Mt. Sherman #2

So, last September 20th was a big day in our lives. We woke up bright and early at Copper Mountain, and drove to Leadville and the Mt. Sherman trail head. Our plan was to climb the 14, 036 ft. mountain and then head back to Denver. I, and Mother nature, had different ideas. My plan was to propose to Melissa at the top. Mother Nature's plan was less fun ... to not let us get to the top. Anyways, I still proposed and got a yes, just not at the top, and the rest is history. You can read all about it at this previous post from last year, if you have not already: Sherman Engagement.

This past weekend we drove away from the city and up to Keystone. The weekend was dedicated to our "Mini-Moon", as Melissa calls it. We are not actually taking a honeymoon till January, so we felt a weekend up in our beloved mountains was due and we might as well celebrate the recent nuptials at the same time.

Our weekend consisted of great food and drink at Modis, Blue River Bistro and Backcountry Brewery, hot tubing, biking around Lake Dillon (25 miles) and finishing our attempt at the summit of Mt Sherman.


Mt. Sherman Stats:
Difficulty: Class 2
Exposure: 2 of 6
Summit Elevation: 14,036 feet
Trailhead Elevation: 12,000 feet
Elevation Gain: 2,100'
Round-trip Length: 5.25 mi
- We got a sweet Garmin GPS unit from Gary as a wedding gift. We tracked both our bike and hike, but are still working out the download of info. Hope to have that up and working for our next hike/bike/ski blog! -


The weather all weekend was amazing with high 60s low 70s, blue skies and amazing fall colors with the Aspens in a full blaze of gold.


We finally made it to the top of Mt. Sherman (my second, Melissa's first) and had a very relaxing weekend. Can't wait to get back up to the mountains. Maybe for some skiing?

See photos from our bike and hike weekend HERE

What was Brewing this weekend?

This past weekend, we decided to go on a Brewery Biking Tour through the Denver area. We picked out a few locations and headed out on our bikes. Our first stop was to be the Hops of Cherry Creek Brewery. We biked along the Cherry Creek bike path for about 6.5 miles and found that the brewery was closed. Most likely due to the rising cost of hops around the world (read more about Hops prices here at the Boston Globe). So, instead we stopped by the Cherry Cricket, a popular sports bar in the area and had some food and a pint of some other local Colorado craft brews.

Next, we headed back north on the bike path to Pint's Pub. This is an English brewery that has 12 beers made on location. Two of them are "Live Ales" which are cask conditioned, served at cellar temp, hand pumped instead of CO2 and still have their live yeast cultures in them. I had the Dark Star Ale and Melissa had the Lancer IPA. Tasty!! They also serve some great Crisps. Pint's is also word-known for having the largest selection of Single Malt Whisky outside of Great Britain. Very cool Old English atmosphere. We will be back again to try some of their other brews.

For our third and final stop, we cruised over to the Great Divide Brewery, near Coors Field. Here we tried a few of their craft brews and also took a short tour of their facility. I had the Samurai and Melissa had the sampler and a very dark and heavy Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout. They have been in business for 14 years and distribute to almost every state and outside the U.S. as well.

Full of beer and food we peddled back to my place to finish our 15 mile Brewery Biking Tour. Melissa now has 30 breweries visited in Colorado and I have 28 out of about 95.

See my photos of the Brewery Biking Tour.

One a side note, we worked off the beer on Sunday morning with a 5k road running race in Arvada. I ran a 25:30 and got second place in my age group (20-30yrs). Melissa ran a good race finishing at around 30min.

And, I'd like to mention that I am sorely disapointed in the Patriots performance on Sunday. There is no excuse for losing to the worst team in the NFL, even if you don't have Brady. They better bring their defense into San Fransisco in two weeks because they forgot them in the locker room this past Sunday.