Author Archives: dhill

J. J. Abrams Killed Star Trek

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I watched Star Trek Into Darkness last night. What a disappointment. To say Abrams killed Star Trek is probably a bit of a stretch. Between the original series, the spinoffs, and the movies, we’re talking something like 728 stories. To say Abrams killed all that with two hours of dross is an exaggeration. Surely, in a few years somebody will spend another quarter billion dollars and make another Star Trek film that isn’t complete crap. Star Trek fans will be able to deny the Abrams films much like Bond fans ignore the Peter Sellers version of Casino Royale. We can hope.

Abrams “rebooted” the series. A very clever tactic on his part. He piggy-backs on his predecessors, people who spent their careers building a franchise, and is allowed to discard all that familiar back story. He gets to leverage the Star Trek name, has a cast of fully formed and familiar characters, and inherits a galaxy populated with enemies we all love to hate. Because he doesn’t have to create any of this stuff, he’s free to concentrate on story. And no matter how badly he executes, he’s guaranteed a certain minimum amount of box office success. Yes, a clever plan.

I wouldn’t call my self a Trek fanatic, but I’m sure some have. I’ve seen every episode of the original several times each. I had big sections of dialog memorized. (I’ve since killed those brain cells.) I watched all the other TV series. I don’t think I saw all the episodes of Deep Space 9, but probably caught every episode of all the others. I’ve seen all the movies. I enjoyed the great majority of it. Many of the episodes are very interesting and compelling stories. A lot of them are forgettable.

The special effects for the original series were quite primitive. Things had to be kept very simple and on the cheap. The effects could never really add to the story, but if they weren’t careful, the could have taken away. From TNG on, though, there were a lot more options. And today, a film maker can show us vision he has the capacity to imagine.

So here we have Abrams with $185 million to spend and a clean slate, a list of familiar characters, a robust setting, and the technology to tell whatever he dreams up. Which leads me to wonder how he managed to make such a bad movie. I think the entire amount was spent on colorful explosions. It certainly wasn’t spent on the script.

It was mostly a cut and paste job. Parts of old Star Trek episodes – characters, back stories, dialog, even tribbles. (Did shooting them up with Khan’s blood cause them to multiply so fast? But they didn’t get shot up with Khan’s blood before the reboot. I’m so confused!) Big chunks of Space Seed and Wrath of Khan. Even a bit of Amok Time – that was the first time they “killed” Kirk. (Was there any major character in the original that didn’t get “killed” at least once in those 80 episodes? I don’t think so.) And, finally, he destroyed the Enterprise for about the eighth time.

But they didn’t just crib from the Star Trek canon. They sampled liberally from buddy cop movies – the cop who breaks the rules and his lieutenant who takes his shield away. And old B-movies about WW II – she says he doesn’t care if he dies, he stoically tells her it’s his duty to return to battle.

Cardboard cutouts

Cardboard cutouts

By giving the characters such cliched dialog, Abrams managed to take these fully-fleshed out characters and flatten them into cardboard cutouts of themselves. But he didn’t stop there. He had these cardboard cutouts do ridiculous things.

Yes, it’s Star Trek, and they routinely did ridiculous things. But even in the context of accepting the Star Trek premise – technology advanced enough for faster than light travel, tractor beams, photon torpedoes, transporters, miracle medical gadgets – Abrams manages to jump the shark.

The movie starts with the Enterprise sitting on the ocean floor. It appear to be hundreds of feet below the surface, even though it’s only a few feet off-shore. Why is it there? We can’t allow the local inhabitants to see a star ship! But the star ship is just waiting for the shuttle to do something. Why not just orbit the planet and send the shuttle – something done dozens of times in other Trek stories? Well, if we did that, we wouldn’t get to show the Enterprise rising out of the ocean!

Later, we see a meeting of all the star ship captains and their first officers. It’s an emergency meeting because there’s been a disaster. Rules tell them all to assemble in that one room together. No using the 23rd century version of Skype here – it’s got to be face to face. I wonder what they’d have done if they were actually on board their ships, exploring or monitoring the Klingons, or doing something otherwise useful. But no, they all have to be right there. In a glass room at the top of a skyscraper. Because that’s the best place to have an emergency meeting during a disaster.

Spock is stranded in an erupting volcano. Lava bubbles and bounces all around him, towers over him thirty feet at times. Sure, he’s in some sort of magic space suit. But not one speck of lava lands on him.

Khan and Kirk are shot out of an airlock as if from a cannon to the other ship. Sulu dutifully lines up the ships. Their target is another airlock that’s only a few feet across. A very difficult shot in the best of conditions. But wait, there’s some debris between the two ships. Of course, the debris is like flying through a junkyard at mach 3, dodging old Buicks. What could go wrong?

And on and on. There wasn’t an action sequence in the whole movie that didn’t drag on for way too long.

I’m glad I didn’t spend the big bucks to see this at the theater. The biggest screen and best sound system in the world can’t help this disaster of a movie.

US Hwy 36 Flood Damage

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On my way up to the Park for my hike last Friday, I mounted the camera on the car and shot footage from Lyons to the trailhead. With other subject matter, I’d say I put together a highlight reel, but there aren’t really any highlights here so let’s just say I threw together a montage.

It weighs in at over twelve minutes, so if you’re not familiar with the road you probably won’t be interested. In any event, you should watch the video full-screen. With the camera’s very wide angle, everything looks very far away. Also, aside from debris on the right side of the road in the first sequence, all the damage is on the left side so you’ll want to focus there.

Finally, I added a soundtrack. The sound from the camera is mostly wind noise and is fairly annoying. If you feel music isn’t appropriate, just turn your speakers down.

Mills Lake

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Friday, November 29

My last hike was a few days before the big floods in September, nearly three months ago. That’s the longest time between hikes for me in nearly three years. All the roads to Estes Park are open now, so I figured it was past time to head up to the Park.

On the drive up I stopped in Lyons to mount the camera on the car. The repairs to US 36 are temporary and I was expecting a fair amount of flood damage in Apple Valley and just before Big Elk Meadows. The video does not do a great job of showing the extent of the damage, but I’ll see if I can put together a few minutes of interesting footage. I’m guessing it will be of little interest to anybody who is unfamiliar with the road.

