Author: Anton Krupicka

This week was my mom's 65th birthday and retirement party, on the same day. Mom has been an educator for 34 years and Friday was finally her last day of school. I drove the 9 hours home to Niobrara, NE to celebrate with her and my Dad, and the entire way I fought a vicious northerly headwind that left my ears ringing and my brain…

"In a strange kind of way, lifeless landscapes have so much to say." --Porcelain Raft, Shapeless and Gone April on the Front Range had record snowfalls, so a trip south to the desert made sense. Joe had a planned rendezvous with his uncle in the Grand Canyon and my apartment sublease was up and I needed a long, hot run to get ready for Transvulcania next…

I knew it was a different morning on Longs when I left the parking lot with a bare head and bare hands. Usually I'm pretty chilly at the trailhead, but on this day the sweat was pouring off my eyebrows and nose on the very first steep cut up through the trees, and instead of dreading the breeze at treeline I welcomed it for its…

This morning was my 10th summit of Longs Peak so far this year, and the third this week. My previous two times up the mountain earlier in the week were both probably the toughest conditions I've experienced on the mountain. Temperatures weren't unreasonable, but on both Wednesday and Friday the mountain was completely socked in by unforecasted, heavily-snowing clouds, and whipping winds sent constant waves…

Getting up the hill this particular day wasn't going to be easy. When I awoke, the gently flaking sky seemed benign enough, but now, half-way up Green Mountain, my jacket is soaked through, I'm slogging through shin-deep powder and a raucous north wind is inducing periodic white-out conditions. Up here on the hill, the snow rate has officially crossed the line from "bucolic snow-globe scene"…

It almost always starts as little more than a twinge. You're shaking out the usual kinks in the first few minutes of an early morning run and you notice that one of those kinks takes longer to dissolve than all the others.  No matter, a couple hours later at the end of your outing, you've forgotten it even happened.  Except the next morning, maybe it…

The east face of Longs Peak presents a complex and intimidating visage.  This aspect of the peak, afterall, contains the 1700' shear wall known as the Diamond, the most important high-altitude big wall in the country from an alpine-climbing perspective.  However, lucky for unskilled climbing neophytes such as myself, there exists a relatively moderate line through this terrain that still offers some of the thrill…

I was fortunate enough to achieve many of my adventure running ambitions in 2012 (including three outings that were so good that I am determined to repeat them in 2013: the Ten Mile Range Traverse, the Glacier Gorge Traverse in Rocky Mt. Nat'l Park, and Gannet Peak IAD (in-a-day) in Wyoming), though I was just beginning to realize the potential for fun that exists when one…

The other day I was thinking about what it is that compels me to maintain Boulder, CO as my home base (i.e., my winter crash pad and touchstone of all things urban and civilized in the summer season). Aside from the fact that I have friends here and I enjoy the compact layout of the city, more and more my motivation has become the city's…

[caption id="attachment_474" align="alignnone" width="640"] Looking east from the summit of Gannet Peak.[/caption] A year ago, to the week, I climbed the Third Flatiron in Boulder, CO for the first time.  Legendary mountaineer and guidebook author Gerry Roach stridently proclaims its standard East Face route (5.2) "the finest easy rock climb in the world".  Back in June of 2011 I had broken my leg and last…