Raymond Johnson @ downclimb.com

Today is my last day of a much-appreciated spring break, one that I spent working on some school work and hanging out with my nephew. I picked Huston up Wednesday night and we went skiing on Thursday at Breckenridge. Huston had never skied before, but, being a hockey player and ice skater, he picked it up quickly, making is 3rd and 4th runs without falling. (We were on Peak 7, easy intermediate terrain.) We skied a ton - everything on Peak 7, including Pioneer twice and Lincoln Meadows four times, Northstar (the toughest for Huston), Springmeier and 4 O'Clock on Peak 8, and Briar Rose on Peak 9. I think that might have been a total of 14 runs. We've spent most of the rest of our time relaxing and watching movies. The list of movies watched in total has grown almost as fast as the list of ski runs on Thursday. We started with "Anchorman" (Dorothy Mantooth is a saint!), "Warren Miller's Fifty" (in preparation for skiing), then moved on to all four R...

So Lubin calls me last night and suggests we go climb something. I'd been browsing Dave Cooper's Snow Climbs book and seen the North Couloir route on Pacific Peak so I suggested it to Lubin. He wasn't familiar with the route, but it sounded good. Our plans were set. I realized after we talked that I never really read the route description all the way through, and I hadn't checked other sources. I didn't have to read long to find out that the North Coulior is a serious climb, with 60 degree slopes, possible alpine ice, and a need for some gear we didn't have. I called Lubin back to give him an update and we decided to head to the couloir anyway. The trip there should be a spectacular hike and if we didn't like the looks of the couloir, we'd find another way to the top. We met just off of Highway 9 at 6:30 and took Lubin's car as far as we could up the road. The four-wheel section is rough but was passable in Lubin's Suburu Outback. We fin...

Somehow, I could feel this coming. In the days following Tim Russert's death a little over a week ago, I repeatedly got this feeling like George Carlin would be soon to follow. I wonder if he got the two-minute warning? I wonder if he'll get blown up? (Listen to "Death and Dying" from Carlin's 1977 album On the Road .) I can't think of any other single person in popular culture that has done more to influence my sense of humor and personal philosophies than George Carlin. It's strange, really, since I'm nothing like Carlin - I don't use profanity, have never drank or used drugs, and I generally avoid controversy. I've always liked stand-up comedy, however, and Carlin has been my favorite ever since I heard Playin' With Your Head when I was in middle school. (Big thanks to Phil Walters, who borrowed the tape from his brother so he could share it with me and others while we detasseled corn.) I understand those who think Pryor was f...

Today I got my first two mountains of the year, Mt. Sherman (14,036') and Gemini Peak (13,951'). I look at these peaks every day out my front window, so it was about time to pay them a visit. I climbed Sherman in 2000, and today's climb made it the first 14er I've summitted twice. I hadn't gotten Gemini on my last trip, which is a shame because the pair make a pretty easy double. Our times were good: I met Peter Lubin at his house at 5:30am; we were at the trailhead at 6:08 and hiking at 6:22. I hiked with trekking poles and carried an ice axe on my pack for glissades on the way down; Lubin carried skis with the hopes of skiing the big east-facing bowl between Sherman and Gemini. We climbed quickly (over 1200 vertical feet per hour, not bad at all for my first time out) and reached Sherman's summit at 8:02. It was windy on the ridge, but we managed to not get swept off our feet. After summitting Sherman we headed to Gemini to eat. Things for me got prett...

Enjoy the holiday (and, if you're like me, the snow day from school) with this little clip:

I've done a lot of things in wrestling without actually having had a competitive match since 3rd grade. (Long story short: injuries ended my high school career after 6 practices.) This year I'm helping coach the proud but few (7, curently) South Park Burros wrestlers. We're a relatively young and inexperienced team, so my lack of actual wrestling experience hasn't been worth worrying about. I just try to rely on my own observations and my experience with the myriad of head coaches with whom I've worked since high school: Rick Caldwell (currently the head coach of Waverly-Shell Rock, IA...more on them later) Leonard "Butch" Wingett (currently teaching at Clarke Middle School in Osceola, IA...coaching status unknown) Steve Price (currently an assistant coach at Johnston, IA...good to see him coaching again) Don Briggs (still teaching at the University of Northern Iowa when he's not exploring the world) Mark Manning (currently the head coa...

When I moved to Fairplay a year and a half ago, one of my major concerns about living here was the lack of broadband. The only options at the time were two I weren't willing to accept: satellite service from WildBlue and HughesNet. It's not that the service they offer is all that horrible, but the service agreements and contracts (you know, all that fine-print stuff most people don't want to read) were just plain ugly to me. So ugly, in fact, that I went with dialup, something I never thought I'd ever have to do again. Fortunately, another Fairplay resident named Jerry Wilson with the same distaste for satellite, similar broadband needs, and greater entrepreneurial spirit decided to take matters into his own hands. He bought a T1, put up a big antenna, and resold wireless broadband to people around town. The service is called Parkspeed, and as you can see from the website , it's pretty low-key and still a way for Jerry to satisfy his gaming habits. Despite som...