Jerry and I were in Lyons last week for some pinball and a beer at Oskar Blue’s so I had already seen the debris lining the road from the light at the junction of CO 66 and US 36 into town. The water clearly was deep enough through here to deposit trees on the north side of the road. In some places, the river is about 500′ from the road in this stretch.

The next stretch of serious damage is in Apple Valley. The riverbed here has been scrubbed clean, no plants or structures standing in a rocky, sandy riverbed that is now much wider than the stream it accommodates. Where the road bends west the water ate away enough earth to cause the temporary road to be placed fifteen or twenty yards from its former “permanent” location. Yet only a few yards upstream the bridge at Apple Valley Road stands with no apparent sign of stress.

The worst stretch of damage starts here, where the canyon narrows. The road was washed away in several places. Most structures here were on the opposite side of the river from the road, and all the bridges were washed away. Somebody spray painted “We R OK” on a garage door. The occasional car is on the shoulder of the road at the bottom of a pile of other debris.

From where the road opens up and provides a passing lane to the top of the hill at Pinewood Springs there are only one or two spots that had minor damage. On the other side of Pinewood, the road goes through a short stretch of canyon alongside the Little Thompson River. The road is damaged from here to the turn for Big Elk Meadows, except where it was washed away entirely. I think there’s only one house in there, but I didn’t get a good look to see its fate. From there to Estes there is only one short stretch of additional damage, just past the trailhead near mile eight.

Being headed out for a short hike, I was on the road a few hours later than I’d normally make the drive. Traffic didn’t disappoint. For the most part, people were going ten to fifteen miles per hour less than the speed limit. It took me a hour to get from Lyons to the Glacier Gorge trailhead.

I brought spikes but not snowshoes. Based on my rather limited winter hiking, I figured the “beaten path” would be packed well enough that spikes would be sufficient. It wasn’t long before I was at the “Fire Trail” shortcut. I left the main trail here. It was a bit “thready” at first, with skiers going one way, snowshoers going another. The stream that flows here also tends to be a bit braided, and in winter the trail crosses the stream several times. These crossings were interesting at times. Without snowshoes, I postholed a few times and nearly got my feet wet. In several places, the trails of skiers and hikers coalesced, only to split again.

Sometimes it was easy to see which way I should go, sometimes I went up an unsuitable path and started postholing again. At other times, the path seemed to meander in an almost random fashion. By the time I got to the trail junction at the other end, I was fairly tired. What has always been a shortcut for me in the past probably took me longer than the route past Alberta Falls. So it goes.

The plan was to go to the Loch. In winter, I’ve always followed the Mills Lake trail to the bridge over Icy Brook, then follow the drainage up. This experience is based on hiking more in March than November. Right now there isn’t enough snow to go that way. It looks like nobody has even set foot off the trail here. So rather than backtrack to the trail to the Loch, I forged ahead to Mills Lake. Again, in winter I’m used to just going up the drainage but for now at least, I had to stick to the summer route.

Slogging up the “Fire Trail” I was overheating a bit. I just kept telling myself I’d be happy to be so warmly dressed when I got to the lake, and this turned out quite true. As expected, the wind was quite fierce here. I might even say “breathtaking” as that’s about what happened when a gust hit me when I got to the top of the large granite slabs just before reaching Mills.

A mound of ice forming on the west side of Mills Lake, near the outlet.

The challenge on these winter hikes is to find a nice spot to eat lunch in comfort. Ideally, I’d find a rock sitting in the sun but out of the wind. But this is winter at an alpine lake and such ideal spots are in short supply. I found a good enough spot to set up the cameras and managed to keep somewhat out of the wind, but after half an hour I was ready to head back down. I had to take my gloves off to deal with the SLR and in just those few moments my hands were quite cold. But just a few minutes down the trail, once back in the forest and out of the wind, I was comfortable again.

The Longs Peak massif from just below Mills Lake

Rather than slog down the way I came up, I headed down the trail past Alberta Falls. Again, my usual path in winter is to leave the trail just east of East Glacier Knob and head down Glacier Creek, but more snow is required. I’ll just have to come up again in a few weeks and see if there’s enough snow then.

View of the interesting north face of Flattop Mtn from near Mills Lake.

Here’s the video. I used both the GoPro and the SLR. The small tripod I take on hikes was insufficient against the wind at the lake and thus the SLR footage is too shaky to use. Meanwhile, the GoPro was shooting into the sun until it went behind Thatchtop. Tough conditions, but not a bad result.

 

‘Come and See’

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I watched a very powerful movie last night. ‘Come and See’ is about a 14 year old boy who joins the partisans to fight the Nazis in Byelorussia in 1943. I’d never heard of it. Genae found it in a magazine article listing eight great movies you can only stand to see once.

It was made in the Soviet Union in 1985. About two and a half hours long, in Russian with English subtitles.

You can only stand to see it once because it is ruthless in its depiction of brutality. Nothing good happened in that part of the world in 1943, and nothing good happens in this movie. The centerpiece of the film is the burning of a village and everyone who lived there. Not exactly a happy movie.

I really liked the way it was put together. It seemed like the vast majority of the film was made of very long shots with interesting camera movement. Shot after shot, thirty seconds long, forty five seconds long. In one scene, the camera sneaks up on a man, sprinting through open spaces then stopping to peer around a corner, then sprinting to peer around another corner. In a shot near the end of the movie, the camera moves with a column of marching men, then diverts through thick trees and regains the road and the men. Alongside the road we see snow on the ground but at the beginning of the shot it was still summer. A creative way to indicate the passing of time.

Reading subtitles wasn’t an ordeal. Long sections of the movie have no dialog. At one point our protagonist is shelled, deafened by the near miss. We hear his ears ring, all sounds muffled. A hollywood movie would have the ringing stop witin a minute. Here it goes on for quite a while, gradually lessening. Another recurring sound was the drone of aircraft engines. Sometimes we heard it long before seeing the plane.

