First time in the US of A

After the trip to England and Sweden, I didn't have too much time to get used to Chch, since I was due to go to the States in mid September. I managed to squeeze in 4 weekends of skiing, but the spring weather was making me feel like a very crap telemark beginner again.

The reason why I went to Colorado was that I had an abstract accepted to an annual MWH Global conference. I was super happy that I could go, but pretty nervous about the 10 minute presentation that I had to deliver at the conference. The format was pretty regimented so I had to get my 7 slides (all had no more than 7) approved before I could present.

Before the conference started, I had a chance to spend 5 days discovering the areas around Denver. I was very lucky that Charlie's brother, Gavin, happen to be working in Denver for 6 weeks. He had left the family in Cornwall to learn about trauma accidents in Colorado. There are apparently many specialist orthopaedic surgeons to learn from over there.

Lucky me! I got a great travel companion during my days in Colorado.

The adventure started with cycling to the car rental company from Gavin's place (this is the first time I got to use my mountain bike dragged all the way from NZ). We had half an hour to see Denver early a Saturday morning and it was a pretty cool way of getting a quick overview of the city. I quickly formed the view that I wanted to escape to the mountains.

Denver is a mile high city and I had for some idea that it would be a hilly place, but I was terribly mistaken. Denver is developed on a large plateau and the place is therefore very flat. I thought it looked very surreal when I flew into the city.

The city is full of sky rise buildings and all the roads have 4 lanes in each direction and some drivers looked at us cyclist as aliens. It seems like a very BIG city, but I was surprised to read on Wikipedia (the TRUTH and nothing but the THRUTH) that it only holds a population of about 600,000.

It struck me how many homeless people were visible around Denver city. Hrm, sorry I can't say too much positive about Denver. I was pleased to leave in our flash looking (but totally gutless) rental car...don't ask me what type of car it was, Dad, it was brown :-) !

First stop was Estes Park at the bottom of the Northern Rocky Mountain National Park, or short called "The Rockies". We checked into a nice and simple mountain cabin in the YMCA camping ground. We skipped the Saturday church meetings that were on offer with the aim to make it up in the Rockies. As all the trails are up at about 3,000+ m, I knew it would be a it shock to my system since this was my first day in Colorado after landing from NZ.

Alberta Falls

There are plenty of walks around the national park and a very good system to access them all. Once you have paid a set weekly fee, you can catch a free bus that takes you from the various car parks to several trail heads where the adventures start.

The further we walked, the more we wanted to see and in the end we were out until the sun was just setting. Frankly, I was a bit worried that we would get caught out in the dark and I was pacing up to get back on time. It turned out that after all the traveling and time zone swapping I got my time wrong and we had more time to spare than I expected.

Gavin -happy to get away from the work at the hospital for a while

A curious little chip munk checking wondering where the nuts are

Thatchtop Mountain..a shame we never had time to climb it

Views from Sky Pond from 3,300 m elevation

Views from The Loach up towards Andrews Glacier

The combination of having a bit of a cold, a dash of jet lag and exposing myself to high altitude made me way more exhausted than I expected. The trail to Sky Pond takes hikers past three beautiful lakes, two impressive waterfalls, and passes through some of the best scenery that the eastern part of the park has to offer. This was easily one of the best and most rewarding hikes that I’ve been on this entire season.

Our plans to go hiking up a mountain on the Monday were shattered as the weather turned nasty. This was particularly early snow which made driving quite interesting. It took us a few hours to get down to Vail, where Gavin had a work appointment.
We had a coffee in the Nederland (Ned), a very hick town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunately we couldn't stay and take whatever drugs the locals were on. The snow was falling heavily and we had to get a wriggle on to make it to Vail.

Vail is a world famous ski resort, which was opened in 1962. The whole town is modelled on ski villages in central Europe. It all seems pretty fake, but I must say it has been done very well and you almost feel like you are in Austria.

The village has a free shuttle and a underground car park hides most of the cars. It was refreshing to a visit a township that wasn't centered around the MEGA car. Americans own very large cars. You may not see that from the picture above but pretty much all of them are gas guzzling 4 Wheel Drive vehicles. Without your car..you're a nobody.