A couple nights ago I uploaded a fresh look for downclimb.com, the first I think I've had since January of 2005. I really wanted the front page to be a portal to my growing homes on the web, such as Panoramio , Flickr , and del.icio.us . I think I've accomplished that, although people not familiar with the logos for the various services might think I've sold out to corporate advertisers. (If you're one of those services, feel free to send me cash.) I've also grown fond of Tumblr , the host that provides my tumblog tumbledown . I really like that it catches all my RSS feeds from my other sites. If you don't want to miss any of my web activity, that is the single feed to subscribe to.

My colleague, Peter Lubin, and I got this idea of traversing Hoosier Ridge from Hoosier Pass to Boreas Pass. It looked great on the map - not too long, lots of time above timberline, and easy slopes from peak to peak. It's harder than it looks, but certainly worth the effort. Routefinding was pretty straightforward, and the whole trip can be broken into three basic parts. The first part is west-to-east from Hoosier Pass up the ridge. The ridge then turns north to Red Peak for the second leg. The third and final part is west to Boreas Pass. The first stretch of the third leg is probably the best - you cross bands of sandstone and nice wildflowers while gently losing elevation. The worst part of the climb is at the end. You have to drop down to treeline and then regain 700 feet over the last hill before Boreas Pass. If there had been an easy way around it, we certainly would have considered taking it. But no, the easy way is to go right over the top, no matter how steep it ...

Okay, time for a real climb! Mt. Sheridan, Sherman, and Gemini sit right out my front window, so it seemed natural to head up one of them. Having climbed Sherman before, I chose Sheridan. I knew the way up there and reports of conditions on Sherman were good. Sunday I left town about 5:40 am and hit the trail at 6:25, stopping only briefly to take pictures of the weirdest (and only) 3-legged elk I'd ever seen. The first part of the climb follows the old mining road and I turned off the road near a small mine ruin south of the Hilltop Mine. There were a number of people already headed across a large snowfield towards Sherman's south ridge. I postholed across a 25-foot stretch of snow and then scrambled up some scree until I met a faint trail headed south across Sheridan's face. Ahead of me I could see the top of Horseshoe. At a small rock shelter I headed up the scree to the summit. Both ridges (south and north) had soft snow and the rock between wasn't very sta...

Last Thursday I headed out early for Hoosier Pass with the goal of climbing North Star Mountain. North Star Mountain is a 13er that sits between Mt. Lincoln to the south and Quandary Peak to the north. Routefinding should have been easy on North Star as there is a road that you can follow most of the way. I hadn't even hiked an hour before coming to this: Bummer. Sure, I could have just gone around the gate and gone on my way, but I didn't feel like being a rule-breaker at that particular moment. I'm assuming that the closure is related to the same land ownership issues currently plaguing Lincoln, Bross, and Democrat to the south. This was my first real hike of the season and the first with my new digital camera. I've been doing a lot of work to geotag my pictures and get them in various places on the web. ( Flickr , Panoramio , gallery@downclimb ) It's a lot of work, especially when there are so many decisions to make (and remake) and so many cool features to...

I'm really getting into the spirit of web 2.0. What does that mean? It means I'm embracing the use of the web as a social tool, using it more than ever to establish my character, personality, and presence on the web. It also means I'm as big of a geek as ever, although now I'm a more up-to-date geek. There are so many web 2.0 options out there that it's hard to decide which ones to use, and sometimes even harder to figure out exactly what you should do with the ones you have. For example, I steer clear of the major social networking sites; don't bother looking for me on MySpace , Facebook , or Virb . But what about Flickr ? I already have a place for all my photography on the web. Should I duplicate that effort on Flickr just for the exposure? Or should I use Flickr for something else, like uploads from my cameraphone ? I'd like an organized presence on the web, so let me explain how I see all these web 2.0 pieces fitting together. downclimb .co...

I first saw snowflakes fall here at the end of last August. We got our first accumulation at the end of September. On this fine may morning we have about 6 inches of snow, so that's pretty much a 9-month winter. You've gotta love this place!

People tend to be curious about day-to-day weather at 10,000 feet. Not too many people live up here, and I was a little curious myself about the winters in South Park. I'm happy to report that the weather is generally cold, windy, sunny, and we don't get as much snow as you'd think. See, people usually think we get a ton of snow, but a lot of it stays on the Breckenridge side of the pass. It's definitely not the defining feature of winter in Fairplay. That prize belongs to the wind . My apartment sits on top of a hill overlooking the Platte River, and the wind howls straight down from Hoosier Pass at speeds that shake the building. It's intense. Here's where the mathematician/scientist in me gets to wondering. How does the daily peak wind gust compare to the daily peak temperature? Many days I think the wind gust is by far the higher number, and a comparison of the two measures could be used to determine the truly lousy weather days we sometimes have. I...