I forget most of the movies on the list Genae found. One was ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘Straw Dogs’ was on it too. ‘Schindler’s List’ was pretty dark, but it tells the story of how people were saved. At the end of ‘Straw Dogs’ the ordeal is over. But in ‘Come and See’ nobody is saved. When the movie is over, it’s still 1943 and the ordeal still has years to play out.

Quite the powerful movie. I’m glad I watched it, but it’s hard to recommend.

PPIR

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I spent Saturday at the track, my first visit to Pikes Peak International Raceway.

The track was built in 1997. Before that, it was horse race track. They ran IRL and Busch series races there before it was shut down a while back. It was closed for three years before it was sold. Some NASCAR testing is done here, along with club racing. There’s a deed restriction that prohibits them from hosting any major racing series. CECA has a day there every year.

When it was built, it was one of the fastest 1 mile ovals in the world. Seems counter intuitive to me, as the elevation (5,360′) means lower horsepower. It’s a D-shaped oval, with a short road course in the infield. The road course is 1.3 miles long, which includes about three quarters of the speedway.

I wanted to do this one last year, but things didn’t work out. In the mean time, I’ve talked to a few people who’ve run there to get their impressions. Reviews were mixed – one guy said it was his favorite track while another wasn’t very impressed. I was looking forward to forming my own opinion.

I left the house promptly at six and collected Judd at his place forty minutes later. He didn’t sign up to run but wanted to come out to watch and get a ride or two. Turns out, he didn’t bring his helmet or much to eat, either.

The forecast for Denver was 60 degrees and mostly sunny. I didn’t think to check the forecast for Colorado Springs, but expected it to be much the same. We were past Castle Rock before sunrise. Not far south of there it was foggy, which cleared up before Monument Hill. We stopped in Fountain where I gassed up (car and can) and Judd got coffee. Here he told me my left turn signal wasn’t working.

We were at the track in plenty of time to get the inspection signed off and head to the drivers meeting. We used the south garage. I forget what the car count was, but the garage accommodates 36 cars and we didn’t quite fill it up. When we got there, a very pretty yellow Ferrari 458 cabrio was in the garage, but he moved it outside before the meeting. It wasn’t running today, sadly. After the inspector stickered my car, they asked Judd if he was ready. He told them he was just spectating, but it didn’t take much convincing to get him to fork over the entry fee and join the fun.

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In the garage

I’m sure I’m forgetting some, but we had four Elises, a bunch (herd? stable?) of Mustangs, three Miatas, a Mini or two, two BMWs (an M Coupe and 5M), a ZR1, a Viper, a few Porsches, a Pantera, an Acura NSX, a BRZ and an FR-S. The M Coupe owner keeps a set of slicks at the track and Alan runs his Viper on R6’s to and from the track but other than those two I don’t recall anybody else running slicks. Judd and I were on the same tires, his not much older than my rears. But my fronts are pretty much shot, with something like 15,000 miles on them.

Eric, Judd, and I were all parked together, near the south end of the garage. Eric ran in the red group, I was in the blue, and Judd started blue and switched to red. I had both my helmets with me. As I said earlier, Judd wasn’t planning on driving and although he intended to get a ride, forgot his hat. I said he could borrow mine. Then Kenny showed up with a friend, so we had Judd switch groups so I could take a passenger.

As there weren’t that many cars, the stewards decided that after the first session for each group, they’d combine green and blue. Blue was first out while green had their ground school. We were on track shortly after nine. It was mostly cloudy with temperatures in the mid thirty’s and fairly breezy.

From the paddock, we turn left onto pit lane. Pit out stays on the infield all the way around turns 1 and 2 and joins the track on the back straight. Before speedway turn 3, the road course makes a left onto the infield. At turn 9, the infield course ends and you go onto the 10 degree banking of the speedway, through turns 1 and 2 and onto the back straight again.

Frankly, the speedway frightened me a little. At HPR if you make a mistake and go off, or have a mechanical failure and go off, you really have to mess up to do anything more than get your car dirty. At Pueblo there’s only one place where there’s a wall anywhere close to the track. At the CSP facility you don’t want to go off because if you hit a big rock you’ll damage your car.

But on the speedway, there’s no run-off – the track goes right up to the wall. There are a number of lurid skid marks, each terminating with a nasty mark on the wall. Low in turn 2 there are some bumps. Here, if you mess up, or have something break, you hit the wall and the car’s not damaged: it’s destroyed.

So I took it pretty gingerly on the speedway. Particularly with my front tires being not so great right now. I did try a few different lines through there. We were only allowed to pass on the front and back straights of the speedway, so if I caught somebody on the infield, they’d go high and wave me past on the inside. And if I didn’t pass somebody there, I’d get set up so that if they were paying attention I’d be ready to pass before getting back to the infield. People seemed reluctant to wave me by on the back straight, and when I was working a corner I didn’t see any passing there at all. So I guess I was fortunate to be able to pass there the two or three times I did.

In the first session, I logged ten timed laps and managed a 1:13.8. On the speedway section, I was hitting the low 90s on the front and back straights, and high 70s in the turn. I ran four sessions with the other three being 24, 19, and 23 laps. By the end of the day, I managed to hit 100 on the back straight. I was only a mile or two an hour faster on the front straight and the turn but was braking a bit later. I bettered my time each session, getting a 1:12.5 in the last.

We ate our lunches in the room we held the drivers meeting. I chatted with Kenny and his friend (Josh?). Then they announced the parade laps so we headed back out. I had Josh ride for the parade laps and Kenny would get to ride the next session. The parade laps were led by the 458. Behind him was a black Porsche, and Josh and I were third. We never went more than 60, and I’m pretty sure I did every lap without hitting the brakes. Josh seemed to enjoy it, though, so it’s all good.

Kenny was a passenger for the third session. Not on purpose, we were first in line. I normally go to these thinking I’ll be the slowest car in my session. I don’t think this has ever been true, but in the first session I don’t think I passed anybody and only remember passing a few cars in the second session. So I was thinking I’d be getting passed before long.

