Thursday Adventure (and a revision update): Telluride, Colorado

I started July by taking a few days off work to concentrate on revising The Labyrinth of Flame, which was both wonderful and frustrating.  Why frustrating?  Because I saw just how productive I could be with entire day-long chunks of time.  I tell you, if I could take a month off work I'd have this revision finished, bam.  Alas, I must return to snatching scraps of time whenever I can, making progress in inches instead of bounds.  But I've passed 100K - always a big psychological milestone for me - and once I get the rest of the midsection of the book properly fixed up (darn those pesky logistical and inter-character details I skimmed over in the first draft!), the climax should require far less work. I hope.

After my 3-day book-writing vacation, we took a real vacation - our annual 4th of July trip to Telluride down in southwestern Colorado.  I could go on for hours about how much I love Telluride....but I figured since I haven't done a Thursday Adventure post in forever, I'll just show some of the pics from this year's trip, and let you see for yourself how gorgeous the San Juan Mountains are.

The town of Telluride, nestled in a box canyon deep in the San Juan Mountains.  The ski runs above town are some of the best and steepest mogul slopes in Colorado.

View from our condo.  The town's small enough you don't need a car - everyone bikes and walks everywhere.

My son indicates Telluride's airport, visible on the mesa in the distance.  We've never flown to Telluride (we just drive), but I hear it's a hell of a landing.  At 9,070 ft, it's North America's highest commercial airport.

My husband and I got married in Telluride, and we return at least once every year.  Visiting over the 4th of July is always great - the town has a fun little parade, followed by fireworks at night that are truly spectacular. (Nothing beats fireworks in a box canyon - the echoes roll on forever.)

My son and my husband, ready to watch the parade

The parade involves plenty of cowboys...

Yetis and climbers doing crazy things (yes, the guys dangling off the truck are in skydiving wing suits)...

And plenty of people being silly.

This year was extra fun because my son is finally old enough to do some actual hikes and bike rides instead of just toddling along beside the creek.  The weather was lovely, though in typical Colorado fashion, a thunderstorm rolled in every afternoon at 2pm.  You want to hike in Colorado, you've got to do it early.

Ready to hike!

The views are always amazing

I love me some spiky ridges

The San Juans are much wetter than the mountains near Denver, and as such, far greener and chock full of wildflowers

Lizard Head (the little rock formation poking up on the left) and the Wilson group of peaks, which includes several 14ers (El Diente and the less imaginatively named Wilson Peak and Mt. Wilson) 

The waterfalls are pretty awesome, too.

Checking out Cornet Creek Falls

Looking toward the head of the box canyon. 

The aspen are large and plentiful, which makes for beautiful fall color displays

The key to hiking with a 5 year old is to keep things silly

It was a great trip.  I read some excellent books during the 6+ hour drive back, including Mazarkis Williams's The Tower Broken, M.R. Carey's The Girl With All the Gifts, and Jim Butcher's Skin Game.  Just to cap it all off, when I got back to Boulder I discovered people saying very nice things about my books on Reddit's r/Fantasy  - talk about a good homecoming!

I'll do a post next week on July's new releases I'm excited about reading, but other than that, it's back to the revision cave for me.  Until next time...

Three Thursday Things

So I'd planned to continue showing off pics of the Austrian Alps this week, but something's come up - or down, rather.  Specifically, a whole lot of fat white fluffy snowflakes.  That's right, serious snow has come to the Colorado mountains at last (after a horribly dry early winter) and I intend to ski the hell out of it.  Which means instead of writing blog posts, I'm digging out powder straps and tuning skis and stretching and generally getting ready to have an awesome weekend.

But I don't want to abandon my faithful few blog readers completely, so I've got three quick things to share: first, a bit of internet news; second, a spoiler-free teaser for The Labyrinth of Flame; and third, a photo from one of my favorite mountain ranges in Colorado (can't do a Thursday post without some wilderness content, right?).

News

• The Tainted City got a great new review from King of the Nerds, woo hoo! "The Tainted City takes everything I love about The Whitefire Crossing, particularly in terms of characterization, and turns it up a notch creating a tense, emotional novel that with only some relatively minor pacing problems was an absolute joy to read. With her subtle worldbuilding and unique setting Courtney Schafer is definitely an author that deserves your attention, particularly if you enjoy character driven fantasy."
• Fellow fantasy author Mark Lawrence started quite the interesting conversation over on Reddit's r/Fantasy forum about piracy, publishing, and authorial riches (or lack thereof).  I would talk about my own views on piracy, but again...the mountains call.  Maybe sometime next week.  (Guess you can tell where my priorities lie!)

Labyrinth of Flame teaser

A while back everyone was passing around this "7 lines" meme, in which writers share 7 lines taken from either page 7 or page 77 of their manuscripts.  I finally caved and shared some lines on Facebook - although I did 8, not 7, because I'm too OCD to leave off the last line of the paragraph!  Anyway, I realized I'd never posted them here...so, here you go.  A spoiler-free 8 lines from page 7 of the first draft of The Labyrinth of Flame.  (First draft, remember.  Who knows, these lines may change entirely before the final.)

“Khalmet wasn’t so kind to a pair of footsore prospectors, this trip,” I said.  Kiran shifted.  I couldn’t see his eyes, hidden as they were by his hair, but irony was plain in the slant of his mouth.  Yeah, he must think that one hell of an understatement.  Likely he believed the god of luck’s skeletal bad hand was permanently fixed to his shoulder, dooming him to disaster.  Me, I wasn’t sure.  Some might think my very survival these last months a miracle signaling Khalmet had favored me with the touch of his good hand, not his bad one.  Then again, chances were good the gods just meant to save me for a fate horrific beyond all imagination.

