Black Canyon Of The Gunnison
On my way out to Telluride I took a quick stop at the south rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and took these photos.
More photos from my visit can be found on flickr.
colorado
Boulder, Colorado: America’s Foodiest Town
According to Bon Appétit, this years award for the foodiest town goes to Boulder, Colorado. The criteria for the award are as follows:
Our criteria for the annual report on “America’s Foodiest Town”: Small (fewer than 250,000 people), quality farmers’ markets, concerned farmers, dedicated food media, first-rate restaurants, talented food artisans, and a community of food lovers.
Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Portland, Maine were the winners of the 2008 and 2009 awards respectively. Boulder restaurants mentioned in the article include:
Dish Gourmet
The Kitchen
Salt
Frasca Food and Wine
Pizzeria Basta
Mateo
The Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse
Leaf
Café Aion
Kim & Jake’s Cakes
Happy
Sushi Tora
Boulder County Farmers’ Market
Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill In Denver
On April 20th, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon left 17 workers injured and 11 missing and presumed dead. Oil is spilling from a well 5000 feet below sea level, discharging 200,000 gallons of crude oil a day according to the official estimate. It is estimated that more than 6 million gallons of crude oil have spewed into the Gulf so far.
It is understandably difficult to imagine how large this spill actually is. The picture above shows the area the spill would cover if it had originated in Denver. It would stretch from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs and as far east as Hillrose. Want to see the spill size compared to you city? Check out Paul Rademacher’s website.
UPDATE: If It Was My Home also does a great job of mapping the spill and overlaying it onto your hometown
Foursquare Specials In Colorado
If you don’t know what Foursquare is, go read this post, sign-up at Foursquare and start checking into places.
Recently, certain venues on Foursquare started offering free stuff (drinks, appetizers, etc.) to their mayors. For example, just last week Parallel 17 started offering a free drink to it’s mayor. So, if you are Kat O. (whose twitter stream seems to consist almost entirely of foursquare entries), the current mayor of Parrallel 17, go help yourself to a free glass of wine.
There are a bunch other places in Colorado that currently offer “incentives” to foursquare participants. For instance CeFiore offers one free organic tea to the mayor, Tee & Cakes offers a free cupcake for the mayor and Modmarket gives away a free flatbread pizza for every 10th checkin on Foursquare. And Foursquare is signing up partnerships with other venues all the time.
To help take advantage of the freebies, I wrote a script that keeps track of all the new partnerships that Foursquare signs up in the Colorado area. Below you will find a list of the most recent places you can get specials from Foursquare. This list is automatically updated as soon as foursquare announces them, so check back often. Or you can subscribe to my feed (using the button below) to recieve immediate notification of all the specials in Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins as they are announced.
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Leadville Ski Joring Championships
This weekend was the 2010 Annual Leadville Ski Joring Competition. The Leadville ski joring event has been going on in since 1949 and is considered the premier event of its kind in the country.
The sport it is a timed race with skiers being pulled by horses on a track with large jumps and flat landings. In between the jumps the skier must try to spear small circular rings while swinging from one side of the track to the other – at speeds in excess of 40 mile per hour. Missed rings add 2 seconds each to your time. With average times of less than twenty seconds a single missed ring, with skiers of this caliber, will cost you the event. The winner will have the most rings and fastest time. Ski joring is no simple feat – particularly the Leadville race.
Last year, for the 60th annual race, I had the good fortune of making the draw and was able to compete. I wiped out on the first jump. My apologies to the rider and the man who wagered $250 on me. Video evidence below.
My wipe out was nothing compared to Chris Anthony’s (former Alaskan Extreme Skiing Champion, veteran of 9 World Extreme Skiing Championships and 20 Warren Miller films) fall in the 2007 races. He didn’t walk away from his. Video evidence below.
To get a real idea of the sense of speed, tradition, and community this ski joring event brings to Leadville watch this documentary by Foresight Multimedia. To get a sense of what the skier is seeing watch this first person video on youtube. To get a sense of my attitude before the race, read my interview in the Colorado Springs Gazette.
For The Win
Missy, over at Cocktail Hour, is one of the best, most consistent, Colorado photobloggers out there. Last Friday she held a contest for her one year blogerversary. And today I won!
Photo courtesy of Cocktail Hour.
I can’t wait to get my photos of Kenosha Pass. Thanks so much Missy. I look forward to another year of your photos.
Weminuche Wilderness Photos
I’ve mentioned Alex’s photography on this site before, but these pictures of the Weminuche Wilderness are stunning.
Colorado Snow
The Eye on Colorado page contains links to all Colorado Ski Resort Webcams, I70 & CDOT Webcams, CDOT Mountain Pass Status, Weather Reports, and the CAIC Avalanche Danger Rose. The links and information should give the user a complete picture of the current dangers and status of Colorado’s Mountain terrain including roads resort and back country. I’ll be checking this site often.
We Know Snow
It’s days like today that I can’t keep my eyes off the best Colorado back-country ski and snowboard blogs. If only they didn’t make me so god damn jealous with all those pictures of weekday powder.