Vail was supposed to give me a chance to go mountain biking for two days before my conference, but the snow kept on falling and I thought that it might become a lazy day in the hotel instead. I contacted a friend and adventure racing companion of Sara and Aaron's, Billy, who lived in Vail. He was happy to take me for a "little afternoon walk". We ended up hiking up a mountain directly above the village (Mt Bald I think it was called) that was higher than NZ's highest mountain! at 12,200 feet, the air was a bit thin but it wasn't too bad.

Billy, happy to take time off work to catch up on NZ gossip

Picture taken at the start of the walk when the snow was out of sight
The wind was picking up and the snow fall became heavier. I felt a bit under equipped with my running shoes and my long trousers that were frozen solid with ice below the knees. It was time to head back to the artificial but cosy Vail again.

One of many sculptures scattered around the pedestrian streets. I particularly liked this bear.

Almost more European than in Europe :-)

While Gavin was working, I had two days in Vail of which a spent a fair bit of time in the spa pool watching the snow flurry fall from the sky. It was too early for the ski field to open and too late to go mountain biking. I could hear that my bike was crying out for a ride just as load as I was.

Gavin and I eventually made it to Denver again. It took a bit longer than expected since we discovered that the petrol cap on the rental car wouldn't open when we were due for a refill. Trapped in a horrible artificial suburban town outside Copper Mountain ski village, we had to go to Wendy's and wait for help. A mechanic, a man of few words, came to help us and after lots of fiddling, he managed to open the cap. We were not allowed to close it again since it was faulty, so off we went to central Denver with an open petrol cap.

At this stage I had almost forgot why I came to Colorado in the first place. The conference finally started and I was reminded of this thing called work.

The so called Breckenridge Conference is an annual MWH knowledge sharing event. Once you get your abstract accepted, you're in. This year we were just over 50 people from Europe, America and Asia Pacific. It was an absolutely great event and I felt very enthusiastic after the 3 rather intense conference days. The conference was actually set in Broomfield, which is not the nicest area (flat with LOADS of new fake business, hotel and residential development). The name Breckenridge comes from when the event took place in the mountain town. People apparently got too affected by altitude and they wanted to cut carbon emissions from all the extra travelling (I think cost savings had a part to play too). Between all the 10 min presentations, we had time to socialise as well. I think I drank a whole lot of beer and misc other alcoholic beverages. From the moment we had breakfast to the late night we 'knowledge shared'. It was rather exhausting.

On the first day we had lunch at Red Rocks. The nasty weather had passed and I was really desperate for a bike ride. The terrain around the amphitheatre looked amazing. It would be a very stunning place to go to for good concert.

Everyone had to present at the event and in general we were all very nervous. All presentations were broad casted live to the rest of the company (6000 staff) and they were also added onto the web for viewing later.

My jaw was shaking before it was my turn but once I was up on the stage, it was fine. I really enjoyed it actually. No one fell asleep, so I take that as a good sign.

I got to know quite a few great guys from US, UK, Aussie (yes, there are good guys there too) and from other parts of the world. I found it a very stimulating event and I certainly learned a lot!

Directly after the last presentation on the last day, I got picked up by Shelley and Brett in their massive van (everything is big in America). We headed to Hall Ranch outside Boulder for some awesome mountain biking!! Finally. Shelley is a friend of a friend and I was so lucky to be able to hook up with her.

The ride was a bit short since it got dark about 7 pm, but wow, it was good!! We saw prairie dogs and deer during the ride. It was a pretty technical ride, all over granite rocks, but it was a lot more rideable than the volcanic soapy rock in the Port Hills and it wasn't as impossible as it first appeared.

Brett - proud of his bike collection and big van (I admit, I was jealous)

Shelley - a super keen biker

So I finally got a ride in with my NZ mtb. It was worth it (at least I am telling myself that...lots of carrying for 2 hrs of mtbiking). It made me realise I have to go back there again. Colorado is very pretty and a great play ground.

My time in the States was interesting. It was in some prespectives less different to NZ than I expected, but in others the opposite. I couldn't believe how much people dislike the idea of a providing healthcare for everyone. The current system over there seems like a mess that is only making money for the insurance companies. Some newspaper wrote to illustate what would happen if Obama gets his way: One day you will wake up and realise that you are in Sweden.

Horrific thought, isn't it?