Photo: on the trail to El Diente (14,159 ft), San Juan Mountains, Colorado

I love the San Juans of southwestern Colorado.  They're far more rugged than the ranges close to Denver, full of jagged peaks and crenellated ridges.  They're also far wetter, which means gorgeous displays of wildflowers in the summer and vivid aspen in the autumn.  It also means some truly epic thunderstorms.  This pic is from an attempt on El Diente in which we were turned back by thunder at 10am (this after we'd gotten up at 3am to drive to the trailhead from our campsite near Telluride, and started hiking at 5am...oh well!)  El Diente's one of the more challenging 14ers to climb, and I look forward to making a second attempt one day.

Waterfall beneath the bulk of El Diente.  The lower brown slopes might look like dirt, but they're actually fist-sized, horribly loose scree.  The route ascends to the left of the waterfall and then climbs through the cliffs to the ridge, which you then follow to the summit.  The climbing is reportedly stiff 3rd class, even 4th class in spots.  (4th class means foot and handholds are plentiful, but either the rock is dangerously loose or the exposure is so great that a fall would mean death.  Sounds fun, right?  Come on, just look at that peak...)

Thursday Adventure: Grizzly Peak, Colorado

It's funny how people get so excited over arbitrary numbers. Here in Colorado, every outdoor enthusiast is obsessed with the Fourteeners: the state's 54 peaks with summits over 14,000 ft in elevation.  Seriously, one of the most common questions asked in casual conversation (right after "Which are you, skier or snowboarder?") is "How many 14ers have you done?" Climb a 14er near Denver on a weekend, and you'll share the trail with hundreds of people.  Whereas if you instead climb one of the 700+ Colorado peaks with summits between 13,000 and 14,000 ft, you can enjoy near total solitude.  

So for this week's adventure, I'll share a few pics from a hike I did up a 13er only an hour's drive from Boulder: 13,427 ft. Grizzly Peak.  Grizzly sits right on the Continental Divide, not far from Loveland Pass.  There's no actual trail; you just drive up to the top of Loveland Pass, park, and start trekking along the ridge over several unnamed smaller peaks until you reach Grizzly's summit.  First you travel flowering tundra:

The alpine flowers are as beautiful as the views

As the ridge goes on, in the early season you have your choice of tromping on snow or scrambling over easy class 2 talus:

My husband Robert (left) and the rest of our group; Grizzly is the peak in the background

A patch of alpine forget-me-not (one of my favorite tundra flowers)

Me and Robert, enjoying the day

As you get higher, the ridge narrows and gets a bit more "sporty":

Ridge below Grizzly's summit

The summit itself is nice and broad and has wonderful views of the surrounding peaks (including 14ers Grays and Torreys).  

View from Grizzly Peak's summit

All in all, it's a lovely hike.  The only concern is exposure to thunderstorms, since the entire trek is above timberline.  Start early in the summer months!  Wind can be a factor, too - Loveland Pass is notorious for high winds, and it's no fun to have to crawl along a ridge to avoid being knocked flat.  We lucked out with a nearly calm day - always nice when above timberline.

Thursday Adventure: Longs Peak (Keyhole Route), Rocky Mtn Nat'l Park

The RMNP rangers want to make sure newbies know what they're in for

Today a co-worker and I took the day off work and climbed 14,259 ft. Longs Peak, the highest peak in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Longs's proximity to the Denver area (the trailhead is only an hour's drive from Boulder) and imposing domination of the front range skyline make it a magnet for local hikers.  There are many ways to ascend Longs (including a host of "big wall" alpine rock climbs up the famous Diamond east face), but the most popular (and easiest - if any route up Longs can be called "easy") is the "Keyhole Route."  16 miles round trip, 5100 ft elevation gain, and the entire upper section of the route is one long class 2/3 scramble over steep, airy ledges and granite slabs.  It's a beautiful, spectacular climb - and horrendously popular on summer weekends.  I'd done Longs via the Keyhole 6 times in the past, all on weekend days, and one time I estimated from the trail register that upwards of 800 people attempted the trail that day.  Basically, there's a solid line of people all the way from the trailhead up to the summit - not exactly a wilderness experience!

But my co-worker told me that Longs on a weekday is an entirely different, better experience - and I'm delighted to report he was right!  We only passed three other parties on our way up.  As is normal for a Longs Peak climb, we started on the trail before dawn (which meant a 4AM wake-up, ugh, but the trail is so long and arduous you've got to start early).  Headlamps are a must for the first, forested section as you hike up in the dark.  But we enjoyed a lovely sunrise after reaching timberline about 3 miles up the trail:

Sunrise on the Longs Peak trail

We even saw a hint of alpenglow on the Diamond - not nearly so much as usual, though, thanks to the all the haze from Wyoming wildfires that's currently clogging Colorado's air.

Alpenglow turns the great east face of Longs Peak pink

 At about 4 miles up the trail, a side trail splits off toward Chasm Lake.  I did a Thursday Adventure post on Chasm Lake a while back - it's a lovely lake tucked right beneath Longs's east face, and the surrounding scenery is absolutely stunning.

Me at the Chasm Lake trail junction (Longs Peak visible behind).  

 Instead of heading straight for Longs, the Keyhole trail veers north and circles around Mt. Lady Washington to reach a vast open bowl of talus called the Boulderfield.  The Keyhole for which the route is named is a distinctive notch in the ridge high above the Boulderfield.  Climbers must ascend steep talus to the Keyhole, then cross through to reach an improbable system of ledges that runs along the peak's west face.

Ascending toward the Boulderfield.  The little notch on the far right of the ridge in the picture is the Keyhole.

Ascending talus toward the Keyhole. (Climber visible at lefthand side of notch.)