction but since I set out on my ride on a Saturday I just circumvented the barricades and the path itself is still intact.

I found a loop that went into Denver, then up through Arvada, and back south into Golden.  It was the smallest loop I could make and I didn't want to just do an out-and-back so I went for that. It's a good thing I went for the smaller loop rather than the larger one I was slightly considering as my ride ended up right at 38 miles. While it's mostly flat the route put all my climbing on the tail end getting back to Golden then getting back to the house.

The trail network is really rather nice. There are a lot of parks, both larger public ones and small neighborhood ones, that the trail system links together. I didn't grab any pictures as the goal of this ride was to keep rolling at a steady clip. I stopped for two birds but the great blue heron was shy and I pushed my luck trying to close in too much. I'm not sure what the bird is that I managed to shoot but he was in one of the neighborhood parks and let me get fairly close.

Here's the route map:
090718 Denver

I finally got around to making the Random Image block clickable.  Now you can click on the image and it will load that picture up in its parent gallery.

I've also started toying around with some new navigation buttons so things don't just get lost.  There's a "Bike Rides" button that opens a landing page for my archive of rides for which I've created Google Map pages.  Also the left menu now has more filters for finding older articles more easily.

The trip was a success! We returned with all family members, intact even. Jody and Fáelán seemed to mostly enjoy themselves but I do believe the next immediate trip will be me solo backpacking.

The campground we went to was Kelsey Campground near Bailey, CO. The drive there was beautiful, especially along 126. Photos of our trip can be found in the gallery. The lake photos are at Wellington Lake, a different campground we drove to on Saturday for a short bit of swimming before we were chased back to camp by the afternoon rains.

Now I can't wait to get back out.

It's taken some eight years now, but I've convinced the missus to go camping.  Tomorrow we embark to Kelsey Campground in Pike National Forest.  It's essentially established primitive camping which I figure will be a short hop to selling her on backpack camping.  My optimism knows no bounds.

This is going to be Fáelán's first trip and he's excited.  I picked him up a couple of children's nature books that cover rudimentary tree, plant, and wildlife identification as well as tracking.  Hopefully I can instill a naturalist inclination in my spawn.

Look, a post!  My readership (hi Mom!) can stop clamoring for me to update the website.  I finally tried a new trail, Lair o' the Bear, west of Morrison.  It's a beautiful drive to the trailhead and an equally stunning trail.  A decomposed granite trail strolls alongside the creek for a brief rolling warm-up until the ascent through pine trees.  It's not a very technical trail which makes it great for working on base climbing conditioning.

Here's the Google Map overview:
Lair o' the Bear - 7.7.2009

And of course the Google Earth KMZ with extra information:
Lair o' the Bear- 7.7.2009 Google Earth

It's been brought to my attention that I've yet again lapsed on updates. Quick synopis of recent happenings: we took the kids to Carlsbad for a quick vacation to see the caverns and to meet up with my parents, Jody traveled more, bike rides were made, Rowan started back to school (1st grade now), and I finally got the garage organized and have gotten back into woodworking.

Currently we're into the full onset of autumn. We got an ever slight dusting of snow the other day with a decent chance of some tonight. Loveland has already opened up, of course it's rock board conditions right now, but it's looking like this year's early season will be better than last. I've been procrastinating on picking up my season pass but it's about time to get it.

Yet again I have to make excuses for not getting to my backlog of photos. Too bad I'm too snobbish to just use a point and shoot as it really is unbelievably easier than requiring the whole digital darkroom approach. As we get into our cold weather "shut in" days it'll give me something to do at least.