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View from corner position in turn 9

We ran the out lap, then four timed laps in “clean air”. Then we started catching people. We passed Miatas, Porsches, and Mustangs. We passed the Pantera. It was great fun. Kenny noticed how much later I could brake than just about everybody we caught up to. Part of that, surely, is that many of the drivers had never driven on a race track before and had no real idea how late they could brake. We were only passed by the M5 and the BRZ (or was it the FR-S?).

The video is from my fourth session. It’s not my fastest lap, that happened two laps later. This lap was 1.1 seconds slower due to traffic, but at least you get to see something other than my boot lid. By this time, the faster cars had either left for the day or moved to the red session, leaving me the fastest car on the track.

It was a fun day. I enjoyed running on a new track. The facility was nice. But I’m not sure how often I’ll come back here. Of the four tracks I’ve driven on, this one is my least favorite.

“Rush”

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Saturday afternoon, after we returned from Estes Park, we headed down to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema to see Ron Howard’s new movie “Rush”.

Scan10027sThis particular screening was put on as a fund raiser for Auto-Archives. The original plan was that this screening would be the first showing after the premieres in London and LA. That didn’t work out, but so it goes. The event was sponsored by Ferrari of Denver and about a dozen other firms and was attended mostly by car club members. The theater seats 200 people and fully a quarter of those in attendance were Lotus Colorado members.

A side note here. I’m on the mailing list for Circuit of the Americas, the track in Austin, TX where F1 now holds events. I received an email about a week ago from COTA inviting me to a “Rush” premiere event which they are sponsoring at the Alamo Drafthouse. I had to look closely – this was for an event at the theater in Austin.

The evening started off with a little car show. Most of the close in parking was roped off for the car clubs. I didn’t count, but my impression was that we had more Lotus Elises than Ferraris of all models. We also had the usual assortment of Elans, Esprits, Evoras, and Caterhams. There were several models of Ferrari and a smattering of other notable cars including a Mercedes McLaren and an Excalibur. Also, in the lobby, a club member brought his Formula B Lotus 69 for display along with a bunch of other memorabilia from Auto-Archives.

We hadn’t been to the Alamo Drafthouse before. This is a chain of movie theaters that serve dinners during the movies. I was expecting a single screen facility for this but it turns out it’s a multiplex. We were in auditorium 7. For this event, we all got our choice of entree from a somewhat restricted menu and one alcoholic beverage each. We were told that this was the first time this auditorium had been sold out for a movie.

The theater is much like any other multiplex except that the rows are a bit farther apart and there are small tables attached to each pair of seats. Wait staff came through before the film started and took our orders. It took quite a while for everybody to get served; many of those around us got food before we did, but we all got served in the dark.

Rather than the usual pre-film viewing – ads and coming attractions – we were treated with a number of old car-related shorts. One was the trailer for Howard’s first movie, “Grand Theft Auto”. I’ve been saying for a while that I don’t think he’s made a bad movie. But I don’t remember seeing “Grand Theft Auto”, which looks pretty cheesy.

The food was nothing special. I had a spicy bleu cheese burger and Genae had the “Royale with Cheese”. Turns out it wasn’t so Royale and not so cheesy, either. She had asked for no mayo, no onions. She got that, but it also came with no tomato and no cheese. So it was a burger with a leaf of lettuce. Mine was better – it was constructed to specification. I always figure a burger is a risk-free item. It’s hard to serve a bad burger, but it’s also hard to serve a really good one. This was smack-dab in the middle: a mediocre burger.

Before the movie, the Alamo Drafthouse shows some rules. They’re pretty strict about talking during the film. But this was a special event, so it was announced that “this is our theater. Feel free to cheer for the good guy and boo the bad guy.” My neighbors took this to heart. They not only cheered and booed appropriately, they also talked through the entire movie. Very annoying. But I’m generally non-confrontational and didn’t tell them to STFU.

We enjoyed the movie nonetheless. I stand by my comment that Howard hasn’t made a bad movie yet. This was a fairly true retelling of the 1976 F1 season fight between Lauda and Hunt. Both actors did fine jobs with their portrayals. The action was very well done. We intend to see it again soon, in a theater with a bigger screen and better sound. (Not that the screen and sound at the Alamo were lacking, just that if we’re going to see it again so soon, we should get an “upgrade”.)

Another side note here. A number of times during the film, characters are watching TV or listening to the radio. At one point, we hear a report of the Big Thompson flood. Having just spent the day visiting Estes Park after another flood that destroyed the road through the Big Thompson canyon, it was a bit jarring.

If you’re an F1 fan, I think you’ll enjoy the movie.

Estes Park

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Today we drove to Estes Park for lunch. Yesterday I called a couple places up there and asked if they were open and if we’d be in the way if we went up there. “Please come.” So off we went. We drove Genae’s car, not knowing what sort of road damage we’d encounter.

We gassed up and reset the trip odometer and headed west on 88th. This turns into Colorado 72 and goes up Coal Creek Canyon. This road, though, is closed at least until November. We head six miles south to Golden Gate Canyon and up to Colorado 119 north of Blackhawk. Here the traffic started getting heavy. Not many RVs, but lots of side dump trucks running in both directions.

North of Nederland we started seeing evidence of rock slides almost everywhere the road makes a rocky cut. A crew was filling a dumptruck with fallen rocks where the road makes a long cut just before Allenspark. When we passed the turn for Wild Basin, I noted that we’d been driving for two and a quarter hours. In the morning, before traffic, I could probably get to the trailhead in two hours. So a hike here has as long a drive as about any west side hike.

The most dramatic flood damage we saw was at Camp St. Malo. There’s a huge pile of debris on the west side of the road. It looked like the road had been closed here at some point.

Flood debris at Camp St. Malo

Flood debris at Camp St. Malo

The road along here must have looked more like a river. Most of this section of road is narrow because it has no shoulders. The white line marking the lane really marks the edge of the asphalt. Water ran along the edge of the road, washing away big channels of earth.

