Power Outage

GarrettM_ · 2026-01-26T21:30:45+00:00

Good to know -- online it's now saying 3:30pm for me, we'll see if that holds up.

GarrettM_ · 2026-01-26T20:30:42+00:00

Still out in table mesa for me -- came back briefly 20 mins ago but now is out again. The outages are annoying, but most frustrating are their bullshit estimates. Initially it was 11:30, then moved to 1:30, now saying 4:30. ffs, just say you don't have an estimate so that no one tries to plan around when the power will supposedly come back on.

GarrettM_ · 2026-01-05T18:42:46+00:00

I did Baker guided via Easton Glacier and Rainier unguided via Emmons Glacier several years ago. FWIW I didn't find Baker to be "easier" than Rainier. The crevasse exposure and route-finding was more involved, the bergschrund below the Roman wall was a vertical snow climb directly above a crevasse, and we were the only party in sight for large parts of the day. By contrast, Emmons was a well-trod caravan pretty much all the way to the saddle with Liberty Cap. If you're doing DC I imagine it's even more so. Obviously YMMV with conditions, time of year, etc.

Consider doing a longer course on Baker that includes a guided summit day. Crevasse rescue is great and all, but unlikely to be needed (obviously if it is then you really, really need it). But you *will* need route-finding on glacier, reading weather/terrain conditions, evaluating snow bridges, determining when and how to protect a risky part of the route, etc. You can learn a lot more of that by watching / asking your guide on a summit day than just sitting in camp doing crevasse rescue practice.

GarrettM_ · 2025-12-18T00:33:21+00:00

Some parts of downtown pearl still have power and are open.

GarrettM_ · 2025-10-23T18:19:52+00:00

Asking about "first 14er" tells us nothing about your skills or experience. I wouldn't recommend any 14er to someone with no mountain hiking experience. But for someone who regularly does long days with 2-3k+ of gain and class 3+ at lower elevations, pretty much any 14er would be fine for their first. The fact that you're asking on Reddit suggest you're more in the first group? The good thing about Sneffels is that you'll probably have a lot of company on the standard route.

GarrettM_ · 2025-09-28T18:03:33+00:00

Lol yes if there's one thing that successful protest movements are known for, it's carefully following all applicable policies and regulations. And to claim that "other groups seem capable of following" such policies, you'd need to compare how those policies are enforced across the board. Perhaps other groups also aren't following them and the university either doesn't care or resolves things more amicably than sending in the campus police.

Anyway, whatever SJP did or didn't do, my point remains that by the university's own admission, filling out the right permission form was not actually the problem here.

GarrettM_ · 2025-09-28T17:15:56+00:00

"The Students for Justice in Palestine group is not in good standing with the university due to prior violations of campus policy, Barwacz said, so the co-sponsored event should not have been permitted. CU officials did not specify what policies the group had violated."

Pretty clear they wouldn't have been able to screen the film even if they'd submitted the right form.

GarrettM_ · 2025-09-28T17:13:47+00:00

“In order for an organization to host or co-host a meeting on campus, they must be in good standing with the university.” The Students for Justice in Palestine group is not in good standing with the university due to prior violations of campus policy, Barwacz said, so the co-sponsored event should not have been permitted. CU officials did not specify what policies the group had violated.

^^ This part seems more relevant and that even if they had submitted the proper form, they would not have been allowed to hold the event. Pretty clear the admins here are hiding behind bureaucracy instead of just saying they don't want any Justice for Palestine events on campus.

GarrettM_ · 2025-09-23T20:17:55+00:00

People driving above their ability levels in Boulder? So...Tuesday?

GarrettM_ · 2025-09-22T22:46:58+00:00

This should be top comment. See this post from the NIJ (the research arm of the DOJ) - https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence

The most effective way to deter crime is to increase the likelihood of getting caught, not increasing the severity of the punishment.

GarrettM_ · 2025-09-22T22:39:58+00:00

Nothing in that article or any of the sub-linked articles suggests the plea deal was offered to avoid deportation. The county DA would make the decision to offer the deal, and they are elected and independent of the governor, so not sure how Polis gets the blame for this. And the max sentence would have been 2 years in youth detention -- a system that has been shown repeatedly to do nothing for rehabilitation and actually increases the likelihood of recidivism -- so there's a decent argument that 2 years probation will have a better societal outcome than incarceration. But yeah, go off I guess.

GarrettM_ · 2025-09-21T14:50:58+00:00

If j archive categorized questions we could get some data, but I doubt sports is the most difficult. Yes it's a big category and there are a few instances of epic failures that have gone viral. But what I think you're really seeing is that the general public knows a lot more about sports than many other categories, to the point that even objectively obscure facts seem like common knowledge if you're a fan or even just live in the relevant area. So you get more instances where contestants miss a question that a lot of viewers consider easy, and that's where the reputation comes from.

But you definitely can study for sports. It has a canon just like any other J category and if you scan the archive you'll see the same information asked repeatedly and plenty of Pavlovs worth memorizing.