Weekend Plan #1: Drive to Iowa and back to watch the national duals wrestling tournament . Trip canceled due to weather. Weekend Plan #2: Drive to Florence to help out with the Husky Invitational wrestling tournament. Trip canceled due to weather. Weekend Plan #3: Walk to school to help out with concessions during basketball games. The walk to school was successful, but the games were canceled due to weather. So here I am, 0 for 3, but you know what? This isn't all that bad. Short of actually making it to national duals, having a weekend to myself is probably the next best thing. I'll have time to catch up on grading papers and I can watch all the football games. Not bad at all.

I'm finally catching onto this Web 2.0 stuff. I created a Google account and started poking around at all the new tools. First I started playing with Google Docs and Spreadsheets and even using a spreadsheet collaboratively with a fellow teacher. Cool stuff. I setup a Gmail account, although I'll be sticking with my regular account for my primary email. Maybe the best find was Google Reader , an RSS feed reader. I had been using the Sage extension for Firefox , but Google Reader is much nicer. As a news junkie with dialup internet access, feed readers are a necessity. (I'm currently off dialup ...more on that later, along with other news on where I'm at and what I'm doing.) I've also started using Google Notebook and Google Calendar , although neither with much frequency. Eventually this all had to lead back to what was probably my first Web 2.0 tool, Blogger. I've been a Blogger user since the end of 2001 (sparingly, I admit, but I was a B...

I have some of the most interesting neighbors on the planet. First, the Bomber family: Una, Shoe, Olympic, Oklahoma City, 1993 World Trade... Next, some world-class gang leaders, traitors, and mass murderers. It sounds like a rough place to live, but they pretty much keep to themselves. They have to. I live about a mile north of Supermax, America's highest-security prison. It's a death sentence for the living and Zacarias Moussaoui's new home. Remember Alcatraz? It's sorta like a bad summer camp compared to Supermax. How's 23 hours of total isolation in your cell sound? Sure, you can spend an hour getting exercise, if you're willing to put up with the pre- and post-workout body cavity searches. Prison cells are built so you never make eye contact with another inmate. You don't go anywhere without being shackled at the wrists and ankles and escorted by two of the best guards in the federal prison system. Prisons, at their best, rehabilitate. But ...

I'm a regular Daily Show and Colbert Report watcher and was excited to find out that Steven Colbert had been chosen as the entertainer for last night's White House Correspondent's Dinner. I tuned in to C-SPAN to watch it live (which sounds only slightly less nerdy-sounding "I recorded C-SPAN") and was greatly disappointed. I don't know if he didn't have adequate time to prepare or write good material, but it was a disjointed scattering of jokes, few of which were very funny. Before Colbert there was a clip about the working conditions of the press within the White House, which was somewhat interesting, and Colbert had a clip where he pretended to be the White House Press Secretary and got chased down by Helen Thomas. For my money, Al Franken still holds the pound-the-table funny prize for his appearances at the Correspondent's Dinner in '94 and '96.

By coincidence and procrastination, today is Earth Day and I finally replanted a tree in my front yard. I bought the tree last weekend, but it was a crazy week at school and I never found the after-school time to do the job. The planting went pretty well and my hole was just big enough to make me remember how much I hate to shovel. What a tool of torture! The tree I planted is an autumn blaze maple, a hybrid of a red maple and silver maple. I grew up climbing the red maples in my front yard and our neighbor had silver maples. The autumn blaze is supposed to have some degree of drought tolerance and grow strong enough to not break easily under heavy snow, so I hope it turns out to be a good choice.

Have you ever heard of a "Red Flag Warning"? I hadn't until about 5 minutes ago when I checked my weather at the National Weather Service web site ( http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ifps/MapClick.php?CityName=Florence&state=CO&site=PUB ). We had already been in a "Fire Weather Watch", and apparently a "Red Flag Warning" is a worsening of that condition. It is extremely dry and the last couple of days we've had temperatures in the low 80s. Winds could be at 25 mph with gusts to 45 mph. There are more criteria, but that's apparently enough to put us into a Red Flag Warning. Here's our actual warning: RED FLAG WARNING NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PUEBLO CO 255 PM MDT WED APR 5 2006 ...A RED FLAG WARNING FOR SUSTAINED WIND SPEEDS AND GUSTS...LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY LEVELS AND DRY FUELS...REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM THIS EVENING FOR ELEVATIONS BELOW 9000 FEET IN FIRE WEATHER ZONES 221...222 AND 225 THROUGH 237... INCLUDING PIKES PEAK AND TELLER ...