Landslide on Twin Sisters

Landslide on Twin Sisters

It’s clear that an incredible amount of water fell here. There’s a large landslide on Twin Sisters. The bathtub ring in the debris at Camp St. Malo was about eight feet above the top of the rubble. And standing there, you can see a fresh scar on Meeker as well.

After Lily lake the road descends steeply. Here the water undermined the edge of the southbound lane, causing chunks of asphalt to break off, even in the stretch that was recently repaved.

I thought we’d see if we could go far enough down Fish Creek road to go by the house on Rams Horn but it was closed above Carriage Dr. In any event, it had taken over two and a half hours to get here, and we had to be back home by four at the latest so we didn’t have much time. The plan was to grab pizza over by the Safeway then see if I could get some cheese corn at the Carmel Crisp and finally grab some beer at the brewery. So we headed straight to the restaurant – Village Pizza.

I can’t recall ever seeing fewer cars in that parking lot. The place looked closed, but the sign said open so in we went. We were the only people there. Three or four other tables were seated within minutes of us. After enjoying our pizza we headed downtown. I was pleasantly surprised. You could hardly tell the place had been flooded. Plenty of available parking near the post office.

We popped into Carmel Crisp and got some white cheddar jalapeno popcorn. They’ve been there for 38 years and I’ve probably been buying cheese corn there that long. The place really hasn’t changed in my memory, except that they sometimes put another little snapshot on their wall. They have one showing damage from the Lawn Lake flood in ’82.

I asked how long they were out of commission. They said just a short while. They had to wait for their inspection sticker but had the place cleaned up in a couple of hours. They had very little water in their shop. Some time ago their neighbors remodeled and put a wall very close to their front door. Their door is angled, and this wall sort of impedes traffic flow. They went to court over it at great expense but lost. In the end, it diverted the water enough to save them some grief.

Next, pick up some beer. We head up West Riverside Drive, not seeing much damage. Different story at Fun City, though. A fair amount of debris there. After grabbing some Stinger wild honey wheat and Estes Park Gold, we continue up Riverside. I’m happy to see that things aren’t as bad as I’d feared. We didn’t driver through Manor RV but considered it. We did drive slowly to get a good look and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Up Marys Lake Road and back to 7. Traffic was pretty bad all day. We often saw strings of twenty and thirty cars in the other direction. On the way back was saw more sports cars, sometimes two or three together but nobody was even moving the speed limit. Side traffic often had long waits to cross or enter the highway.

It was more than 180 miles round trip, total elapsed time a tad over six hours but not much time spent in Estes. The roads were in good enough shape to take the Lotus but traffic sucked. But we did make it back in time. We had a date to see a movie, but that’s another post.

Colorado Good 5

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Sorry this post is a bit late, I’ve been otherwise occupied.

Saturday, September 21

LoCo’s three day fall drive included a night in Gunnison and a night in Crested Butte. The route looked interesting, but we just have too much to do to join them. Day one, though, featured Independence Pass. I haven’t been over it in the last thirty years or so and Genae has never been over it. So we figured we’d join the group for the drive to lunch in Carbondale.

We met at a gas station near Golden and headed west on I-70. The trip up I-70 to Frisco is pretty scenic as far as interstate highways go, but not exactly a “Lotus road”. We weren’t a big group yet, missing a couple of Denver folks and not yet met with the Springs group. Even so, I was second to last in the string and lost sight of the Henrys behind me. I last saw them before Georgetown and they didn’t catch up until we exited the interstate at the junction with Colorado 91. By now we had two additional cars, both orange Elises.

Fremont Pass isn’t much twistier than I-70. On the northwest side of the highway there are a couple of large tailing ponds where there once was a mountain. And near the summit you can see another mountain being erased. At its peak, the Climax mine was the largest molybdenum mine in the world, producing three-quarters of the world’s output. It was idled in 1995 but put back into production last year, yielding over twenty million pounds per year.

We made a quick stop in Leadville before continuing on to Twin Lakes to meet the Colorado Springs contingent. There we found a patrol car parked on the side of the road with a mannequin in the drivers seat. After a short break we headed up the pass.

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Rinker Peak (13,783′)

One of the objects of the drive is to see the turning of the aspen. We were a bit early, but still quite scenic.

Independence Pass tops out at 12,095′ above sea level. Twin Lakes, on the eastern end, is at 9,200′ and Aspen on the west is more like 8,000. It has a reputation for being hair-raising, and I’d say that would have been how I’d described it the first time I crossed it when I was maybe ten. At the foot of the pass, Genae said she’d compare it to Red Mountain Pass. My feeling, nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. I didn’t find it particularly thrilling. For Genae, Red Mountain is still the standard setter.

Summit Pano

I did enjoy the narrow parts on the western side. I’d forgotten all about those. There are three or four sections where the road isn’t wide enough for two way traffic. Cars on one side or the other have to wait for oncoming cars. I bet it’s loads of fun in a motor home.

We blasted through Aspen pretty much without stopping. Hit one red light, perhaps. The road snakes through town, right, left, right, left. At one turn, three or four kids had their phones out, getting us on video. Once through town, onto the superslab – not interstate, but damn close, down to Carbondale for lunch.

I didn’t plan the day very well. I considered making a side trip to Maroon Bells. It would mean going back to Aspen, which meant back over Independence to go home. Quite a long afternoon. Instead, we decided to come back to the area and spend a night or two, have a nice dinner in Aspen, take a short hike at Maroon Bells. Perhaps next spring.

So we headed up to Glenwood Springs and I-70 for the return to Denver. A lot more interstate driving than is ideal, but a pleasant day nonetheless. Glenwood Canyon is always interesting. It was recently repaired and all lanes are open both directions.

The Colorado Grand was finishing up in Vale. When we got there, we saw some transporters along the frontage road being loaded up with some of the cars. After Vail is the quick run up Vail Pass. I don’t remember what this one was like before the interstate went through. In any event, most cars make it up at 70 mph. Not exactly a Lotus road.