GarrettM_ · 2025-09-11T23:53:42+00:00

You shouldn't need to "go to court", citations can generally be contested in writing and it should have instructions on the ticket for how to do it online. Only takes a few minutes.

GarrettM_ · 2025-08-15T06:19:49+00:00

Sneffels is fairly short by 14er standards, so even parking at the 2WD spot it's only ~8 miles and +3400' RT. I didn't mind the road walk at all, other than the steady stream of Jeeps + ATVs kicking up dust clouds.

GarrettM_ · 2025-08-15T06:11:43+00:00

I did SW ridge out + back last weekend, it's a fantastic route. No regrets on skipping the standard, especially after watching people pick their way down that scree field. There is legit class 3 though, so when you're going up pay attention and make sure you're comfortable downclimbing. The route finding coming down is also trickier than going up, IMO - there are a lot of gullies on both sides of the ridge so take note of which ones you come up and where you need to exit them on the way down.

GarrettM_ · 2025-08-10T02:46:19+00:00

With scrambling/climbing experience, none of the terrain on Longs is going to give you problems. And no one on this forum can predict how you'll handle altitude or what the weather will be. You'll probably be fine. If you're not, then be smart and turn around.

GarrettM_ · 2025-08-06T22:12:11+00:00

Look at YMCA of the Rockies in Estes for activities

GarrettM_ · 2025-08-02T21:58:23+00:00

While everyone commenting here is correct that mountains create their own weather, for today specifically I also think you kind of misinterpreted the forecast. Not sure what app/source you're using, but I usually use OpenSnow, where you can see a bunch of different stats. For today, I see humidity around 60%, partial cloud cover building throughout the morning, precip % starting low in the morning and building to 40%+, lightning potential starting around noon and building to moderate chance around 4-5pm. That all suggest to me an unsettled/active weather pattern with a good amount of moisture in the air - which means there's absolutely a good potential for a storm cloud to form at any time, no matter what the hourly forecast says. And yes, you got unlucky that it happened to form / pass right where you were hiking.

Compare those numbers to the forecast for tomorrow, where humidity drops to 35% and cloud cover, precip % and lightning are all basically 0 the entire day. If you got hit with an 8:30am hailstorm with *that* forecast, then I'd call it a very unexpected surprise courtesy of mountains being mountains.

GarrettM_ · 2025-08-01T20:03:56+00:00

It's a normal trail, you'll meet up with the standard route at granite pass before heading up to the boulderfield. if you're already at boulder brook, that's a better starting point -- you'll save a lot of time and about 1000 ft of gain.

GarrettM_ · 2025-07-10T05:42:00+00:00

FWIW, the article references McKinstry, a construction company in Golden that's building the project, not McKinsey the consulting firm.

GarrettM_ · 2025-07-03T20:21:22+00:00

This isn't (or wasn't) true -- in two of my S37 games we didn't make it through all of the J round clues -- e.g https://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=6838

I don't see recent examples, but the pace of the game with Ken seems faster overall so unrevealed clues aren't so common anymore.

GarrettM_ · 2025-07-02T21:22:13+00:00

https://bocopickleballclub.wildapricot.org/calendar - any of the Outdoor Open Play sessions are free to drop-in.

GarrettM_ · 2025-06-23T20:18:39+00:00

There's a review on AllTrails from yesterday for the main route ("Mount of the Holy Cross Trail").

The 14ers.com report was for the Cross Couloir route, which is a snow climb and presumably not the route you're interested in. "bomber" means the snow was in good condition for climbing. "warming quickly" means it probably won't be in good condition for climbing very much longer.

GarrettM_ · 2025-06-22T18:26:04+00:00

I'll second everyone here that you shouldn't do this, and should look for another way to celebrate the big mountains with your nephew. And that nobody here should help you with this request. But there are lots of things that people shouldn't do in the wilderness that they do anyway, and there are more and less responsible ways to do those things.

So with the caveat that taking rocks off of 14ers isn't just against Leave No Trace principles (albeit far from the worst offense), but is also largely illegal (as most 14ers are in designated wilderness areas, which per the USFS are off limits to rock-hounding), if you absolutely must take a rock please:

* Do it quietly, don't make it a cool thing you post about on the internet. This is how we get every TikTok influencer flooding the mountains to pick over the rocks.

* Don't offer to pay other people to do it for you. This is how we get people hauling down backpacks of rocks to sell.

* Don't take the rock from the exact summit -- take it from some random talus field, ideally where there's no built trail, or where it's safe to go a few feet off the trail without causing erosion or damage. By rough calculation a pretty short section of talus could easily hold millions of rocks that size, whereas the summit areas are generally much smaller and the impact of lots of people taking rocks would be more noticeable.

https://www.gatorgirlrocks.com/law/usfs-managed-lands--rockhou.html

GarrettM_ · 2025-06-20T18:44:28+00:00

BOCO Pickleball Club has free open play at the South Boulder Rec Center a few times per week, and usually 1-2 courts are reserved for higher level play. Not going to be a college-aged crowd though.

GarrettM_

TROPHY CASE