Day 47...

The important thing is not to live but to live well. ~Socrates

Day 47 was a helluva day. Though I seem to recall saying the same thing about days 45, 44, 43, 42... not 46 though. That day was jacked.

Luke, Pete and I jumped on the bikes shortly after 6 this morning and rode in to the Mitchell Lake Trailhead west of Brainard. The Brainard Lake road was relatively clear with only a few major drifts to negotiate. There were quite a few people at the trailhead with a similar plan to our own but we seemed to be the only ones heading up toward Mitchell. After about 30 minutes made it to the Mitchell Lake trailheadh and hit the trail (which is currently not much of a trail, being that it is still covered with several feet of snow) and fairly quickly found ourselves at the base of Audubon on a glorious Spring day in the Rockies.

We started to "sneaker pack" up the main bowl and, after several minutes extolling the virtues of The Big Lebowski opted for the more secure and skier-preferred "boot pack" technique. Seems running shoes don't a) kick steps very well and b) aren't super stable in steep snowfields. Go figure. We selected a couple of nice couloirs to tackle and headed up the southern-most first as it was the most sun-exposed. After following Luke up his killer staircase (thanks for kicking steps all day, Luke!) for who knows how long, we made it to the top of the pitch, put on our gear and started the fun part of today's adventure. The top was still in the shade, so pretty scrappy but conditions quickly opened up to hero conditions and great turns.

We repeated the effort on the more northerly pitch and were treated to more of the same with a gorgeous "summit". There were some fox or coyote tracks at the top and the marmot and pika were out in full-force. We dropped back down and headed back out to the bikes for a quick cruise back to the cars in a total of just over 6 hours round trip.

A beautiful day with more of the same planned for tomorrow.

In keeping with my promise to share the movies I have been watching, here is my list for last night:

• Delicatessen: I have seen this one before and was a bit distracted last night preparing for today's adventure so I'll have to watch it in full later this weekend. This is a very dark film by the makers of Amelie.
• Jesus Camp: Scary as hell. Makes The Exorcist look like The Apple Dumpling Gang.

Thanks to Luke for the shots. Check out the full gallery. Hope you are having an awesome weekend.

See you out there.

~stubert