We stopped to fuel up in Silverthorne for the final blast back through the tunnel, and the run down to Denver. I’m curious what sort of fuel economy we were getting. It’s about 70 miles, which would normally be about two gallons. But the gauge still indicated nearly full. If I burned a gallon and a half, I’d be surprised. Which would mean something like 45 or 50 mpg. (And also means I probably only got 20 or 25 going the other way.)

I had the camera running from Twin Lakes to Aspen, but it’s bad. Within a few minutes of heading out, the lens fogged up. I’ve never had that happen before. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

The Passes

Fremont Pass (11,318′) CD

Named for 1856 Republican presidential nominee John Charles Fremont although he never crossed it. Two narrow gauge railroads were built over the pass in the 1880’s, the Denver and Rio Grande and the Denver and South Park. The most dramatic scenery here is the mine. Entire mountains have been erased, with one undergoing the process.

Independence Pass (12,095′) CD

The town of Independence was named for the ghost town of Independence, founded July 4, 1879. Before that, it was known as Hunters Pass. It’s the highest paved crossing of the Divide but it’s only open in summers.

Vail Pass (10.663′) CD

This pass had no particular use prior to US 6 being put there in the 1940’s. Appropriately, it’s named for Charles D. Vail, chief engineer of the Colorado Department of Highways. Now it’s I-70, pretty much just another stretch of interstate highway.

Eisenhower Tunnel (11,158′) CD

Okay, this is cheating. The tunnel is not a pass. When the project was started it was called the Straight Creek Tunnel. This is two bores, one named for Eisenhower and the other for Edwin C. Johnson, a governor and senator who advocated for the interstate to cross Colorado.

I had a plane ride seated next to the guy who built much of the tunnel’s duct work. He was about ninety and missing a couple of fingertips. Quite an interesting character.

Arrowhead Lake

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Sunday, September 8

Until now, whenever I fell short of a hiking goal the destination would get placed on next year’s list of hikes. After making a premature turn on my last hike I decided I didn’t really want to wait the better part of a year to make another stab at it. So off I headed to the south eastern corner of the Fall River Pass quadrangle, on the Mount Ida trail towards Gorge Lakes.

Again Trail Ridge Road was traffic-free and fun to drive. I stopped at Rock Cut for a quick look at my destination then headed to the trailhead. I’ve taken photos here several times and was never happy with the result. This time I got a fairly good shot, and include it here. The red line is more or less the route I took, visiting first ‘Amore Lake’, then Love Lake, and finally Arrowhead Lake.

My route, more or less

Poudre Lake was shrouded in mist and a small cadre of photographers was there snapping away. I put boots on the trail twenty minutes earlier than last time and before long passed the point of my errant turn. When the trail got near the edge overlooking what I’ll now refer to as ‘Misplaced Valley’, I wandered over for a closer look.

Not far from there I left the trail and cut across the next ridge to a point where I’d get my first real look on the gorge.

Seven lakes are visible in this photo

A more intrepid hiker than myself might descend here. I’m not a big fan of steep descents, so I continue along the ridge line. My next landmark is cleverly named Point 11819. That is, it’s an unnamed point at 11,819′ above sea level. From here, that’s about a 600′ descent. At this point I considered abandoning the ridgeline and descending straight to Love Lake. It’s not too steep for me, but I figured I didn’t want to miss visiting ‘Amore Lake’ so I continued with the original plan.

Before leaving my vantage point, however, I should have used the telephoto lens to scope out the terrain surrounding the lakes below. Perhaps I’d have seen something to aid in my progress later. I guess I was just too wowed by the scenery to do anything like planning ahead.

Continuing down the ridgeline, I came to a ramp that led to ‘Amore Lake’. This is a pretty little officially unnamed pond. I skirted around the west side of it and went up and over the slight ridge separating it from Love Lake. I quickly found myself in difficult terrain. Trees on a steep rocky slope. I made my way easily enough through these and right into a patch of willow. I started flashing back to my hike to Keplinger Lake. But no worries, I was soon through this patch and descending another ramp to Love Lake.

From here, it looks like Love Lake and Arrowhead Lake are only a few yards apart. It’s more like a couple tenths of a mile and a hundred and fifty feet or so of elevation. Here’s where a bit of forethought would have come in handy. I continued along the west side of the lake, then up and over the slight rise. In retrospect, I think it would have been better to go on the east side of the lake and descend through the trees there. Why? Because I found myself in another giant patch of willow.

Before long, I gave up. You might say I technically didn’t reach Arrowhead Lake because I didn’t get close enough to put my toes in it. I’m going to count it anyway. I perched myself on a rock with a nice view of the lake and the surrounding mountains, set up the camera, and enjoyed my lunch. While relaxing, I surveyed the area in search of a way out that didn’t take me through the willow again. I thought I spied a wildlife trail and when I packed up to go, I headed that way.

This route was an illusion. Short of heading straight up the ridge there was no easy way out. So I forged through this patch of willow without too many new scratches on my legs. A few minutes after muscling my way through I was back on the shores of Love Lake where I refilled my water bottle.

Here I heard voices. I hadn’t seen anybody since early morning when I passed a couple on their way up Mount Ida. I met them at about treeline, more than five hours earlier. Scanning the slope above the lake I saw the first hiker coming through the willow in about the same place I went. He was talking to a companion, suggesting a route. After several minutes I saw four hikers total. Only the fourth found the route I intended to take out, missing the willow entirely.

I chatted with these guys for a few minutes. It was about 1:30 now. They asked if I went along the ridge above us and when I confirmed, they mentioned they’d seen me. This must have been nearly two hours earlier, as I’d spent an hour at Arrowhead. They came via Forest Canyon Pass. If I ever return here, I’ll give that route a shot for reasons that will become clear soon enough. I asked if they were spending the night, but they said that wasn’t in their plans. I wonder how long it took them to return to their car.

Gathering Storm

As we separated, it began to rain. It didn’t look to last too long so I didn’t bother with the poncho yet. The next mile or so from here would be grueling, gaining about a thousand feet. I considered cutting across ‘Misplaced Valley’ and returning to the trail using the same route I explored three weeks ago. The idea was, I’d need to gain about 400′ less elevation. But when I saw where I was, I decided to stay on my route in. To cut across here, I’d have to go down a few hundred feet so there’d be no real savings.

