Golfing at Arrowhead

As far as courses go in the Denver area, the views don’t get much better than Arrowhead. Arrowhead Golf Club is open to the public, but one heck of a drive from Brighton. It’s all the way down near Roxborough State Park. In order to get on the course on a Saturday morning, we had to take the first tee-time available – 6:33am on Sept 20th. In the dark.

Using my dads GPS navigator in his new Honda Civic Hybrid, we made our way to the clubhouse. It was very windy outside and we layered up as we didn’t know what to expect. We went inside and got the information that the wind will blow until 10:30am which is about when we should be finishing up. (Go figure)

We walked over to the range, where you can’t even using your driver, and warmed up. We teed off in the dark on the first hole. On hole number 2 we finally had some sun and could see what we were doing, and by hole 3, we were actually starting to warm up and the wind was slightly calming down.

Every hole just seems to have some awesome view associated with it and the course was in great shape. There was plenty of wildlife to view on Arrowhead.

After golfing, we stopped at Waterton Canyon to do some fly-fishing. We hiked a couple of miles in and found a spot by a dam to fish. It worked out well as I hooked three fish and my dad got one within a minute of us arriving, but none the rest of the time. A storm was moving in so we made the march back to the car.

It was a great day and we were even back in time for dinner!

Mt. Sniktau

Date: 10/15/08
Lat/Lon: 39.67800°N 105.857°W
Elevation: 13,234 ft
Route: 4 miles, 1300ft vert
Team: Matt Esser, Zac Gutkenecht

Pre-climb: When we were in Steamboat, Zac wanted to do a climb, in fact, he was eager to do Longs Peak first, but he knew better and mentioned we should start on something a little easier first. I chose Mt. Sniktau because it was close, relatively easy, and had great views.

Climb: Zac showed up promptly at 5am, which was our agreed upon departure time from Denver. We made the nighttime drive up Loveland Pass and parked at the summit. As we were getting ready in the dark I realized that I had left my hat back at the house, and so Zac, willingly gave me his.

Soon we were off around 7:30am, and initially you start climbing from the car at a good clip, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I ate almost a whole package of Goldfish crackers on the way up to the trailhead and now I was feeling queasy. (We hadn’t been hiking more than 10 minutes)

Zac took the break as an opportunity to use his iPod, which worked for about half a song before it froze up on him. Awesome. We continued the hike up to the top of the first hill, and there was a very nice wind shelter which worked very well. In the pictures you can see the American Flag that is just whipping in the wind. It was now 8:45am.

We took our time getting up to make the traverse over to the false summit, which in the wind was quite a task. We made it over there and stopped for a little bit to have a snack.

That didn’t last long as Zac said he was falling asleep so we left and descended from there and made our way to the real summit by 10:00am. It had a pretty darn good view for the effort if you ask me!

Zac said he “felt like Death” and laid down on the summit. We didn’t stay long as we wanted to make it back down so we could go to lunch.

On the way down Zac mentioned to me he thought his eyeball was freezing over. I thought about that comment for a second before it actually registered with me. He was serious. The wind was blowing so hard and it was cold enough that the water in his eye was freezing. He wasn’t wearing any sunglasses and so it had no protection from the elements. We turned up the descent even faster and made it all the way back down to the car within an hour.

Back at the trailhead we found a couple who were from out of state, and started hiking without water, without food, without jackets or gloves and didn’t know how far it was or where they were, and Zac and I looked at them with some concern.

On the way back down I-70, we stopped at Burger King for some great food and talked about how we already need to get something on the calendar for spring. Zac committed the big no-no on a hiking trip and fell asleep while I had to drive back to our home. The nerve!

Drive: 2.5h
Ascent: 2.5h
On Summit: 30min
Descent: 1hr
Drive: 2h

Claire update

So, don’t yell at me… I know it’s been too long. Where do I start?

Claire is running everywhere: climbing, scaling, up and down, fast fast fast. She has the cutest little waddle/run but she is really efficient! She is amazing both Matt and I with her communication skills. Here is a list of words she says: Mom, Dada, cheese, dog, banana, shoes, keys, cookies, yes. Here is a list of words that she signs: more, milk, eat, drink, potty (toilet), airplane, car, ball, socks, help, please, baby, And Claire’s favorite things are animals so she either says/signs/or makes the sound of these animals: cat, cow, elephant, snake, bee, seal, spider, hamster, lion/tiger, lizard, horse, monkey, chicken, bird, bunny, fish, She also knows and can point to these body parts: head, hands, feet, toes, belly, belly button, hair, cheeks, chin, ears, eyes, mouth, tongue. Well, I know that I forgot lots of them, but at least that’s a start for the record.

Claire has just gotten 4 molars! And she is such a champ about it too. She’s already got a high pain tolerance, we know that.

At least 3-4 times a week we have been going to the park. She likes to swing and slide. She also likes taking all the wood chips out of the play box and making piles on the side walk. She is pretty independent, playing mostly by herself. When she does notice a kid her age/size she always signs baby and then the next thing she does is run up, get right in their face and touch their nose. Claire then looks at me and points to her own nose… it’s like- “hey- I found another nose!” Good job Claire. You are so smart. What Claire doesn’t care for is when the older kids try to lead her around and take her places, she pushes them away and doesn’t want to be carried of forced to do anything that’s not her idea!

We aren’t getting our hopes up, but Claire has shown interest in using the “big potty”. She has signed to us, run to the bathroom, and sit down to go twice now. This could be a good sign?!

She went for a 15 month visit at the doctor this week and she is now 31 1/2 inches long (about 70th percentile) and only 22 lb 3 oz (25-50th percentile). She did not even cry when they gave her a shot. And when the nurse asked us to describe her personality, and much as I could think of demanding, independent, strong-willed, loud, boisterous… I settled on “out-going”. That pretty much sums it up.

Enjoy the few pictures, we have been busy lately, but that’s a blessing because Matt has been working so much. God has given us so much to be thankful for and we truly are. Please keep my dad in your prayers as he is trying to recover from a stem-cell transplant after his lymphoma diagnosis. Fortunately we are set up to Skype (web cam converse) with him while he is in the hospital, so we are still in good contact with him.

Happy Halloween!
Love, Matt, Co and Claire

PS – I guess I should give a Sooner update. Today she ate about 10 pieces of chocolate (doh!) and so other than a sore tummy and some extra food to work off, she is doing her best to keep up with Claire. They actually play so well together.