Oh yeah...

...since we checked in last, this little number has been added to the household. Amazing vehicle. 24mpg with a 290hp motor, bells and whistle up the wazoo, and Sharon is now a Jeep owner, grinning madly beneath a sunroof. WTF. We're trying to figure out how to get the thing in shape for rafting day trips. A trailer. Later, though, since a) there's not to raft these days (see below) and b)we're feeling a little cleaned out these days. But it's a good thing.

Diablo III

Click click click. Rinse, repeat. I'm not finding this nearly as much fun as D2. The artwork thus far is cartoonish, the voice acting is silly, if there's a plot it's a mystery to me what it is, and I'm just glumly stomping my way through it. I suppose my gaming tastes have changed, but Skyrim is a much better game.

Let's go boatin'

Or scrapin', as the case may be. I was a little skeptical when I heard the chatter on Mountain Buzz a few months back that this year's boating season would distressingly resemble 2002, but those fears have been more or less realized. At the end of the first week of June, the runoff is basically over. Even the high peaks are mostly cleaned of snow, the rest has been bare for two months, and little is running. The Upper C is running - honest - at about 275 cfs as we speak. That's grim. We managed to get a second day on the Roaring Fork yesterday, the flow was just shade under 1600 cfs (and dropping), and we had a good day. Perfect weather and clean, crisply cold water. The river was busy. It was our second day out - we went last week at about 2k, and got utterly drenched by heavy rain just past Cemetery - and I suspect it'll be in the 1000cfs range next weekend. We'll probably skip it, and kiss the Fork goodbye for the year. Meanwhile, the fires have started and we're staring down a long, dry, hot summer.

End of Season

Loveland is closing for the season today, a week ahead of schedule. Warm temps - especially a hot and windy March - killed this year's season. I quit after the week the first week of March...still got ten pretty decent days up there (was shooting for 13 or 14), but I feel vaguely ripped off. Anyway...the boots are good, already looking for a redemptive season next year, and it's time to blow up the boat and hit what will pass for a runoff.

GWAR

Metal was never my thing, although I have retained a vague sense of grudging respect for the genre and still believe that, if there is such a thing, the heart of rock 'n roll still beats most forthrightly in the beast, most of the mainstream having drifted off into preening pop stars and wincingly derivative singer-songwriter fakes.

We did a section cover on Gwar a few weeks ago, and our chat with Dave Brockie (aka, Oderus Urungus, founder and frontman) was fun, funny and illustrative of a now-foundational outfit that has outlasted countless poseurs in its near-thirty year stomp through the civilized world, not due to their kitchy costumed theater (which is hilarious), but because they have managed to balance satire with the Actual Goods, taking themselves none too seriously while taking the music itself VERY seriously. Hard as rock, breathtakingly tight and mercilessly propulsive.

My only regret is that we didn't see them while Cory Smoot (aka, Flattus Maximus) was still with them - the guitarist passed away unexpectedly in November from arterial disease, and the band was playing as a four piece. Brockie was somewhat elusive when I spoke to him as to whether or not they planned to enlist another guitarist after their tribute tour to Smoot was finished, although he did say they were already working up new material.

Either way, the Fox show was simply awesome, and I'll pay (which is saying something) if they come back.

Slope/moisture sadness

Topping off a fairly dry and relatively snow-poor winter season, the month of March went unexpectedly cruel on us, sending temperatures down here to over 80 degrees in the second week (it was still winter at that point) and utterly devastating an already anemic snowpack. At this point, SNOTEL has nothing nice to say about the prospects of runoff this spring:



We got shut out of the river lotteries this season - which was probably no big deal, since Sharon couldn't take time for a river trip between planned Cleveland visits and our still-on England trip in the early fall (see below) - but it gnawed at me that I had exactly zero river trips to focus my sights on for the runoff season, however lousy it was likely to be, so I nabbed a May 10 Sand Island launch. At the time, I figured it was way too early (still chafing from the bony scrape that was last year's trip, in an otherwise promising time window), but my current thinking is that this may just be the sweet spot for an early, if inauspicious, runoff from what's left of the Animas.

Sharon still can't go - I've been making noises about doing it myself, which both of us have some reservations about (she especially), but making a token effort to invite a few others. Will post again as the date approaches.

Remember me?

Pulling myself out of another temporal lapse of blog-aversion. Hello again. You gonna finish that last slice of pizza?