Arrowhead Lake and Mount Julian

So I continued my climb. A few minutes later it started raining again. I had to often pause to take in the scenery. And to take in oxygen. I stopped and faced nearly due east. The wind was at my back, rain coming down at enough of an angle to keep my front dry. Judging by the clouds above me and the prevailing winds, I figured the rain would stop shortly. I continued my slog up the ridge.

Feathered friends

Subtly, the wind shifted. I was under the edge of the rain cloud, but it was now moving south to north. I’d be right under this edge for a while unless the wind shifted back. The rain turned to hail for a short while and I donned the poncho. Looking to the north, things were getting ugly. I saw lightning strike on the other side of Trail Ridge Road. In the grand scheme of things, this is not very far – three or four miles as the ptarmigan flies.

This was not a happy development. I reckoned I was still two and a half hours away from the trailhead, and nearly the entire way is above treeline. I intended to stay well below the top of the ridge in order to gain as little elevation as necessary. This now seemed like a doubly good idea considering the weather. I couldn’t really increase my pace as I was climbing steadily. And I had to cross the occasional pile of rocks, which were now slippery with rain.

I took fairly regular breathers. I’d pick a point ahead, tell myself not to pause again until I reached it, pause for a few seconds and repeat. During one of these many pauses, I heard elk bugling below me in ‘Misplaced Valley’. ‘Tis the season! I wasn’t seeing any lightning ahead of me, but my vision was somewhat limited by the hood of the poncho. Thunder did occasionally boom, reassuringly distant. During my pauses I’d scan the slopes north of TRR – that’s where all the excitement was.

On the way up the Mount Ida trail, both this time and three weeks ago, I was thinking I’d have preferred the trail to be closer to the top of the ridge. Now, though, I was somewhat chagrined that it wasn’t a bit lower. When I regained the trail, I still wasn’t seeing any lightning but the thunder was noticeably more numerous but thankfully still some distance away.

I now increased my pace. The rain was coming down fairly steadily, and my poncho had developed a tear. If I let go of it, the poncho would slip backwards and the tear would get bigger, so I had to keep a hand on it. The pleasant morning walk and the hour lazing in the sun at Arrowhead now seemed like distant memories. I was no longer having any fun.

By the time I reached treeline, the peals of thunder were almost continuous and the lightning strikes were around me in all directions. Thankfully, none appeared to be within a mile, but still too close for comfort. I was happy now to be in the trees. Again I heard the bugle of an elk, much closer now than when I was atop the ridge. Normally, elk are seen and not heard. Today it was the opposite.

When I finally reached the car, it was raining quite heavily. To add to the fun, I had just had the car detailed. It was as clean as it had ever been since I bought it. When getting off the trail, I’ve always been able to sit in the open car door and change from boots to driving shoes but not today – muddy boots in the nice clean car. Oh, well.

It rained nearly all the way to Lyons. Between the three hours or so of rain while hiking and another hour and a half on the drive it was a pretty good downpour. But that was only a hint of what was to come. As I write this, both Estes Park and Lyons are cut off from the world; roads covered by debris or washed away. Nearly a whole year’s rain has fallen in the last couple days. I’ve seen video of downtown Estes Park and the water is perhaps as high as it was when the Lawn Lake damn burst back in 1982.

Timetable

 UpDown
Trailhead (10,758′)07:40 AM04:50 PM
Milner Pass trail jct07:55 AM04:35 PM
Unknown trail jct08:25 AM04:10 PM
Overlook @ 12,440′10:25 AM 
Arrowhead Lake (11,120′)11:30 AM12:30 PM

Colorado State Patrol

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Saturday, August 24

After a string of hiking posts, we switch gears and head to the track.

Although I’ll call it a track, the Colorado State Patrol facility on South Table Mountain in Golden isn’t really a race track. It’s a training facility for the CSP. The track is really more like a road. It is slightly crowned and even as a center strip painted on it. Drivers should be careful not to go off here. Not only is the pavement often three or four inches above the surrounding ground, there are boulders hidden in the weeds. Hitting one of these will ruin your day as well as your car.

Because the track is only about fifteen miles from home, Genae kindly volunteered to take my slicks for me. She would drop them off in the morning and when I was done at the end of the day, I’d call her and have her pick them up. I keep telling myself I only have about one more track day on these tires.

I’d really rather use them up at HPR. I’ve run at HPR many times but this was only my second trip here. At HPR, if I go too hot into a turn and go off, I’m not worried about damaging the car. Here, there are those nasty boulders. The street tires give me plenty of notice when I’m about to lose traction whereas with the slicks you’re fine until you’re not. But if this is the only place I can have somebody bring the wheels and jack and tools, so be it.

I stopped to top off the fuel tank at the Shell station a few blocks from the track. Once on South Golden Road Genae caught up to me. I also found myself only a couple of cars behind an orange Elise. It was Eric from Colorado Springs. He passed the bus we were behind and went past our turn. I thought he missed the turn, but he was headed to a different gas station.

The access road to the track is dirt. It was in pretty bad shape last year. But today it was even worse. In spots, it featured a gully that meandered down the middle of it and from my seat looked somewhat like the Grand Canyon. Half way up the road I came across another Elise. He had decided this couldn’t be the correct way and was trying to turn around. Once alongside him, I reassured him we were going in the right direction.

Chris had recently bought his red Elise. It used to be Joe’s car. Joe, sadly, has ALS and had to sell the car. This was Chris’s first track event. Chris, Eric, and I all parked together. I mounted the slicks and had the car inspected. Then the drivers meeting was convened and I checked in to get my bracelet – I’m in the red group today.

At all the CECA events except HPR, drivers must also volunteer to work a corner. I was a bit late signing up and had only a few choices. I asked Eric if he wanted to work a corner with me and signed us up for the last session. The last session was open lapping, so Eric decided he would rather work corners in an earlier session and switched.

As Chris hadn’t been on the track before, I gave him a ride in the first session. Red group was first out. There weren’t very many cars in attendance. I didn’t get the official count, but there weren’t more than a dozen in the red group. Much to my surprise, I didn’t get passed in the first session. I used to go to these expecting to be the slowest car in my group but experience has told me I’m somewhere in the middle. Certainly, it must be that the faster cars got out ahead of me and we weren’t out long enough to lap me.

I was a bit tentative that first session. I had forgotten the finer points of getting around the track – my braking points, the quickest line. And it’s been a while since I ran on slicks. I was supposed to be showing Chris how to get around the track but I was missing the apexes by a mile, too early on the brakes except when I was way too late. But he seemed pretty happy when he got out of the car. The first session was 11 laps, best lap was 1:16.03. Four laps were slower than 1:20.

After the first session, Doug showed up in his silver Elise. He wasn’t there to participate; just to hang out. He didn’t even bring a helmet. I mentioned that I will soon need to replace my brake pads and he offered to show me how it’s done. I asked him how many beers it would cost. He doesn’t drink beer, so he said he’d do it if I’d give him a ride at the next track day. I suggested he borrow a helmet and I’d give him a ride right then.

So Doug was my passenger for session two. I was a bit more consistent. This was 14 laps, but included a trip through the paddock to get away from an inattentive driver. Being in the red group (experienced drivers who have been on this track before), I didn’t expect to find somebody not paying attention. I was catching a Mustang and we both caught a Sunbeam Tiger. He was probably six seconds a lap slower than us. We were behind him for two laps and he never waved us by. The rules today allowed passing only in two places, and only with a wave by. Frustrated, I got off the track and told the stewards that driver wasn’t paying attention.

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Photo courtesy Doug

My best time in session two was 1:16.21, with one other lap in the 1:16’s and only the laps behind the Tiger over 1:20. Again, I wasn’t passed. By now I had noticed that some of the usual fast cars weren’t in attendance. Alan was there, but in his Corvette (automatic transmission and street tires) instead of his Viper. There was a Viper there, but he was in the Green group. Also in the red group was a Dodge Magnum (a station wagon), an Audi, the aforementioned Sunbeam Tiger, an Alfa Romeo, a couple of Mustangs, and a couple of cars from the 60’s: a GT 350 and an AMX. Oh, and a big Chrysler 300. He was here last year and I recall him being the fastest car on the track. Not today.

I didn’t have a passenger for session three and managed to turn my best times. It was the longest session, good for 19 timed laps. I turned a 1:13.32, three more laps in the 1:13’s, eight in the 1:14’s, and nothing as slow as a 1:20, even when catching traffic. The highlight of the session was running nose to tail with a blue Mustang Boss 302. I may have been the last one on the track that session and waved him by right away as my tires weren’t warm yet.

I ran three or four laps behind him. He could pull away on the straights but I’d catch right back up in the turns. Although he wasn’t holding me up, he waved me by. Then we ran three or four laps with him following me. Eventually, I put him some distance behind me, but that was probably due to traffic more than any speed differential. He had more than double the horsepower of the Elise, but said he sometimes had a bit of trouble putting the power down if he tried to get on it too early when exiting a corner. He also told me he tried once or twice to brake as late as me. No can do. As expected, I was able to brake later than any other car in the red group.

The fourth session was open to all groups. As such, there was more traffic. There were also, finally, faster cars. Eric’s Elise is supercharged. He’s made a number of performance mods in addition – exhaust, aerodynamics, weight reduction. I waved him by in this session and had no chance of keeping with him. At one point, under braking going in to turn 1, he had flames coming out his tailpipes. He was running about 3 seconds a lap faster than me.

For this session, I had the AMX driver as a passenger. He was quite impressed with the car’s handling. Of course, the two cars are radically different. His muscle car (390 CID engine) is nearly 40 years older and twice as heavy. Next time we’re at the track together, he’ll give me a ride.

Session four was 14 timed laps. Fastest lap 1:15.04, fully half the laps in the 1:15’s and again nothing as slow as 1:20. I didn’t get any of session four on video. I spaced out after session two and failed to power down the camera. It ran out of battery half way through session three.

By the end of session four, it was apparent we were going to get some rain so the stewards called it a day. That meant I didn’t end up working a corner. I didn’t plan it that way, but I’ll take it. I called Genae to have her come fetch my wheels and tools. It seems I’m always playing the game “What Did I Forget?” Today was no exception. Early on I realized I forgot sunscreen, so I got a mild sunburn on my face. When I went to swap wheels I discovered I’d also managed to forget gloves. In the morning it wasn’t a big deal. I thought about the gloves when I was half way done with the swap. Gloves would have kept my hands clean.

Now, however, gloves were a bit more important. Brakes get quite hot at the track. Hot brakes tend to heat up the wheels. Proceeding with changing wheels now would result in burnt fingers. Luckily, Eric was still there and lent me his gloves. By now the rain started up, so he sat dry in his car while I got fairly wet. Just as I finished, so did the rain. Perfect timing!

By now I was nearly the last one there. I chatted with the stewards a bit waiting for Genae. There’s a gate at the entrance, which was now unmanned and closed. I’d have to go open it for her to get in. When she finally got there, only one other group was still there. They had four cars and a giant transporter. That’s quite an operation for running club days.

I had a fantastic time. I don’t have a breakdown of my lap times from last year, but selecting a random lap from last year’s video tells me I was a good five or six seconds a lap faster on the slicks than on street tires.

I still don’t have the slicks figured out. I took my pyrometer with me and got temps after each session. The hottest I got them was less than 140 degrees. That’s after a cool down lap, and I have no idea how much the tires cool off in that time. Subsequent research tells me these tires should run between 110 and 140 degrees, so I was at the high end and possibly over.

In any event, I wasn’t willing to push the envelope at this track. With a better understanding of the tires I’m sure I could have gotten another few seconds a lap. But I really didn’t want to go off here. Again, I had a lot of fun.

There are a couple of club dates coming up in September at HPR but I’ll probably skip these. I want to do the day at Pike’s Peak International Raceway in October and I’ll need to get new brake pads before then.